Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/133

Rh the tired feet that had carried him thirty miles that day. "Him bad," he said. "S'pose vous know dat? Florestine no laike heem. I want her come wit me to de trapping by'm bye apres de Nouvelle Year. She mak' cry; mais she no come."

He looked straight at Tempest with the bright keen eyes of his kind.

"She goot girl," he said.

And Tempest, not forgetting that which had been in the shack, said, "I believe you."

Tommy Joseph twisted his cap rapidly, as though trying to engender some new force to aid him.

"S'pose vous let go?" he burst out at last. "She goot girl."

Tempest leant over the desk.

"You know better than to ask that, don't you?" he said, compassionately.

Tommy Joseph twirled his cap again.

"Mebbe si moi was in dat shack moi mak' keel dat bébé," he suggested.

"Maybe," agreed Tempest. "But you were not. She will have to go down to Fort Saskatchewan, Tommy. But I am glad you told me this. I will certainly put it in the report."

"I mak' weesh to been in dat shack, moi," said Tommy Joseph. Then, underbreath, "Mak' take, no can let go. Fonny, dat." He backed to the door with head bent. "Merci much," he said, and went out in silence.

Tempest drew out the report carefully. But this naked little tragedy could not hold him for long. Because he had been a lonely reserved man for so many years the thought and sense of Andree filled his world up now, and her with drawalswithdrawals [sic] and desperate shynesses fitted the delicacy of his dream too well. He never saw her as other men saw her, and he never spoke with her as other men spoke, so that Dick, busy with his own troubles, knew nothing of this thing until Slicker pulled the scales from his eyes one day at the English Mission School.

In the bale-room the deaconess was selling to a succession of Reserve Indians the mixed contents of the bales which came up yearly from the Eastward side, and Slicker