"
ROMANY OF THE SNOWS
I
When old Throng the trader, trembling with sickness and misery, got on
his knees to Captain Halby and groaned, "She didn't want to go; they
dragged her off; you'll fetch her back, won't ye?--she always had a fancy
for you, cap'n," Pierre shrugged a shoulder and said:
"But you stole her when she was in her rock-a-by, my Throng--you and your
Manette."
"Like a match she was--no bigger," continued the old man. "Lord, how
that stepmother bully-ragged her, and her father didn't care a darn.
He'd half a dozen others--Manette and me hadn't none. We took her and
used her like as if she was an angel, and we brought her off up here.
Haven't we set store by her? Wasn't it 'cause we was lonely an' loved
her we took her? Hasn't everybody stood up and said there wasn't anyone
like her in the North? Ain't I done fair by her always--ain't I? An'
now, when this cough 's eatin' my life out, and Manette 's gone, and
there ain't a soul but Duc the trapper to put a blister on to me, them
brutes ride up from over the border, call theirselves her brothers, an'
drag her off!"
He was still on his knees. Pierre reached over and lightly kicked a
moccasined foot.
"Get up, Jim Throng," he said. "Holy! do you think the law moves because
an old man cries? Is it in the statutes?--that's what the law says.
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