"I've got to see if he'll take you first," she answered.

"He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I've heard. He'd never git to
Bindon."

She did not reply directly to his words. "I'll come back and tell you.
There's a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find
you," she said, and left the room.

As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the
other room. His face was petrified with amazement.

"Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I
heard a man's voice. Is it because o' him that you bin talkin' about no
weddin' to-morrow? Is it one o' the others come back, puttin' you off
Jake again?"

Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with
anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a
chair.

"You eat, and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom," she said, and,
seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who
must go to Bindon.

When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without
speaking, then he said slowly: "I heard something 'bout trouble down at
Bindon yisterday from a Hudson's Bay man goin' North, but I didn't take
it in. You've got a lot o' sense, Jinny, an' if you think he's tellin'
the truth, why, it goes; but it's as big a mixup as a lariat in a steer's