"But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many
anniversaries." Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for
him.

"Well, now, p'r'aps you're right, and so the only thing to do is not to
keep coming, but to stay--stay right where you are."

The Indian woman could not see her daughter's face, which was turned to
the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head
approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness.
Pauline and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to each
other by circumstances they could not control, would each work out her
own destiny after her own nature, since John Alloway had come a-wooing.
She would go back on the Warais, and Pauline would remain at the Portage,
a white woman with her white man. She would go back to the smoky fires
in the huddled lodges; to the venison stew and the snake dance; to the
feasts of the Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the summer days, and
the winter's tales, and be at rest among her own people; and Pauline
would have revenge of the wife of the prancing Reeve, and perhaps the
people would forget who her mother was.

With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved
heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway,
as though to say, a man that is bold is surest.

With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room, saw
the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and
looked Alloway in the eyes.