"Well, she has Alma. She's half white. She's yours, isn't she?"
"Yes, but I was married to her paw, all right. He got killed one winter—loggin'."
"Alma!" shouted the mother. "Let me at that girl! I'll kill her yet, with her white face like dough! She looks down on her old grandmaw. She thinks I'm like the dirt under her feet. She'd like to wipe her feet on me. She'd like to spit on me. I'll take an axe and chop her head off yet. Jus' let me at that girl. . . . Fawnie, you show Mr. Vale the papoose that you got of his."
Fawnie, still with her inscrutable smile, turned to one of the bunks and picked up a rolled shawl. She opened it and showed something that slept curled up like a mouse. Derek saw that the down on its head gleamed like silver in the lantern light.
Fawnie smiled at it adoringly. "My little baby," she said. "My own little baby." She seemed singularly undisturbed by the storm about her. It appeared that they might do with her what they wished, if only she be allowed to keep her plaything. With a violent gesture the mother snatched it from her and thrust it into Derek's arms. "Here!" she shouted, "take your brat—and take Fawnie, too—or I'll kill 'em!" Derek would have dropped the child, but Jammery took it from him lightly, and, with an imploring look at the old squaw, said: "Please don't make so much noise. Let me go out with Mr. Vale, and talk things over quietly. You come too, Fawnie."
"You take them out and don't bring them back," said Mrs. Sharroe.
Thankful to escape from the insufferable odors of the shack, Derek drew a deep breath of the night air. Fawnie, Jammery, the child in his arms, and he, moved some
