The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was
presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home
with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl--but
such a half-breed!
"I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you," he continued,
"and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There's a way out, I sez, and John
Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I'll put things
right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest
of it, if she'll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open a new
account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it? See--
Pauline?"
Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as had
been in her mother's a little while before, but a hundred times
intensified: a look that belonged to the flood and flow of generations of
Indian life, yet controlled in her by the order and understanding of
centuries of white men's lives, the pervasive, dominating power of race.
For an instant she kept her eyes towards the window.
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