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Northern Lights, Volume 1. by Gilbert Parker
page 29 of 82 (35%)
The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of
himself.

"Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else," she said
quizzically. "There's always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe
Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I'm not
going West with Bantry, but there's three other points that's open."

With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to
face him. He was swelling with anger. "You--Nick Pringle, that trading
cheat, that gambler! After four years, I--"

"Let go my shoulders," she said quietly. "I'm not your property. Go and
get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I'm not a bronco
for you to bit and bridle. You've got no rights. You--" Suddenly she
relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all, it
was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years and rouse
him to such fury--"but yes, Abe," she added, "you have some rights.
We've been good friends all these years, and you've been all right out
here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I liked it, even
if it was as if you learned it out of a book. I've got no po'try in me;
I'm plain homespun. I'm a sapling, I'm not any prairie-flower, but I
like when I like, and I like a lot when I like. I'm a bit of hickory,
I'm not a prairie-flower--"

"Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who's talking about prairie-
flowers--"

He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him,
and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was
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