“Is it a bargain? All you need to do is just be good, keepin’ your teeth out’n my cheek. I’ve been lonesome always. I hain’t got no people. Do you know who your dad was, Susette? Neither do I. Some French trader was mine, I guess. We’re in the same boat there. My mother was an Omaha. O Susette, I know what it means to set a stranger in my mother’s lodge. ‘_Wagah peazzha!_’ [no good white man], that’s what the Omahas called me ever since I was a little feller. And the white men said ‘damn Injun.’ And where am I? O, hangin’ onto the edge of things, gettin’ ornry and nasty and bad! I’ve stole horses and killed people and cussed fer days, Susette. And I want to rest; I want to love somethin’. Cabanne’s men down at the post would laugh to hear me sayin’ that. But I do. I want to love somethin’. Tried to oncet; her name was Susette, jest like your’n. She was a trader’s daughter—a pretty French girl. That was before I got bad. I talked sweet to her like I’m a talkin’ to you, and she kind of liked it. But the old man Lecroix—that was her dad—he showed me the trail and he says: ‘Go that way and go fast, you damn Injun!’ “I went, Susette, but I made him pay, I did. I seen him on his back a-grinnin’ straight up at the stars; and since then I hain’t cared much. I killed several after that, and I called ’em all Lecroix! “Be a good girl, Susette, and I’ll stick to you. I’m a good fighter, you know, and I’m a good grub-hunter, too. I learned all that easy.” He continued caressing the wolf, and she licked his hand when he stroked her muzzle. Days passed; the winter deepened; the heavy snows came. Antoine nursed his bruised companion back to health. Through the bitter nights he kept a fire burning at the entrance of the hole. The depth of the snow made it improbable that any should learn his whereabouts; and by that time the news must have spread from post to post that Antoine, the outlaw half-breed, had drowned himself in the ice-fissure. The man had used all his ammunition, and his six-shooter had thus become useless. With the skill of an Indian he wrought a bow and arrows. He made snowshoes and continued to hunt, keeping the wolf in meat until she grew strong and fat with the unaccustomed luxurious life. Also she became very tame. During her weakness the man had subdued her, and through the long nights she lay nestled within the man’s great arms and slept. When the snow became crusted, Antoine and Susette went hunting together, she trotting at his heels like a dog. To her he had come to be only an unusually large wolf—a masterful male, a good fighter, strong to kill, a taker of his own.