The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-12-20


Us, Carruth.
You have full liberty to swing your cap and
BELLS, Sellers indfcrcntv replied; but he felt himself
glowing under the girl gaze. 1t full of amused
contempt. Miss Carruth remembered Jeanne Dupre a
dark slip of girl fifteen, yet perfectly shamc.s
to the wealth of shapcly limb which swung benc: tn
her skirt
"Is she pretty as ever, Mr.. Sellers" she asked
"You are silent. Then she has been cruel. Come,
know"
He looked up quickly, almost sayagey, for though
he had tried to make himself believe that Jeanne
: Dupre nothing to him. Miss Carruth's amused
contempt CALLED him.
"Sellers doesn't need your good Offices, Miss Car
ruth" Cassell slipped in.
REALLY? How nice. When is it to be- Mr. Seers?'
But Sellers had recovered his apomb and he
turned the question with laughing answer Still, she
forgot neither his blush his irritation, and when
the firm had carried its bedding to the stable and
she lay snug in her blankets she murmured:
Fancy his falling in love with that h little savage
spare him to her. And it would be shame-such
mesalliance. | must prevent it. For am | not my
of course but the principle remains and the practice
is ever so much nicer No, she cannot have him.
copsc the prares heaved like winry Atlantic about
Duprc'S road house Lonely. solitary, the house with
its outbuildngs and mud pa>tcred stables like
ggcd reef from white pillows. which frozc into form
at the birth of the world. Yet though other
habitation appeared within Il score of miles. Jeanne
Dupre did not feel her home lonely; for in summer
she could gallop her pony s,ln-waslcd plains to
far neghbors Who did not seem far and in winter a
freshct OF travel filled the Pcly trail
Trappcrs from Mcpherson and Confidence, beyond
the Circle. factors packers and clerks from arrappc
Cumberland House and Fort La France strercd furry
Argosies across polar steppes to the current which
flowed by the roadhoISr. Once Il year they came
these far voyagcrS. who had known Jeanne from the
cradle. Once year they dandlcd her at the knee
her small life then the for having looked at
her dark beauty triilcd again to distant businesses
of the granite North And they watched her growth
Of
lily. Each season she was stood against the door to
note the advance on last years mark until, at the
twelfth notch. her mother died. After that. there
was no lengthen Jcanne's moose-skin skirts
Duprc, careless man. built them on the old pattern
the skirt drew up and Jeannc's shapely limbs
thrust down. to the scandal of her manv fathers until
coming out of the north in trembling expectation of
what they should in her sixteenth wear, they found
her covered to her anklcsNaturc the great duenna.
had whispered in Jeanncs Where they had left
a child, Jclnnc's fathers found woman. and the
knowledge transformed them into just many lovers
At eighteen, she might have thrown her kerchief to
any of forty factors of the Company, but the North
ripens its slowly and at that age Jeanne's
wide eyes clear and cold midnight pools Nor
did they until Sellers Saxon comclincss, the
antithesis of her dark beauty, first troubled
their mystery. Then Jeanne felt the strong tug of
that instinct which makes oppostes mate for the good
of the race and. unuored in coquetry, she made no
secret of her liking
Nor was Sellers insensible to her preference; but
if he also felt the mysterious attraction of unikenes.
in him it FLASHED with other instincts involved
problem in which caste pride and racial feeling formed
the basic factors In the old time, of course. this
would not have BEEN A mating such as the moose
make in the forest would have followed Jeannes dark
shy gances, and this would have endured-as did
that Of her Cree grandmother with the old factor of
Pely-until passion died. But these days the Mets
girls were all good Catholics, concentrating their
loves under rrevocable banns; and having noted
era such unions Sellers knew that while good for the
race, such violent crossing of blood not always
productive of happiness to the individual.
Left to himself however, there is little doubt that
Sellers would speedily have sent packing after
Drej n
different complexion affairs. He now. perforce
had to draw comparisons between the vouptuols La