Through one of them she could see Carey and Elinor . The half-breed girl crouched down in the shadow and glared at her rival . She saw the pretty , fair-tinted face , the fluffy coronal of golden hair , the blue , laughing eyes of the woman whom Jerome Carey loved , and she realized very plainly that there was nothing left to hope for . She , Tannis of the Flats , could never compete with that other . It was well to know so much , at least . After a time , she crept softly away , loosed her pony , and lashed him mercilessly with her whip through the streets of the town and out the long , dusty river trail . A man turned and looked after her as she tore past a brightly lighted store on Water Street . `` That was Tannis of the Flats , '' he said to a companion . `` She was in town last winter , going to school -- a beauty and a bit of the devil , like all those breed girls . What in thunder is she riding like that for ? '' One day , a fortnight later , Carey went over the river alone for a ramble up the northern trail , and an undisturbed dream of Elinor . When he came back Tannis was standing at the canoe landing , under a pine tree , in a rain of finely sifted sunlight . She was waiting for him and she said , with any preface : `` Mr. Carey , why do you never come to see me , now ? '' Carey flushed like any girl . Her tone and look made him feel very uncomfortable . He remembered , self-reproachfully , that he must have seemed very neglectful , and he stammered something about having been busy . `` Not very busy , '' said Tannis , with her terrible directness . `` It is not that . It is because you are going to Prince Albert to see a white woman ! '' Even in his embarrassment Carey noted that this was the first time he had ever heard Tannis use the expression , `` a white woman , '' or any other that would indicate her sense of a difference between herself and the dominant race .
He understood , at the same moment , that this girl was not XXXXX be trifled with -- that she would have the truth out of him , first or last .
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