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He was close to Tara, and he heard the low, steady thunder that came out of the grizzly's chest. His enemies were near on this side. Their fire came from the rocks not more than a hundred yards away, and all at once, in the heat of the great passion that possessed him now, he became suddenly aware that they knew the only weapon he possessed was Nisikoos' little rifle and Hauck's revolver.
"I have been thinking that it was Nisikoos who sent to her that picture you wanted to destroy," he said once. "Nisikoos must have known." "Then why didn't she tell me?" she flashed. "Because, it may be that she didn't want to lose you and that she didn't send the picture until she knew that she was not going to live very long."
She shuddered. "Nisikoos and I overheard them one night. Hauck was selling a girl for a little sack of gold like that. Nisikoos held me more tightly than ever, that night. I don't know why. She was terribly afraid of that man Hauck. Why did she live with him if she was afraid of him? Do you know? I wouldn't. I'd run away." He shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't tell you, my child."
She didn't know why, but he was. And she was afraid of them all, and hated them all. She had been quite happy when Nisikoos was alive. Nisikoos had taught her to read out of books, had taught her things ever since she could remember. She could write almost as well as Nisikoos. She said this a bit proudly. But since her aunt had gone, things were terribly changed. Especially the men.
"In there the white men who come down from the north, drink, and gamble, and quarrel. They are always quarrelling. This room is ours Nisikoos' and mine." She touched with her hand a door near which they were standing. Then she pointed to another. There were half a dozen doors up and down the hall. "And that is Hauck's." He threw off his pack, placed it on the floor, with his rifle across it.
He went to bed, after placing the table against the door, and his automatic under his pillow absurd and unnecessary details of caution, he assured himself. And while Marge O'Doone sat awake close to the door of her room all night, with a little rifle that had belonged to Nisikoos across her lap, David slept soundly in the amazing confidence and philosophy of that perilous age thirty-eight!
At least she thought they were miners, for that is what Hauck used to tell Nisikoos, her aunt. They came after whisky. Always whisky. And the Indians came for liquor, too. It was the chief article that Hauck, her uncle, traded in. He brought it from the coast, in the winter time many sledge loads of it; and some of those "miners" who came down from the north carried away much of it.
His heart rose chokingly in his throat. Her face was close to his, and she whispered: "Last night I kissed you, Sakewawin. I thought you were dying. Before you, I have kissed Nisikoos. Never any one else." Why did she say that, with that wonderful glow in her eyes? Couldn't be that she saw death climbing up the mountain? Was it because she wanted him to know before that? A child!
Sakewawin," she added, as if his voice had revealed to her the thought in his mind; "I know of a mountain that is all rock not so far off as the one Tara and I climbed and if we can reach that they will not be able to trail us. If they should find us...." She was opening the window. "What then?" he asked. "Nisikoos once killed a bear with that gun," she replied.
From over the edge of the coulée came a fusillade of shots from the heavy-calibre weapons of the mountain men that sent out sparks of fire from the rock. As he thrust the remaining five cartridges into the chamber of Nisikoos' rifle, David looked about the cabin. In one of the farther corners the huge grizzly sat on his quarters as motionless as if stuffed.
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