kiss alone, though that had something to do with the exhilaration that
flooded her. Formally his kiss had meant only a recognition of
the day. Actually it had held for both of them a more personal
significance, the swift outreach of youth to youth. But the dance was
an escape. She had learned at Winnipeg the waltz of the white race.
No other girl at Faraway knew the step. She chose to think that the
constable had asked her because this stressed the predominance of her
father's blood in her. It was a symbol to all present that the ways of
the Anglo-Saxon were her ways.

She had the light, straight figure, the sense of rhythm, the
instinctively instant response of the born waltzer. As she glided over
the floor in the arms of Beresford, the girl knew pure happiness. Not
till he was leading her back to the counter did she wake from the
spell the music and motion had woven over her.

A pair of cold eyes in a white, bloodless face watched her beneath
thin black brows. A shock ran through her, as though she had been
drenched with icy water. She shivered. There was a sinister menace in
that steady, level gaze. More than once she had felt it. Deep in her
heart she knew, from the world-old experience of her sex, that the man
desired her, that he was biding his time with the patience and the
ruthlessness of a panther. "Poker" Whaley had in him a power of
dangerous evil notable in a country where bad men were not scarce.

The officer whispered news to Jessie. "Bully West broke jail two weeks
ago. He killed a guard. We're here looking for him."

"He hasn't been here. At least I haven't heard it," she answered
hurriedly.