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Bela slept in the main house with the Gagnon girls. Before the general turning in that night Big Jack and Black Shand each contrived to separate her from the others long enough to make a proposal similar to Joe's. In each case Bela returned the same answer. Next morning they were all early astir.
Many times I tell you not let a man see you want him. But you go ask him marry you before all the people! What you come to me for now?" Bela hung her head in silence. "You got white woman's sickness!" cried the old man with quaint scorn. "Tcha! Love!" "Well, I am 'mos' white," muttered Bela sullenly. "Why you not tell me 'bout this sickness? Then I look out."
"Any man can do pretty near what he wants if he has the will." "What is will?" "Oh determination." "You got plenty 'termination, I suppose." This with a teasing smile. Mahooley looked at her sharply. "Look here, what are you getting at?" he demanded. "Not'ing." "I'm no hand to bandy words. I'm plain spoken. I go direct to a thing." Bela shrugged. "You can't play with me, you know.
This phenomenon was unique in their experience, and being a simple folk they resented it. Bela refused to accept the common lot of women. It was not enough for her that such and such a thing had always been so in the tribe. Indeed, she had been known to talk back to the head man himself, and she had had the last word into the bargain.
"Of course the girl shall be asked, Béla," here interposed Irma néni, who had no intention of quarrelling with her wealthy son-in-law. "I'll see to it, and don't you lose your temper about it. Here! sit down again. Elsa, bring your father's chair round for supper. Béla, do sit down and have a bite. I declare you two might be married already, so much quarrelling do you manage to get through."
He say 'I not give it to Loseis, because her people get it. They only poor, shiftless people, just blow it in on foolishness. He say, 'I goin' keep it for the child. I say, 'All right. "Well, bam-by Beaton leave the company, go back home outside. He give me an order on the new trader. He say keep it till Bela grow up. I have it now.
Three hours later he drove in before the stopping-house, and, hitching his team to the tree, left them a little hay to while the time. The "resteraw" was empty. Other breakfast guests had come and gone. "Oh, Bela!" he cried. She stuck her head in the other door. Her expression was severely non-committal. "Bela, my stomach's as empty as a stocking on the floor! I feel like a drawn chicken.
Jack left him standing in front of the table, and Jack, Shand, and Joe took up positions by the door across the room from Bela. Feeling their importance in the scene, all looked a little self-righteous. Occasionally they relieved their feelings by spitting outside the door. Sam did not look greatly concerned; his conscience was clear.
There was no more fight left in him. He was conscious only of an immense desire for something he would not acknowledge to himself. When at last he did fall asleep it was only to dream of Bela. By the irony of fate he saw Bela as she might have been, wistful, honest, and tender; anything but the sullen, designing liar his anger had built up in the daytime.
People who did not know and no one really did and who saw her at mass on Sundays or walking arm-in-arm with Béla in the afternoons would say that she was perfectly happy.
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