"Oh, you'll be all right," he said, still swinging her to the music.

She stopped. "No, I've had enough." Jessie had caught sight of her
brother Fergus at the other end of the room. She joined him. Tom Morse
was standing by his side.

Whaley nodded indifferently toward the men and smiled at Jessie, but
that cold lip smile showed neither warmth nor friendliness. "We'll
dance again--many times," he said.

The girl's eyes flashed. "We'll have to ask Mrs. Whaley about that. I
don't see her here to-night. I hope she's quite well."

It was impossible to tell from the chill, expressionless face of the
squaw-man whether her barb had stung or not. "She's where she belongs,
at home in the kitchen. It's her business to be well. I reckon she is.
I don't ask her."

"You're not a demonstrative husband, then?"

"Husband!" He shrugged his shoulders insolently. "Oh, well! What's in
a name?"

She knew the convenient code of his kind. They took to themselves
Indian wives, with or without some form of marriage ceremony, and
flung them aside when they grew tired of the tie or found it galling.
There was another kind of squaw-man, the type represented by her
father. He had joined his life to that of Matapi-Koma for better or
worse until such time as death should separate them.