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"Well, now that you have seen Fort Enterprise," said Gaviller dryly, "you may go on or go back. I do not care so long as you do not linger." Ambrose frowned. "If you were a younger man " he began. "You need not consider my age," said Gaviller. Ambrose measured his man. He had to confess he had good pluck. The idea of a set-to with Colina's father was unthinkable.
"Well," he said, now with a gesture of surrender, "if you're determined to stay here, all right but you must live differently." At the word "must" an ominous gleam shot from under Colina's lashes. "What's the matter with my way of living?" she asked with deceitful mildness. "This tearing around the country on horseback," he said.
"She was in love with you!" Colina's voice rang bitterly. "Are you beginning to doubt me already?" he cried, aghast. "Be reasonable! You know how it is with these native girls. The sight of a white man hypnotizes them. You can't have lived here without seeing it. Do you blame me for that?" She paid no attention to the question. Struggling to command herself, she said: "Answer me one question.
"Maybe," he said, eying her with the resentment which is so closely akin to love; "but I think you understand my madness. Talking gets us nowhere. A dozen times to-day your eyes answered mine. Either you feel it too or you are a coquette!" This brought a genuine anger to Colina's aid. Her weakness fled. "How dare you!" she cried with blazing eyes. "Coquette!" he repeated doggedly.
"But he's got to commit himself." In due course Strange returned. He offered Ambrose a note, still with his deprecating air. It was in Colina's writing. Ambrose read: "John Gaviller begs to inform Mr. Ambrose Doane that the only proposal he is willing to discuss will be the sale to him of all the grain in Mr. Doane's possession at one dollar and a half per bushel.
Though he was on fire with jealousy, he would not go after Greer, nor let the others go. He could scarcely have explained why perhaps because he dimly apprehended that it was Colina's game to drive him mad with jealousy. "Let him go," he said thickly. "I will run the mill myself!"
At Colina's appearance an odd murmur rippled over the crowd. Her beauty astonished them. She walked down the aisle of the court-room, pale, erect, and self-controlled. Captain Stinson and Cora followed her. The crowd observed her movements with breathless attention. All three were admitted within the rail. John Gaviller sat near the gate. He looked somewhat dazed.
The sudden appearance of Colina's white face affected them something in the way of a miracle. Every man dropped what he was about and stared with hanging jaw. Others came running out of the teepees and stopped dead at the door. For a moment or two there was no movement whatever in the square. But they knew Gaviller's daughter by repute, of course, and the word was passed around that it was she.
Just peaceful. I don't care what happens now." It was Colina's turn to lavish her pent-up tenderness upon him then. After a while she disengaged herself from his arms. "They will wonder what makes me stay so long," she murmured. "And my eyes are red. Emslie will see when I go out." Ambrose poured out water in his basin. "Dabble your eyes in this," he said.
The dog sprang to him as if they had been parted for years, and frantically licked his hand. This display of boundless affection was suspiciously self-conscious. The young man led him to Colina's feet. "Mind your manners!" he commanded. Job in utter abasement offered her a limp paw.
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