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For the wily quarter-breed, knowing that MacNair would instantly suspect the source of the whiskey, had, upon his arrival, removed the remaining casks from the storehouse, and conveyed them with all haste to his stronghold on Lac du Mort.
As she stood with her hand on the back of her chair, Lapierre for the first time glanced into her face. The quarter-breed was a man trained as few men are trained to meet emergencies, to face crises with an impassiveness of countenance that would shame the Sphinx. He had lost thousands across the green cloth of gambling-tables without batting an eye.
For three days the blizzard raged days in which Lapierre contrived to spend much time in Chloe's company, and during which the girl set about deliberately to study the quarter-breed, in the hope of placing definitely the defect in his make-up, the tangible reason for the growing sense of distrust with which she was coming to regard him.
She was pretty, with eyes like a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich tint of a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion which gave her steady color.
A globular, quarter-breed Russian trader, with eyes so crossed that he could distinguish nothing at a yard's distance, took them in and administered to their most crying needs, then dispatched an outfit for the guide's body. The initial stage of the journey, Emerson realized with thanksgiving, was over. As soon as he was able to talk he inquired straightway concerning the mail-boat.
"As many as you wish," he said, and together they walked to the girl's cabin whose quaint, rustic veranda overlooked the river. The veranda was an addition of Lapierre's, and the cabin had five rooms, instead of three. The quarter-breed waited, whistling softly a light French air, while Chloe wrote her letters.
Her mother had died when she was very small, and Sister Alberta had plucked El-Soo as a brand from the burning, one summer day, and carried her away to Holy Cross Mission and dedicated her to God. El-Soo was a full-blooded Indian, yet she exceeded all the half-breed and quarter-breed girls. Never had the good sisters dealt with a girl so adaptable and at the same time so spirited.
Each evening Lapierre repaired to the cottage, and LeFroy at his post in the storehouse nodded sagely to himself as the notes of the girl's rich contralto floated loud and clear above the twang of the accompanying guitar. Always the quarter-breed spoke eagerly to Chloe of the proposed trip to Snare Lake, and bitterly he regretted the enforced delay incident to outfitting the trappers.
You see, I have read of your Mounted Police." "The Mounted!" Lapierre laughed. "Yes I see you have read of them! Had you derived your information in a more direct manner had you lived among them if you knew them your childlike trust in them would seem as absurd, perhaps, as it does to me!" "What do you mean?" cried the girl, regarding the quarter-breed with a searching glance.
Removing his cap and mittens, the quarter-breed loosened his heavy moose-hide parka, beat the clinging snow from the coarse hair, and drew a chair to the stove. "Come through from the Landing on the river?" asked Ripley, as he filled a short black pipe with the tobacco he shaved from a plug. "How's the trail?"
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