She rose now, tail, white-clad, shimmering, a vision of beauty such as that part of the world certainly could not then offer.  Her hair was loosened now in its masses and drooped more widely over her temples, above her brow.  Her eyes were very large and dark, and I saw the faint blue shadows coming again beneath them.  Her hands were clasped, her chin raised just a trifle, and her gaze was rapt as that of some longing soul.  I could not guess of these things, being but a man, and, I fear, clumsy alike of body and wit.

[Illustration:  “I want—­” said she.  “I wish—­I wish—­” Page 287]

“There is one thing, Madam, which we have omitted,” said I at last.  “What are my stakes?  How may I pay?”

She swayed a little on her feet, as though she were weak.  “I want,” said she, “I wish—­I wish—­”

The old childlike look of pathos came again.  I have never seen so sad a face.  She was a lady, white and delicately clad; I, a rude frontiersman in camp-grimed leather.  But I stepped to her now and took her in my arms and held her close, and pushed back the damp waves of her hair.  And because a man’s tears were in my eyes, I have no doubt of absolution when I say I had been a cad and a coward had I not kissed her own tears away.  I no longer made pretense of ignorance, but ah! how I wished that I were ignorant of what it was not my right to know....

I led her to the edge of the little bed of husks and found her kerchief.  Ah, she was of breeding and courage!  Presently, her voice rose steady and clear as ever.  “Threlka!” she called.  “Please!”

When Threlka came, she looked closely at her lady’s face, and what she read seemed, after all, to content her.

“Threlka,” said my lady in French, “I want the little one.”

I turned to her with query in my eyes.

“Tiens!” she said.  “Wait.  I have a little surprise.”

“You have nothing at any time save surprises, Madam.”

“Two things I have,” said she, sighing:  “a little dog from China, Chow by name.  He sleeps now, and I must not disturb him, else I would show you how lovely a dog is Chow.  Also here I have found a little Indian child running about the post.  Doctor McLaughlin was rejoiced when I adopted her.”

“Well, then, Madam, what next!”

—­“Yes, with the promise to him that I would care for that little child.  I want something for my own.  See now.  Come, Natoka!”

The old servant paused at the door.  There slid across the floor with the silent feet of the savage the tiny figure of a little child, perhaps four years of age, with coal-black hair and beady eyes, clad in all the bequilled finery that a trading-post could furnish—­a little orphan child, as I learned later, whose parents had both been lost in a canoe accident at the Dalles.  She was an infant, wild, untrained, unloved, unable to speak a word of the language that she heard.  She stood now hesitating,