“Maybe you and Peter Minot open a store across the river and trade with us,” he suggested with a casual air.

Ambrose was staggered by the possibilities it opened up.  He knew the idea was already in Peter’s mind.  What if he, Ambrose, should be chosen to carry it out?  He sparred for wind.

“I don’t know,” he said warily.  “There is much to be considered.  I will talk with your father.”

Tole nodded and pushed off.

CHAPTER IX.

Lovers.

Ambrose and Colina had had no opportunity the night before to arrange for another meeting.  Ambrose stuck close to his camp, feeling somehow that the next move should come from her.

It was not that he had been unduly alarmed by her father’s threat, though he had a young man’s healthy horror of being humiliated in the beloved one’s presence.

But the real reason that kept him inactive was an instinctive compunction against embroiling Colina with her father.  She had only known him, Ambrose, a day; she should have a chance to make sure of her own mind, he felt.

As to what he would do if Colina made no move, Ambrose could not make up his mind.  He considered a night expedition to the fort; he considered sending a message by Tole.  Either plan had serious disadvantages.  It was a hard nut to crack.

Then he heard hoofs on the prairie overhead.  His heart leaped up and his problems were forgotten.  He sprang to the bank.  Job heard the hoofs, too, and recognized the horse.  Job hopped into the empty dugout, and lay down in the bow out of sight, like a child in disgrace.

At the sight of her racing toward him a dizzying joy swept over Ambrose; but something was wrong.  She stopped short of him, and his heart seemed to stop, too.

She was pale; her eyes had a dark look.  An inward voice whispered to him that it was no more than to be expected; his happiness had been too swift, too bright to be real.

He went toward her.  “Colina!” he cried apprehensively.

“Don’t touch me!” she said sharply.

He stopped.  “What is the matter?” he faltered.

She made no move to dismount.  She did not look at him.  “I—­I have had a bad night,” she murmured.  “I came to throw myself on your generosity.”

“Generosity?” he echoed.

“To—­to ask you to forget what happened last night.  I was mad!”

Ambrose had become as pale as she.  He had nothing to say.

She stole a glance at his face.  At the sight of his blank, sick dismay she quickly turned her head.  A little color came back to her cheeks.

There was a silence.

At last he said huskily:  “What has happened to change you?”

“Nothing,” she murmured.  “I have come to my senses.”  His stony face and his silence terrified her.  “Aren’t you a little relieved?” she faltered.  “It must have been a kind of madness in you, too.”