“Not quite.  I have another reason too,” he replied.

“Yes, I know.  You don’t like West.  Nobody does.  My father doesn’t—­or Fergus—­or Mr. Whaley—­but they’re not taking the long trail after him as you are.  You can’t get out of it that way.”

She had not, of course, hit on the real reason for going that supplemented his friendship for the constable and he did not intend that she should.

“It doesn’t matter much why I’m going.  Anyhow, it’ll be good for me.  I’m gettin’ soft and fat.  After I’ve been out in the deep snows a month or so, I’ll have taken up my belt a notch or two.  It’s time I wrestled with a blizzard an’ tried livin’ on lean rabbit.[7]”

[Footnote 7:  Rabbit is about the poorest meat in the North.  It is lean and stringy, furnishes very little nourishment and not much fat, and is not a muscle-builder.  In a country where, oil and grease are essentials, such food is not desirable.  The Indians ate great quantities of them. (W.M.R.)]

Her gaze swept his lean, hard, compact body.  “Yes, you look soft,” she mocked.  “Father said something of that sort when he looked at that door there you came through.”

Tom had been watching her stitching.  He offered a comment now, perhaps, to change the subject.  It is embarrassing for a modest man to talk about himself.

“You’re workin’ that ‘W’ upside down,” he said.

“Am I?  Who said, it was a ’W’?”

“I guessed it might be.”

“You’re a bad guesser.  It’s an ‘M.’  ‘M’ stands for McRae, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and ‘W’ for Winthrop,” he said with a little flare of boldness.

A touch of soft color flagged her cheeks.  “And ‘I’ for impudence,” she retorted with a smile that robbed the words of offense.

He was careful not to risk outstaying his welcome.  After an hour he rose to go.  His good-bye to Matapi-Koma and Onistah was made in the large living-room.

Jessie followed him to the outside door.

He gave her a word of comfort as he buttoned his coat, “Don’t you worry about Win.  I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you.  And he’ll keep one on you, I suppose.”

He laughed.  That reversal of the case was a new idea to him.  The prettiest girl in the North was not holding her breath till he returned safely.  “I reckon,” he said.  “We’ll team together fine.”

“Don’t be foolhardy, either of you,” she cautioned.

“No,” he promised, and held out his hand.  “Good-bye, if I don’t see you in the mornin’.”

He did not know she was screwing up her courage and had been for half an hour to do something she had never done before.  She plunged at it, a tide of warm blood beating into her face beneath the tan.

“‘M’ is for Morse too, and ‘T’ for Tom,” she said.

With the same motion she thrust the gun-case into his hand and him out of the door.

He stood outside, facing a closed door, the bit of fancy-work in his mittens.  An exultant electric tingle raced through his veins.  She had given him a token of friendship he would cherish all his life.