back as she laughed gayly, displayed a throat rounded and full and
smooth, and tanned to the hue of her wind-beaten cheeks. Every move
of her graceful body was unrestrained and flowing, with a hint of
Indian freedom about it. Beaded and trimmed like a native princess,
her garments manifested an ornature that spoke of savagery, yet they
were neatly cut and held to the pattern of the whites.

"Constantine was drunk again last night, and I had to give him a
talking to when we came back. Oh, but I laid him out! He's
frightened to death of me when I'm angry."

She furrowed her brow in a scowl--the daintiest, most ridiculous
pucker of a brow that ever man saw--and drew her red lips into an
angry pout as she recounted her temperance talk till the trader
broke in, his voice very soft, his gray-blue eyes as tender as those
of a woman:

"It's good to have you home again, Necia. The old sun don't shine as
bright when you're away, and when it rains it seems like the moss
and the grass and the little trees was crying for you. I reckon
everything weeps when you're gone, girl, everything except your old
dad, and sometimes he feels like he'd have to bust out and join the
rest of them."

He seated himself upon the worn spruce-log steps, and the girl
settled beside him and snuggled against his knee.

"I missed you dreadfully, daddy," she said. "It seemed as if those
days at the Mission would never end. Father Barnum and the others
were very kind, and I studied hard, but there wasn't any fun in