Man Size

he heavy pack of knotted sinews they carried. His legs were bowed from much riding. It was his boast that he could bend a silver dollar double in the palm of his hand. Men had seen him twi

or the sake of peace accepted sneers

n all this tim

around over

ou hear m

n quite a ways from c

ing outfit. He wants

at

ight's business. Seem

ettle for w

is stride, feet straddl

t's

ll on him to-morrow for

e bust ou

ut it. Didn't have time

ight back t

f he wants to see m

pillow. But to-night he lay awake for hours. He could not get out of his mind the girl he had met and taken to punishment. A dozen pictures of her rose before him, all of them mental snapshots snatched from his experience of the night. Now he was struggling to hold her down, his knees clamped to her writhing,

ed him for what h

hat was the use of stressing the affair, anyhow? She was only a half-breed. In ten years she would be fat, shapeless,

He had always felt an indifferent contempt for a squaw-man. An American declassed himself when he went in for that sort of thing, even if he legalized the union by some form of marriage. In spite of her magnificent physical inheritance of h

d, even to telling her father that he was to use the horsewhip in punishing her. He had never b

ed the hilltop wh

Barney the cook w

s mind about not going to

rders. "And you'll keep a sharp lookout for raiders. If any one shows up

l cock-eyed man with a malevolent g

ins. Already a train of fifty Red River carts[3] stood ready for the homeward start, loaded with robes tied down by means of rawhide strips to stand the jolting across the plains. Not far away other women were making pemmican of fried buffalo meat and fat,

heeled affair, made entirely of wood, without nails o

aked youngsters, their skins glistening in the warm sun, were at work doing odd jobs. Others, too youn

its women and children, traveled to the plains each spring to hunt the bison. They killed thousands upon thousands of them, for it took severa

e Colonel Dodge reported that he had halted his party of railroad builders two days to let a herd of over half a million bison pass. Such a sight was no longer possible. The pressure

s were fed and clothed and armed and housed by means of the buffalo. Even the canoes of the lake India

of his muscular brown arms. He stroked a great red beard and nodded gruffly. It was

a necessary corollary of his speech. "What's it all about,

reasonable damage

hide drying in the sun. "Hold yore hawsses a minute. The damage'll be enough. Don't you worry about that.

gorilla in West's long arms matted with hair, in the muscles of back and shoulders so gnarled and knotted that they gave him almost a deformed appearance. Big and broad though he was, the Scot was the small

alings. Part of West's demand was fair, he reflected. The trader had a right to know all the facts in the case.

in was o' my ain family. Your young man will tell

ed blackly at his helpe

time. Now he had oth

t? There'll be nothin' doin'

daug

for once astonishe

ha

ghter J

roar of Homeric laughter. "Ever hear the beat of that? A damn li'l' Injun squa

ever say twa-three words withoot profanity? This is a God-fearin'

you mean? I'll give it to her that she's a

king of my daughter, Mr. West. I'll allow no such language aboot her.

eft their horses. On the way he came face to face with a girl, a lithe, dusky young creature, Indian brown, the tan of a hundred summer

raveled up and down her slen

ly at the man barring her way. Slowly the blood burned into her cheeks. For there w

e demanded, struck of

es

d my whiske

you. If he says so

ely diverted. "You damn li'l' high-steppin'

le lass he had adopted. Her light, springing step, the lift of the throat and the fearlessness of the eye, the instinct in her for cleanliness of mind and body, carried him back forty years to the land of heather, to a memory of the laird's daughter whom he had worshiped with the hopeless adoration of a red-headed gillie. It had been the one romance of his

the hill, Mr. West

der heard. He could not keep h

a quarter-breed?

tak the road?" The hunter spoke quietly, restraining h

said, aloud to himself, just as t

aughter oot o' your

tch

lk straight. But I aim to be reasonable too. I don't like a woman less because she's got the devil in her. Bull

girl's father told her. He was holdi

'm makin' you a proposition. Me, I'm lookin' for a wife, an' this here breed girl of yours suits

pulsion. "Man, you gi'e me a scunner," he said. "Have done wi' this

n' me that a Cree breed is too good for Bully

e the lass dead in her coffin than have her life

s rage. "I know yore religious notions. We'll stand up before a sky

upon the trader, eyes flashing. "I'd rather Father would drive a knife

y, narrowed to feast on the bro

down on yore pretty knees an' beg me not to leave you. It'll

I'd die first

cco-stained teeth in a mirthless g

ther'll be needin' yo

t glance she might have been a queen and they the riffraff of

m her and me. Let that be an end

hey garnished the questions that he snarled. "Wha's the matter

of the self-restraint he had imposed on himself. He took one step forward. With a wide sweep of the clenche

. A sound that might have come from an infuriated grizzly ru

st's arm. The old hunter was scarcely an instant behind h

ered Morse. "This i

blue ones of the Scot. His fingers

o twist the arm from him till the cords and sinews strained; the other

co?rdinated effort of every muscle. They struggled in sil

urn from McRae. Sweat beads gathered on West's face. He fou

in ran up the arm, the huge body of the man writhed. The revolver fel

l-like throat. His grip tightened. West fought savagely to break

l he was black in the face,

fegs! I'll break every bone in your hulk

brushed aside with a sputtered oath. His eyes never left the man who had beaten him. He snarled hike a whipped wolf. The hunter's metaphor h

od-looking youngster, had come up and was standing quietly behi

urious oath of vengeance. M

girl right, McRae, an' then

urched stra

on his lean face, fol