yore pretty knees an' beg me not to leave you. It'll be me 'n' you one
o' these days. Make up yore mind to that."

"Never! Never! I'd die first!" she exploded.

Bully West showed his broken, tobacco-stained teeth in a mirthless
grin. "We'll see about that, dearie."

"March, lass. Your mother'll be needin' you," McRae said sharply.

The girl looked at West, then at Morse. From the scorn of that glance
she might have been a queen and they the riffraff of the land. She
walked to the tent. Not once did she look back.

"You've had your answer both from her and me. Let that be an end o'
it," McRae said with finality.

The trader's anger ripped out in a crackle of obscene oaths. They
garnished the questions that he snarled. "Wha's the matter with me?
Why ain't I good enough for yore half-breed litter?"

It was a spark to gunpowder. The oaths, the insult, the whole
degrading episode, combined to drive McRae out of the self-restraint
he had imposed on himself. He took one step forward. With a wide sweep
of the clenched fist he buffeted the smuggler on the ear. Taken by
surprise, West went spinning against the wheel of a cart.

The man's head sank between his shoulders and thrust forward. A sound
that might have come from an infuriated grizzly rumbled from the hairy
throat. His hand reached for a revolver.