"But I want to," and Andree softly, and the two were silenced. They knew Andree.
Later, when Moosta had the last baby on her knees, preparing it for the moss-bag in which generations of her forefathers had grown their tall, shapely limbs, Andree brought her glowing face to the baby's level; chuckling and cooing with it as the fat vague hands tangled the curls over her eyes and dabbed at the laughing lips. Grange, smoking his pale acrid tobacco in his seat by the stove, watched the two women in tolerant pride as their broken words came to him.
"My petit daughter," crowed Moosta. "Ah, netanis; ne waspasoo owasis."
"Mais elle n'est pas dans le moss-bag yet," struck in Andree's vivid tones. "See her toes curl like the young fern-shoots."
She stopped to kiss the soft brown, small things. And then Robison followed his knock into the room, and looked down on them. He was of Moosta's tribe, and he had known Andree all her days. And into his eyes as he looked came something that made him great and noble for the moment. It passed, swift and sharp; for though a man needs love to make him human, he is often most inhuman when he loves.
"You rustle around out o' that, Andree," he said. "I guess you ain't forgot you was wantin' to play cards wi' me an' Ogilvie."
"What'll Ogilvie do if I don't play with him?" asked the girl, and pressed her lips again to the baby flesh.
"I reckon he'll feel injured," said Robison dryly. "What will you do?"
"You are wantin' to play wi' me," said Robison.
He spoke quietly, but again there was that suggestion of primitive force. The primitive in her answered to it at once. She pushed back her crisping hair and stood up.
"Call Ogilvie in," she said. "Got any cards in that drawer, Charlie?"
"I suppose," said Grange, and tipped his chair back and jerked the drawer open. "Two decks," he said. "Good 'nough for a love-game, Andree."
Ogilvie heard from the door. He was yet enough of
