Nesis, landing, could not face his look.  She flung up an arm over her eyes.  “Ah, don’t look so mad to me!” she faltered.

“God help us!” muttered Ambrose.  “What will we do now?”

She sank down in a heap at his feet.  “Don’t, don’t hate me or I die!"’ she wailed.

It was impossible for him to remain angry with the forlorn little creature.  He laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Get up,” he said with a sigh.  “I’m not blaming you.  The question is—­what are we going to do?”

She lifted her head.  “I go with you,” she whispered breathlessly.  “I help you in the rapids.  I bake bread for you.  I watch at night.”

He shook his head.  “You’ve got to go back,” he said sternly.

“No!  No!” she cried, wringing her hands.  “I can’ go back no more!  Las’ night when you go I fall down.  I think I goin’ die.  I sorry I not die.  I want jump in river; but the priest say that is a bad thing.

“I can’ go back to Watusk’s teepee no more.  If he touch me I got kill him!  That is bad, too!  I don’t know what to do!  I want be good so I see my fat’er bam-by!”

Ambrose groaned.

She thought he was relenting, and came and wound her arms about him.  “Tak’ me wit’ you,” she pleaded like a little child.  “I be good, Angleysman!”

Ambrose firmly detached the imploring arms.  “You mustn’t do that,” he said as to a child.  “We’ve got to think hard what to do.”

“Ah, you hate me!” she wailed.

“That’s nonsense!” he said sharply.  “I am your friend.  I will never forget what you did for me!”

He took an abrupt turn up and down the stones, trying to think what to do.  “Look here,” he said finally.  “I’ve got to hurt you.  I should have told you before, but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you.  I can’t love you the way you want.  I’m in love with another woman.”

She flung away from him, shoulder up as if he had raised a whip.  Her face turned ugly.

“You love white woman!” she hissed with extraordinary passion.  “Colina Gaviller!  I know!  I hate her!  She proud and wicked woman.  She hate my people!” Nesis’s eyes flamed up with a kind of bitter triumph.  Her voice rose shrilly.

“She hate you, too!  Always she is bad to you.  I know that, too.  What you want wit’ Colina Gaviller?  Are you a dog to lie down when she beat you?”

Ambrose’s eyes gleamed ominously.  “Stop it!” he cried.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  His look intimidated her.  The fury of jealousy subsided to a sullen muttering.  “I hate her!  She bad to the people.  She want starve the people.  She think her yellow horse better than an Indian!”

Ambrose, seeing her lip begin to tremble and her eyes fill, relented.  “Stop it,” he said mildly.  “No use for us to quarrel.”

She suddenly broke into a storm of weeping and cast herself down, hiding her face in her arms.  Ambrose could think of nothing better to do than let her weep herself out.  He sat down on a boulder.