"Um?" With one wicked eye cocked up, she moued at me. And that struck me cold, for she had never flirted. "I used to like being kissed," and she turned the other cheek.
"You little liar," said I, disgusted, "you never once let me kiss you, made me swear I'd go to hell if I touched you. Why, half the time you wouldn't let me into your lodge, so I had to freeze outside. And when it was warm, you slept outside yourself. And when I said I'd let you be my woman, you went and married Tail-Feathers."
"Still," she crooned, "I liked your attempts at kisses, and cuddles, yes, and little wee, tender scratches round my neck."
The seductive little rogue! And yet how could a buck policeman in barracks run his own squaw on fifty cents a day—and keep our wolf pack out of her teepee—and not be caught by the authorities? Think of the chaff, Sarde spying, the fury of the officer commanding, the disgrace to the service!
Besides, there was something wrong, something artificial, unreal, unworthy about Rain to-night. It was not to a cheap flirt I had given the worship due to my mother, and to the Queen of Heaven.
"Go back to your man," I said sternly, "it's his job to scratch your neck."
"I come," she purred, "to be your woman."
"I'll see you damned first!" I rose to go.
Then Rain stood up erect, all pride and joy, holding a baby at her breast, for all the world like the great sacred pictures of Our Lady.
"See," she whispered. "My own man, Tail-Feathers, has a baby son. I nurse this ever-so-small Two Bears. I love him, oh, so dearly. Isn't he beautiful!"