“No! no!” cried Effie, springing forward and detaining the Indian, with the magic touch of her tapering fingers; “I will not desert him in his trouble, Omatla. He is the dearest friend I have in yonder fort, and he shall not call on me in vain. Tarry here until I run into the Post.” Nodding assent, the Indian remained stationary, and Effie hurried into the structure. The secret of her interviews with the British major beneath the cottonwood, she had long since confided to her adopted parents, causing them the more to yearn for the match to which they thought the _eclaircissements_ were leading. “I’m going down to the cottonwood,” she said, glancing at the old couple, as she threw a rich shawl over her head. “I won’t be gone long, and you need not bar the gate till I return.” Then she stepped across the room, and drew from beneath the pillow of her couch a delicate silver-mounted pistol, lately received as a present from the major’s hands. This she thrust into her bosom, drew the shawl tighter around her head, for the wind was blowing quite briskly without, and left the room. Mitre St. Pierre and his half-breed wife exchanged mystified glances. “What can the girl mean in taking the pistol?” questioned the trader, in his native tongue. “She never took it to her love-meetings before.” “Don’t know,” grunted the pale squaw; “must be going to shoot mark.” “Shoot at mark in the dark?” said St. Pierre. “If it were light, I’d think you right, old woman; but now something’s up. Mebbe she’s goin’ to shoot the major? You know gals--at least they do in our country--take moighty strange notions sometimes.” The half-breed wife broke into a loud laugh, which she continued until Mitre’s cheek assumed a scarlet hue, the sure precursor of a whirlwind of passion. “Gal not shoot scarlet soldier,” she said. “Gal love him; not shoot man she loves; Indian gal don’t.” Old St. Pierre dropped the conversation, rose to his feet and deliberately took his rifle from the wall. “Where goin’?” asked his wife. “Fire-huntin’,” was the response, and the speaker picked up a bundle of resinous sticks, prepared for the purpose, from one corner of the apartment. “Who carry fire?” asked the half-breed, who seemed to divine the motives that prompted her husband’s sudden activity. “I’ll carry it myself,” gruffly responded St. Pierre. Effie usually accompanied him on his fire hunts, and bore the torch. But now and then he would take it, while she dropped the noble prey. “Let wife carry fire,” said the woman, burning with a desire to follow her lord. “That ’ud be a pretty caper,” responded old Mitre, “fur all of us to go away and let the red thieves steal every thing we’ve got. Not another word out of ye, woman; I’m goin’ alone, an’ if I see your eyes in the woods, I’ll put a bloody spot atween them.” Cowed by this threat the dusky wife relapsed into silence, and the trader walked from the Post.