"Look here," he exclaimed roughly, "I don't want any more of this. I have trouble enough without your pitching into me all the time. This is my house and you are my wife--please remember that." "There's no danger of my forgetting it," she answered hotly. "Come, Kit, do be reasonable. I don't want to quarrel." She smiled cynically and bit her lips to keep back the retort that struggled for utterance. "Whatever you do," her mother had said to her, "don't quarrel with your husband. It takes two to make a quarrel." Later, a semblance of peace was restored, but long after the Lieutenant was asleep, Katherine lay, wide-eyed and troubled, with bitterness surging in her heart. From the window of her room she saw the late moon when it rose from the lake, and soon afterward the clock struck three. Then a ghostly pageant passed the Fort. Black Partridge was ahead--she knew his stately figure in spite of the blanket in which he was enshrouded. Behind him came more Indians than she had ever seen at one time, silently, in single file. The squaws brought up the rear, laden with baggage. The last one was heavily burdened and was far behind. As she straggled along, the pale moonlight revealed something strange upon her head and Katherine recognised her own discarded summer hat of two seasons past. The implied comparison made her laugh in a way which was not good to hear--but no one heard. Across the river another watcher was taking note of the departure of the Pottawattomies, for Robert had found it impossible to sleep. Physically, he was too tired to rest, and his mind was unusually active. The dainty moccasins hung on the wall of his room and something obtrusively feminine in their presence was, in a way, disturbing, but not altogether unpleasant. The young man was somewhat given to analysis and introspection, and had endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to solve the freakish impulse which led him to buy moccasins too small for any woman he knew. Further questioning of self brought out the astounding fact that he would not give moccasins to any woman he had ever met, even though these might fit her. The Indians passing the Fort were a welcome diversion, and he, too, laughed at the one who followed the procession with more than her share of baggage, but he missed the fine point in the matter of millinery. "She looks like the one I bought them of," he said to himself, "but I won't be sure." The moon faded and grey dawn came up out of the inland sea. A ribbon of light lay across the Fort and the pulses of the river stirred beneath the ice. The blood came to his heart like the sap mounting in the maples, and he felt a sudden uplift of soul. A bluebird paused over the river for an instant, the crimson of its breast strangely luminous against the sky, then from a distant thicket came the first robin's cheery call, and he knew the Indians were right--that it was Spring. CHAPTER IV RONALD'S VIEWS OF MARRIAGE