We had
to wait an hour. Then Hilton's wife beckoned to us. We went inside.
The girl was asleep. There was something in the touch of Hilton's wife
like sleep itself--like music. It was her voice--that touch. She could
not speak with her tongue, but her hands and face were words and music.
Bien, there was the girl asleep, all clear of dust and stain; and that
fine hand it lay loose on her breast, so quiet, so quiet. Enfin, the
real story--for how she slept there does not matter--but it was good to
see when we knew the story."
The Trapper was laughing silently to himself to hear Pierre in this
romantic mood. A woman's hand--it was the game for a boy, not an
adventurer; for the Trapper's only creed was that women, like deer, were
spoils for the hunter. Pierre's keen eye noted this, but he was above
petty anger. He merely said: "If a man have an eye to see behind the
face, he understands the foolish laugh of a man, or the hand of a good
woman, and that is much. Hilton's wife told us all. She had rode two
hundred miles from the south-west, and was making for Fort Micah, sixty
miles farther north. For what? She had loved a man against the will of
her people. There had been a feud, and Garrison--that was the lover's
name--was the last on his own side. There was trouble at a Company's
post, and Garrison shot a half-breed. Men say he was right to shoot him,
for a woman's name must be safe up here. Besides, the half-breed drew
first.
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