those little devils single-handed to know just how you'd take it,
and I'd fight another dozen to know who that fellow is in the
picture. I'm tempted right now to hug you up close, and kiss you,
and let you know how I feel. I'd like to do that--before--
anything happens. But would you understand? That's it--would you
understand that I love every inch of you from the ground up or
would you think I was just beast? That's what I'm afraid of. But
I'd like to let you know before I have to put up the big fight for
you. And it's coming--if they've got Bram. They'll break down the
gate to-night, or burn it, and with the wolves out of the way
they'll rush the cabin. And then--"

Slowly he drew his arm from her, and something of the reaction of
his thoughts must have betrayed itself in the look that came into
his face.

"I guess I've already pulled off a rotten deal on the other
fellow," he said, turning to the window. "That is, if you belong
to him. And if you didn't why would you stand there with your arms
about his neck and he hugging you up like that!"

A few minutes before he had crumpled the picture in his hand and
dropped it on the floor. He picked it up now and mechanically
smoothed it out as he made his observation, through the window.
The pack had returned to the stockade. By the aimless manner in
which they had scattered he concluded that for the time at least
their mysterious enemies had drawn away from the corral.

Celie had not moved. She was watching him earnestly. It seemed to
him, as he went to her with the picture, that a new and anxious