She swung on him, eyes blazing. "No. I don't ask any favors of a
wolfer."

She spat the word at him as though it were a missile. The term was one
of scorn, used only in speaking of the worst of the whiskey-traders.
He took it coolly, his strong white teeth flashing in a derisive
smile.

"Then this wolfer won't offer any, Miss McRae."

It was the last word that passed between them till they reached the
buffalo-hunter's camp. If he felt any compunctions, she read nothing
of the kind in his brown face and the steady stride carrying her
straight to punishment. She wondered if he knew how mercilessly
twenty-year-old Fergus had been thrashed after his drunken spree among
the Indians, how sternly Angus dispensed justice in the clan over
which he ruled. Did he think she was an ordinary squaw, one to be
whipped as a matter of discipline by her owner?

They climbed a hill and looked down on a camp of many fires in the
hollow below.

"Is it you, lass?" a voice called.

Out of the shadows thrown by the tents a big bearded man came to meet
them. He stood six feet in his woolen socks. His chest was deep and
his shoulders tremendously broad. Few in the Lone Lands had the
physical strength of Angus McRae.

His big hand caught the girl by the shoulder with a grip that was