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shapeless
squaw was pouring mother love from her own heart to the bleeding one
of the girl.
Somehow that brought him comfort. He had a queer feeling that he had
been a party to some horrible outrage. Yet all that had taken place was
the whipping of an Indian girl. He tried to laugh away the weak
sympathy in his heart.
But the truth was that inside he was a wild river of woe for her.
CHAPTER IV
THE WOLFERS
When Tom Morse reached camp he found Bully West stamping about
in a heady rage. The fellow was a giant of a man, almost muscle-bound
in his huge solidity. His shoulders were rounded with the heavy pack of
knotted sinews they carried. His legs were bowed from much riding. It
was his boast that he could bend a silver dollar double in the palm of
his hand. Men had seen him twist the tail rod of a wagon into a knot.
Sober, he was a sulky, domineering brute with the instincts of a bully.
In liquor, the least difference of opinion became for him a cause of
quarrel.
Most men gave him a wide berth, and for the sake of peace accepted
sneers and insults that made the blood boil.
"Where you been all this time?" he growled.
"Ploughin' around over the plains."
"Didn't you hear me callin'?"
"D'you call? I've been quite a ways from camp. Bumped into Angus
McRae's buffalo-hunting outfit. He wants to see us to-morrow."

"What for?"
"Something about to-night's business. Seems he knows who did it.
Offers to settle for what we lost."
Bully West stopped in his stride, feet straddled, head thrust forward.
"What's that?"
"Like I say. We're to call on him to-morrow for a settlement, you 'n'
me."
"Did McRae bust our barrels?"
"He knows something about it. Didn't have time to talk long with him. I
hustled right back to tell you."
"He can come here if he wants to see me," West announced.
This called for no answer and Tom gave it none. He moved across to
the spot where the oxen were picketed and made sure the pins were still
fast. Presently he rolled his blanket round him and looked up into a sky
all stars. Usually he dropped asleep as soon as his head touched the seat
of the saddle he used as a pillow. But to-night he lay awake for hours.
He could not get out of his mind the girl he had met and taken to
punishment. A dozen pictures of her rose before him, all of them
mental snapshots snatched from his experience of the night. Now he
was struggling to hold her down, his knees clamped to her writhing,
muscular torso. Again he held her by the strong, velvet-smooth arms
while her eyes blazed fury and defiance at him. Or her stinging words
pelted him as she breasted the hill slopes with supple ease. Most vivid
of all were the ones at her father's camp, especially those when she was
under the torture of the whip.
No wonder she hated him for what he had done to her.
He shook himself into a more comfortable position and began to count
stars.... Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.... What was the use of
stressing the affair, anyhow? She was only a half-breed. In ten years

she would be fat, shapeless, dirty, and repellent. Her conversation
would be reduced to grunts. The glance he had had at her mother was
illuminating.
Where was he?... One hundred eleven, twelve, thirteen.... Women had
not obtruded much into his life. He had lived in the wind and the sun of
the outdoors, much of the time in the saddle. Lawless he was, but there
was a clean strain in his blood. He had always felt an indifferent
contempt for a squaw-man. An American declassed himself when he
went in for that sort of thing, even if he legalized the union by some
form of marriage. In spite of her magnificent physical inheritance of
health and vitality, in spite of the quick and passionate spirit that
informed her, she would be the product of her environment and
ancestry, held close to barbarism all her life. The man who mated with
her would be dragged down to her level.
Two hundred three, four, five.... How game she had been! She had
played it out like a thoroughbred, even to telling her father that he was
to use the horsewhip in punishing her. He had never before seen a
creature so splendid or so spirited. Squaw or no squaw, he took off his
hat to her.
The sun had climbed the hilltop when Morse wakened.
"Come an' get it!" Barney the cook was yelling at him.
Bully West had changed his mind about not going to the