Chapter IX. The Awakening - Page 2

just as he's too fine a fellow and got too much ahead of him to make what his people would call a messy alliance."

"Would his people object to--to such a thing?" questioned the girl. They were alone in the store, and so they could talk freely. "I'm just supposing, you know."

"Oh, Lord! Would they object?" Corporal Thomas laughed in a highly artificial manner that made Necia bridle and draw herself up indignantly.

"Why should they, I'd like to know? I'm just as pretty as other girls, and I'm just as good. I know just as much as they do, too, except--about certain things."

"You sure are all of that and more, too," the Corporal declared, heartily, "but if you knowed more about things outside you'd understand why it ain't possible. I can't tell you without hurtin' your feelin's, and I like you too much for that, Miss Necia. Seems as if I'm almost a daddy to you, and I've only knowed you for a few weeks--"

"Go ahead and tell me; I won't be offended," insisted the girl. "You must. I don't know much about such things, for I've lived all my life with men like father and Poleon, and the priests at the Mission, who treat me just like one of themselves. But somebody will want to marry me some day, I suppose, so I ought to know what is wrong with me." She flushed up darkly under her brown cheeks.

The feeling came over Corporal Thomas that he had hurt a helpless animal of some gentle kind; that he was bungling his work, and that he was not of the calibre to go into the social amenities. He began to perspire uncomfortably, but went on, doggedly:

"I'm goin' to tell you a story, not because it applies to Lieutenant Burrell, or because he's in love with you, which of course he ain't any more than you be with him--"

"Of course," said the girl.

"--but just to show you what I mean. It was a good long spell ago, when I was at Fort Supply, which was the frontier in them days like this is now. We freighted in from Dodge City with bull teams, and it was sure the fringe of the frontier; no women--no society--nothin' much except a fort, a lot of Injuns, and a few officials with their wives and families. Now them kind of places is all right for married men, but they're tough sleddin' for single ones, and after a while a feller gets awful careless about himself; he seems to go backward and run down mighty quick when he gets away from civilization and his people and restaurants and such things; he gets plumb reckless and forgetful of what's what. Well, there was a captain with us, a young feller that looked like the Lieutenant here, and a good deal the same sort--high-tempered and chivalrious and all that sort of thing; a West Pointer, too, good family and all that, and, what's more, a captain at twenty-five. Now, our head freighter was married to a squaw, or