If nothing
else, the choice of position at least bore convincing evidence of this.
In case of offence, it commanded the Indian quarters a hundred yards
away; of defence, a rise to the ground and the cleared intervening space;
and last, of defeat, the swift slope of a score of yards to the canoes
below. From one of the tents came the petulant cry of a sick child and
the crooning song of a mother. In the open, over the smouldering embers
of a fire, two men held talk.
"Eh? I love the church like a good son. _Bien_! So great a love that
my days have been spent in fleeing away from her, and my nights in
dreaming dreams of reckoning. Look you!" The half-breed's voice rose to
an angry snarl. "I am Red River born. My father was white--as white as
you. But you are Yankee, and he was British bred, and a gentleman's son.
And my mother was the daughter of a chief, and I was a man. Ay, and one
had to look the second time to see what manner of blood ran in my veins;
for I lived with the whites, and was one of them, and my father's heart
beat in me. It happened there was a maiden--white--who looked on me with
kind eyes.
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