“Except what, Stampede?” said Alan, his heart throbbing like a drum inside him.
Stampede took his time to answer, and Alan heard him chuckling and saw a flash of humor in the little man’s eyes.
“Except that she’s done with everyone on the Range just what she did with me between Chitina and here,” he said. “Alan, if she wants to say the word, why, you ain’t boss any more, that’s all. She’s been there ten days, and you won’t know the place. It’s all done up in flags, waiting for you. She an’ Nawadlook and Keok are running everything but the deer. The kids would leave their mothers for her, and the men—” He chuckled again. “Why, the men even go to the Sunday school she’s started! I went. Nawadlook sings.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he said in a subdued voice, “Alan, you’ve been a big fool.”
“I know it, Stampede.”
“She’s a—a flower, Alan. She’s worth more than all the gold in the world. And you could have married her. I know it. But it’s too late now. I’m warnin’ you.”
“I don’t quite understand, Stampede. Why is it too late?”
“Because she likes me,” declared Stampede a bit fiercely. “I’m after her myself, Alan. You can’t butt in now.”
“Great Scott!” gasped Alan. “You mean that Mary Standish—”
“I’m not talking about Mary Standish,” said Stampede. “It’s Nawadlook. If it wasn’t for my whiskers—”
His words were broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a long distance away.