Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/245

 Hugh sat musing, stroking the bear skin on his knee and wondering what he might say to the  woman, who looked up at him with such unhappy  eyes.

“It might have been,” he said at last, “that if you and Kaniska had refused to do what Jake  wanted, he would have found some one who  would, some one who did not care so much and  who would never have helped us in the end, as  you have done. So perhaps the brown bear’s skin has saved us all.”

She seemed to go over his words laboriously, as though their meaning came very slowly. Then, when she had caught what he meant, she gave a quick little cry and turned away. The stoical Indians never weep; if Hugh had not  known that well, he would have sworn that there  was a glint of tears in her eyes.

So intently had he been listening, pondering and putting together the story from her fragments of information, that he had paid no heed  to the passage of time. He saw now, as he got up from his seat, that the flame in the smoky