"Let go my arm!" she repeated.

"Not without a kiss!"

Instantly Bela was galvanized into action. Some men are foredoomed to choose the wrong moment. Joe was hopelessly handicapped by the table between them. He could not use his strength. As he sought to draw her toward him Bela, with her free hand, dealt him a stinging buffet on the ear.

They fell among the dishes. The coffee scalded him, and he momentarily relaxed his hold. Bela wriggled clear, unkissed. Joe capsized of his own weight, and, slipping off the end of the table, found himself on his back among broken dishes on the floor.

He picked himself up, scarcely improved in temper. Bela had disappeared. He sat down to wait for her, dogged, sheepish, a little inclined to weep out of self-pity.

Even now he would not admit the fact that she might like another man—a small, insignificant man—better than himself. Joe was the kind of man who will not take a refusal.

In a few minutes, getting no sign of her, he got up and looked into the tent kitchen. Old Mary Otter was there, alone, washing dishes with a perfectly bland face.

"Where's Bela?" he demanded, scowling.

"Her gone to company house for see Beattie's wife mak' jam puddin'," answered Mary.

Joe strode out of the door scowling and drove away. His horses suffered for his anger.



CHAPTER XX

MALICIOUS ACTIVITY

Joe found the usual group of gossipers in the store of the French outfit. Beside the two traders, there were two of the latest arrivals from the outside, a policeman off duty, and young Mattison, of the surveying party, who had ridden in on a message from Graves, and was taking his time about starting back.

Up north it is unfashionable to be in a hurry. Of them all only Stiffy, in his little compartment at the back, was busy. He was totting up his beloved figures.

Joe found them talking about the night before, with references to Sam in no friendly strain. Joe had the wit to conceal from them a part of the rage that was consuming him, though it was not easy to do so. He sat down in the background, and for the most part kept his mouth shut. Anything that anybody could say against Sam was meat and drink to him.

"Blest if I can see what the girl sees in him," said Mahooley. "There are better men for her to pick from."

"He's spoiled our fun, damn him!" said another. "The place won't be the same again."

"Who is this fellow Sam?" asked one of the newcomers.

"A damn ornery little cook who's got his head swole," muttered Joe.

"He kept his place till he got a team to drive," said Mattison.

"We kep' him in it, you mean."

"What for did you want to give him the job of teaming, Mahooley?" asked Mattison.

"Matter of business," replied the trader carelessly. "He was on the spot."

"Well, you can get plenty more now. Why not fire him?"

Mahooley looked a little embarrassed.

"Business is business," he said. "I don't fancy him myself, but he's working all right."

Joe's perceptions were sharpened by hate. He saw Mahooley's hesitation, and began speculating on what reason the trader could have for not wanting to discharge Sam. He scented a mystery. Casting back in his mind, he began to fit a number of little things together.

Once, he remembered, somebody had told Mahooley one of the black horses had gone lame, and Mahooley had replied unthinkingly that it was not his concern. Why had he said that? Was somebody besides Mahooley backing Sam? If he could explode the mystery, maybe it would give him a handle against his rival.

"Well, I shouldn't think you'd let an ex-cook put it all over you," remarked the stranger.

This was too much for Joe's self-control. A dull, bricky flush crept under his skin.

"Put it over nothing!" he growled. "You come over to Bela's to-night if you want to see how I handle a cook!"

"Who is the old guy camped beside Bela's shack?" asked the stranger.

"Musq'oosis, a kind of medicine man of her tribe," answered Mahooley.

"Is he her father?"

"No; her father was a white man."

"Who was he?" Joe asked.

Mahooley shrugged. "Search me! Long before my time."

"If old Musq'oosis is no relation, what does he hang around for?" asked the first questioner.

"Oh, he's always kind of looked after her," said Mahooley. "The other Indians hate her. They think she's too uppish."

"She feeds him; I guess that's reason enough for him to stick around," remarked Mattison.

Here Stiffy spoke up from his cubby-hole: "Hell! Musq'oosis don't need anybody to feed him. He's well fixed. Got a first-class credit balance."

Joe, ever on the watch, saw Mahooley turn his head abruptly and scowl at his partner. Stiffy closed his mouth suddenly. Joe, possessed by a single idea, jumped to the conclusion that Musq'oosis had something to do with the mystery he was on the track of. Anyhow, he determined to find out.

"A good balance?" he asked carelessly.

"I mean for an Indian," returned Stiffy quickly. "Nothing to speak of."

Joe was unconvinced. He bided his time.

The talk drifted on to other matters. Joe sat thrashing his brain for an expedient whereby he might get a sight of Musq'oosis's account on Stiffy's ledger.

By and by a breed came in with the news that a York boat was visible, approaching Grier's Point. This provided a welcome diversion for the company. A discussion arose as to whether it would be Stiffy and Mahooley's first boat of the season, or additional supplies for Graves. Finally they decided to ride down to the Point and see.

"Come on, Joe," said one.

Joe assumed an air of laziness. "What's the use?" he said. "I'll stay here and talk to Stiffy."

When they had gone Joe still sat cudgelling his brain. He was not fertile in expedients. He was afraid to speak even indirectly of the matter on his breast for fear of alarming Stiffy by betraying too much eagerness. Finally an idea occurred to him.

"I say, Stiffy, how does my account stand?"

The trader told him his balance.

"What!" cried Joe, affecting indignation. "I know it's more than that. You've made a mistake somewhere."

This touched Stiffy at his weakest. "I never make a mistake!" he returned with heat. "You fellows go along ordering stuff, and expect your balance to stay the same, like the widow's cruse. Come and look for yourself!"

This was what Joe desired. He slouched over, grumbling. Stiffy explained how the debits were on one side, the credits on the other. Each customer had a page to himself. Joe observed that before turning up his account Stiffy had consulted an index in a separate folder.

Joe allowed himself to be reluctantly satisfied, and returned to his seat by the stove. He was advanced by learning how the book was kept, but the grand difficulty remained to be solved; how to get a look at it without Stiffy's knowledge.

Here fortune unexpectedly favoured him. When he was not adding up his columns, Stiffy was for ever taking stock. By rights, he should have been the chief clerk of a great city emporium. Before the others returned he began to count the articles on the shelves.

He struck a difficulty in the cans of condensed milk. Repeated countings gave the same total. "By Gad, we've been robbed!" he cried. "Unless there's still a case in the loft."

He hastened to the stairs. The instant his weight creaked on the boards overhead the burly, lounging figure by the stove sprang into activity. Joe darted on moccasined feet to Stiffy's little sanctum, and with swift fingers turned up M in the index.

"Musq'oosis; page 452." Silently opening the big book, he thumbed the pages. The noises from upstairs kept him exactly informed of what Stiffy was doing.

Joe found the place, and there, in Stiffy's neat copper plate, was spread out all that he wished to know. It took him but a moment to get the hang of it. On the debit side: "To team, Sambo and Dinah, with wagon and harness, $578.00." Under this were entered various advances to Sam. On the other side Joe read: "By order on Gilbert Beattie, $578.00." Below were the different amounts paid by Graves for hauling.

Joe softly closed the book. So it was Musq'oosis who employed Sam! And Musq'oosis was a kind of guardian of Bela! It did not require much effort of the imagination to see a connection here. Joe's triumph in his discovery was mixed with a bitter jealousy.

However, he was pretty sure that Sam was ignorant of who owned the team he drove, and he saw an opportunity to work a pretty piece of mischief. But first he must make still more sure.

When Stiffy, having found the missing case, came downstairs again, Joe apparently had not moved.

* * * * *

A while later Joe entered the company store, and addressed himself to Gilbert Beattie concerning a plough he said he was thinking of importing. Beattie, seeing a disposition in the other man to linger and talk, encouraged it. This was new business. In any case, up north no man declines the offer of a gossip. Strolling outside, they sat on a bench at the door in the grateful sunshine.

From where they were they could see Bela's shack below, with smoke rising from the cook tent and the old man's tepee alongside. Musq'oosis himself was squatting at the door, engaged upon some task with his nimble fingers. Consequently, no management on Joe's part was required to bring the conversation around to him. Seeing the trader's eye fall there, he had only to say:

"Great old boy, isn't he?"

"One of the best," said Beattie warmly. "The present generation doesn't produce 'em! He's as honest as he is intelligent, too. Any trader in the country would let him have anything he wanted to take. His word is as good as his bond."

"Too bad he's up against it in his old age," suggested Joe.

"Up against it, what do you mean?" asked Beattie.

"Well, he can't do much any more. And he doesn't seem to have any folks."

"Oh, Musq'oosis has something put by for a rainy day!" said Beattie. "For years he carried a nice little balance on my books."

"What did he do with it, then?" asked Joe carelessly.

Beattie suspected nothing more in this than idle talk.

"Transferred it to the French outfit," he said with a shrug. "I suppose he wanted Mahooley to know he's a man of means. He can't have spent any of it. I'll probably get it back some day."

"How did he get it in the first place?" asked Joe casually. "Out of fur?"

"No," said Beattie; "he was in some kind of partnership with a man called Walter Forest, a white man. Forest died, and the amount was transferred to Musq'oosis. It's twenty years ago. I inherited the debt from my predecessor here."

Joe, seeing that the trader had nothing more of special interest to tell him, let the talk pass on to other matters. By and by he rose, saying:

"Guess I'll go down and talk to the old boy until dinner's ready."

"It is always profitable," said Beattie. "Come in again."

"I'll let you know about the plough," said Joe.

* * * * *

"Hello, Musq'oosis!" began Joe facetiously. "Fine weather for old bones, eh?"

"Ver' good," replied Musq'oosis blandly. The old man had no great liking for this burly youth with the comely, self-indulgent face, nor did he relish his style of address; however, being a philosopher and a gentleman, this did not appear in his face. "Sit down," he added hospitably.

Musq'oosis was making artificial flies against the opening of the trout season next month. With bits of feather, hair, and thread he was turning out wonderfully lifelike specimens—not according to the conventional varieties, but as a result of his own half-century's experience on neighbouring streams. A row of the completed product was stuck in a smooth stick, awaiting possible customers.

"Out of sight!" said Joe, examining them.

"I t'ink maybe sell some this year," observed Musq'oosis. "Plenty new men come."

"How much?" asked Joe.

"Four bits."

"I'll take a couple. There's a good stream beside my place."

"Stick 'em in your hat."

After this transaction Musq'oosis liked Joe a little better. He entered upon an amiable dissertation on fly-fishing, to which Joe gave half an ear, while he debated how to lead up to what he really wanted to know. In the end it came out bluntly.

"Say, Musq'oosis, what do you know about a fellow called Walter Forest?"

Musq'oosis looked at Joe, startled. "You know him?" he asked.

"Yes," said Joe. Recollecting that Beattie had told him the man had been dead twenty years, he hastily corrected himself. "That is, not exactly. Not personally."

"Uh!" said Musq'oosis.

"I thought I'd ask you, you're such an old-timer."

"Um!" said Musq'oosis again. There was nothing in this so far to arouse his suspicions. But on principle he disliked to answer questions. Whenever it was possible he answered a question by asking another.

"Did you know him?" persisted Joe.

"Yes," replied Musq'oosis guardedly.

"What like man was he?"

"What for you want know?"

"Oh, a fellow asked me to find out," answered Joe vaguely. He gained assurance as he proceeded. "Fellow I met in Prince George. When he heard I was coming up here he said: 'See if you can find out what's become of Walter Forest. Ain't heard from him in twenty year.'"

"What this fellow call?" asked Musq'oosis.

"Er—George Smith," Joe improvised. "Big, dark-complected guy. Traveller in the cigar line."

Musq'oosis nodded.

"Walter Forest died twenty year ago," he said.

"How?" asked Joe.

"Went through the ice wit' his team."

"You don't say!" said Joe. "Well! Well! I said I'd write and tell George."

Joe was somewhat at a loss how to go on. He said "Well! Well!" again. Finally he asked: "Did you know him well?"

"He was my friend," said Musq'oosis.

"Tell me about him," said Joe. "So I can write, you know."

Musq'oosis was proud of his connection with Walter Forest. There was no reason why he should not tell the story to anybody. Had he not urged upon Bela to use her own name? It never occurred to him that anyone could trace the passage of the father's bequest from one set of books to the other. So in his simple way he told the story of Walter Forest's life and death in the country.

"Well! Well!" exclaimed Joe. "Smitty will be interested. You said he was married. Did he leave any family?"

"His baby come after," said Musq'oosis. "Two months."

"What's become of it?"

Musq'oosis nodded toward the shack. "That is Bela," he said.

Joe clenched his hands to keep from betraying a start. This was what he wanted. He bit his lip to hide the cruel smile that spread upon it.

"Why you smile?" asked Musq'oosis.

"No reason," replied Joe hastily. "I thought her name was Bela Charley."

"Her mot'er marry Charley Fish-Eater after," explained Musq'oosis. "People forget Walter Forest's baby. So call Bela Charley. Right name Bela Forest."

"Well," said Joe, "that's quite a story. Did he leave any property?"

Musq'oosis glanced at him sharply. His suspicions began to be aroused. "No," he said shortly.

"That's a lie!" thought Joe. Now that he had learned what he wanted to know, he took no further pains to hide his sneers. "I'll tell Smitty that Forest's got a fine girl for a daughter," he said, rising.

Musq'oosis's eyes followed him a little anxiously into the house.

* * * * *

The dinner-hour was drawing near, but none of the boarders had arrived yet. Joe found Bela putting the plates and cups on the table. Seeing him, she stood fast without fear, merely glancing over her shoulder to make sure her retreat was open.

"Hello!" said Joe, affecting a boisterous air. "Am I the first?"

She declined to unbend. "You got be'ave if you comin' here," she said coldly.

"Got to, eh? That's a nice way to speak to a friend."

"If you don' act decent you can't come here no more," she said firmly.

"How are you going to stop me?" he demanded truculently.

"I tell the ot'er boys," she said coolly. "They keep you out."

"You won't do that," he returned, sneering.

"You find out pretty soon."

"You won't do that," he repeated. "Because I got something on you now."

She looked at him sharply. Then shrugged scornfully. "Everybody know all about me."

"There's something Sam don't know yet."

In spite of herself, she was betrayed into a sharp movement. Joe laughed.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

It was his humour to be mysterious. "Never mind. I know what I know."

Bela unconcernedly resumed her work. "You jus' bluffin'," she said.

"Oh, I'm bluffing, am I?" snarled Joe. He was the picture of a bad-tempered schoolboy. "If you don't treat me right you'll see if I am. I'll out with the story to-night before them all, before Sam."

"What story?" asked Bela. "You crazy, I t'ink."

"The story of how you're paying Sam's wages."

Bela stopped dead, and went pale. She struggled hard to command herself. "It's a lie!" she said.

"Like fun it is!" cried Joe, triumphing. "I got it bit by bit, and pieced it all together. I'm a little too clever for you, I guess. I know the whole thing now. How your father left the money to Musq'oosis when he died, and Musq'oosis bought the team from Mahooley, and made him give it to Sam to drive. I can see Sam's face when I tell that and hear all the fellows laugh."

Bela abandoned the useless attempt to bluff it out. She came opposite to where he was sitting, and put her hands on the table. "If you tell that I kill you!" she said softly.

Joe leaned back. "Pooh! You can't scare a man with threats like that. After I tell the mischief's done, anyhow."

"I will kill you!" she said again.

Joe laughed. "I'll take my chance of it." Hitting out at random, he said: "I'll bet it was you scared the white woman into fits!"

To save herself Bela could not help betraying it in her face. Joe laughed uproariously.

"Gad! That'll make another good story to tell!"

"I will kill you!" repeated Bela dully.

Something in her desperate eyes warned him that one might press a primitive nature too far. He changed his tone.

"Mind you, I don't say I'm going to tell. I don't mean to tell if you do what I want."

"What you want?" she asked softly with glittering eyes.

"Not to be treated like dirt under anybody's feet, that's all," he replied threateningly. "To be treated as good as anybody else. You understand me?"

"I mak' no promise," said Bela.

"Well you know what you've got to expect if you don't."



CHAPTER XXI

SAM IS LATE

On the afternoon of the same day, Sam, clattering back from Graves's camp in his empty wagon, suddenly came upon Musq'oosis squatting like a little Buddha under a willow bush.

The spot was at the edge of the wide flats at the head of Beaver Bay. Immediately beyond the road turned and followed the higher ground along the water into the settlement. It was about half a mile to Bela's shack. Musq'oosis rose, and Sam pulled up.

"Come aboard," invited Sam. "What are you waiting up here for?"

"Waitin' for you," replied Musq'oosis.

He climbed into the wagon-box and Sam chirruped to his horses. The nervous little beasts stretched their flanks and were off at a bound. The whole outfit was in a hurry. Sam was hoping to be the first to arrive at the stopping-house.

Musq'oosis laid a claw on his arm. "Drive slow," he said. "I want talk. Too much bang and shake."

Sam reluctantly pulled his team into a walk. "Anything up?" he asked.

Musq'oosis shrugged, and answered the question with another. "Anybody comin' be'ind you?"

"Not near," replied Sam. "They weren't ready to start when I left. And I've come quick."

"Good!" said Musq'oosis.

"What's the dope?" asked Sam curiously.

"Stiffy and Mawoolie's York boat come to-day," said Musq'oosis conversationally. "Bring summer outfit. Plenty all kind goods. Bring newspapers three weeks old."

"I heard all that," said Sam. "Mattison brought word around the bay."

"There's measles in the Indians out Tepiskow Lake."

Sam glanced sidewise at his passenger. "Is this what you wanted to tell me?"

Musq'oosis shrugged.

"Out with it!" said Sam. "I want to get a word with Bela before the gang comes."

"Don't stop at Bela's to-night," said Musq'oosis.

Sam frowned. "So that's it! Why not?"

"Goin' be bad trouble I t'ink."

"I know," said Sam. "Joe's been talking big around the settlement all day. Mattison told that, too."

Musq'oosis looked at him surprised. "You know it, and you want go! You can't fight Joe. Too much big!"

"Maybe," said Sam grimly; "but I'll do my damnedest."

Musq'oosis was silent for a moment. Evidently this contingency had not entered into his calculations.

"Bela can't have no trouble there," he finally suggested. "If the place get a bad name Gilbert Beattie put her out."

Sam was taken aback. "I'm sorry!" he said, frowning. "I never thought of that. But I've got to consider myself a little, too. I can't let Joe bluff me out. Nice name I'd get around here."

"Nobody 'spec' you fight big man lak Joe."

"I've got to do it just the same."

"Only to-night."

"What good putting it off? To-morrow it would be the same. I'm just beginning to get on. I've got to make good! Lord! I know what it is to be the under dog! No more of that! Joe can lay me out cold, but I'll never quit!"

"If Beattie put Bela out, she got no place to go," pleaded Musq'oosis.

Sam scowled helplessly. "What can I do?" he asked. "Bela's nearly done for me already up here. She shouldn't ask this of me. I'll put it up to her. She'll understand."

"No use stoppin'," said Musq'oosis. "Bela send me up road tell you not stop to-night."

Sam, in his helplessness, swore under his breath and fell silent for awhile. Finally his face cleared a little. "Tell you what I'll do," he said. "I won't stop now and let them find me there. I'll drive on down to the point and fix my horses for the night. Then I'll walk back. By that time everybody will be there. They will see that I'm not afraid to come, anyhow. The rest is up to Bela. She can refuse to let me in if she wants. And if Joe wants to mix things up, I'll oblige him down the road a piece."

"All right, I tell Bela," said Musq'oosis. "Let me down now. Not want anybody know I talk to you."

Sam pulled up. As the old man was about to get down he offered Sam his hand.

"Ain't you little bit scare of Joe?" he asked curiously.

Sam smiled wryly. "Sure!" he confessed. "I'm a whole lot scared of him. Hasn't he got thirty pounds on me, weight and reach beside. It's because I'm so scared that I can't take anything from him. Do you understand that?"

"I on'er stan'," the old Indian said pithily. "Walter Forest tell me lak that long tam ago. You brave lak him, I t'ink."

Sam shook his head. "'Tisn't a case of bravery, but of plumb necessity!"

From the window of the French outfit store Sam was seen driving down to Grier's Point.

"Scared off!" cried Joe with a great laugh. "Lucky for him, too!"

* * * * *

An hour later Bela was feeding the largest number of men that had ever gathered in her shack. Except the policeman on duty, and Gilbert Beattie, every white man in the district had been drawn by the word passed from mouth to mouth that there was "going to be something doing to-night."

Even Musq'oosis, who had never before ventured among the white men without a particular invitation, came in. He did not eat at the table, but sat on the floor in the corner, watching and listening with bright eyes, like some queer, philosophic little ape.

As time passed, and Sam did not turn up, the company was frankly disappointed. They abused him thoughtlessly, forgetting in their chagrin at losing a sensation, that Sam might have declined a contest so unequal with entire honour. Bela kept her eyes down to hide their angry glitter at the men's comments.

Joe Hagland was in the highest spirits. In him this took the form of boisterousness and arrogance. Not only did he usurp the place at the head of the table, but he held everybody off from the place at his right.

"That's reserved," he said to all comers.

As in every party of men, there was an obsequious element that encouraged Joe with flattery. Among the sturdier spirits, however, Big Jack, Mahooley, Coulson, an honest resentment developed.

In particular they objected to Joe's changed air toward Bela. He was not openly insulting to her, but into his voice had crept a peremptory note apparent to every ear. He called her attention to empty plates, and otherwise acted the part of a host. In reality he was imitating Sam's manner of the night before, but the effect was different.

If Bela had shown any resentment it would have been all up with Joe. They would have thrown him out in less time than it takes to tell. But Bela did his bidding with a cold, suppressed air. The other men watched her, astonished and uneasy. None had ever seen her like this.

When the dinner was fairly under way it transpired who the vacant place was for.

"Come and sit down, Bela!" cried Joe. "Lend us the light of your handsome face to eat by. Have something yourself. Don't be a stranger at your own table!"

Big Jack scowled into his plate, and Coulson bit his lip. Their hands itched for Joe's collar. Unfortunately among men, no man likes to be the first to administer a public rebuke. The least sign from Bela would have been sufficient, but she gave them none. She made believe not to have heard Joe. He repeated his invitation in louder tones.

"I never sit," she said quietly.

"Time that rule was broken!" cried Joe.

"I busy."

"Hang it, let the old woman serve! Every man has had one plateful. Come and talk to me."

All eyes were on Bela. She hesitated, then went and sat as Joe commanded. The other men could scarcely believe their eyes. Bela to take orders in public like this! Her inscrutable exterior gave no indication of what was passing within.

There was, perhaps, a hint of pain, anger in her eyes, but hidden so deep they could not see it. The obvious inference was that Joe had won her at last. She went down in their estimation. Every man shrugged, so to speak, and let Joe have his way.

That youth swelled with gratified vanity. He heightened his jocular air; his gallantry had an insolent ring. "Say, we'll pay double if you let us look at you while we eat. You'll save money, too; we won't eat so much. We'll take you for dessert!"

The other men were uneasy. If this was Joe's and Bela's way of making love they wished they would do it in private. They were slow-thinking men, accustomed to taking things at face value. Like all men, they were shy of inquiring too far into an emotional situation.

Bela did not eat, but sat still, silent and walled-up. At such moments she was pure Indian. Long afterward the men recollected the picture she made that night, still and dignified as a death mask.

* * * * *

Joe could not leave Sam alone. "I wonder where our friend the ex-cook is to-night?" he inquired facetiously of the company. "Boiling his own pot at the Point, I suppose. He don't seem to hanker much for the society of men. That's as it should be. Men and cooks don't gee."

Anyone looking closely would have seen Bela's breast rise and fall ominously, but no one looked closely. Her face gave no sign.

"Sam was a little too big for his shoes last night," Joe went on. "To-day I guess he thinks better——"

"Hello! Somebody talking about me?" cried a cheerful voice from the door.

Sixteen men turned their heads as one. They saw Sam by the door smiling. Bela involuntarily jumped up, and the box she was sitting on fell over. Joe, caught up in the middle of a sentence, stared with his mouth open, a comic expression of dismay fixed on his features.

Sam came in. His eyes were shining with excitement.

"What's the matter?" he asked, laughing. "You all look as if you saw a ghost!" To Bela he said: "Don't disturb yourself. I've had my supper. I just walked up for a bit of sociability before turning in, if you've no objection."

He waited with a significant air for her to speak. There was nothing naive about Sam's light manner; he was on the qui vive for whatever might come.

Bela tried to answer him, and could not. Her iron will was no longer able to hide the evidences of agitation. Her lips were parted and her breath was coming fast. She kept her eyes down.

There was a highly charged silence in the shack. All knew that the turn of the drama depended on the next word to be spoken. They watched Bela, bright-eyed.

By this time Joe had partly recovered his self-possession. "Let him go!" he said roughly. "We don't want no cooks around!"

Sam ignored him. "Can I stay?" he asked Bela, smiling with a peculiar hardness. "If you don't want me, all right. But it must come from you."

Bela raised her eyes imploringly to him and let them fall again.

Sam refused to take it for an answer.

"Can I stay?" he asked again.

"Ah, tell him to go before he's thrown out!" cried Joe.

That settled it. Bela's head went up with a jerk, and her eyes flashed savagely at Joe. To Sam she said clearly: "Come in, my house is open to all."

"Thanks," said Sam.

Bela glared at Joe, defying him to do his worst. Joe refused her challenge. His eyes bolted. He scowled and muttered under his breath.

Sam, taking in the situation, walked quickly to Bela's place, and picking up the box sat on it, and smiled directly into Joe's discomfited face.

That move won him more than one friend in the shack. Young Coulson's eyes sparkled with admiration. Big Jack frowned at Sam, divided between old resentment and new respect.

Sam quickly followed up his advantage.

"Seems you weren't expecting me this evening," he said quietly. "I wouldn't have missed it for a lot. Heard there was going to be something special doing. How about it, Joe?"

Joe was no match for him at this kind of game. He looked away, muttering.

"What's on, boys?" asked Sam. "Vaudeville or parlour charades?"

He won a hearty laugh by it, and once more Joe felt the situation slipping away from him. Finally he thought of a way of getting back at Sam.

"Bela!" he cried roughly. "You bring another box and sit down here."

Sam stared, genuinely amazed at his tone.

"There is no room," said Bela in a wooden voice.

"You bring over a box!" cried Joe peremptorily.

Sam's face was grim. "My friend, that's no way to speak to a lady," he said softly.

This was the kind of opening Joe wanted. "What the hell is it to you?" he shouted.

"And that's no way to speak to a man!"

"A man, no; but plenty good enough for a—cook!"

At Sam's elbow was a cup with tea-dregs in the bottom. He picked it up with a casual air and tossed the contents into Joe's face.



CHAPTER XXII

MUSCLE AND NERVE

A gasp went around the table. Joe sprang up with a bellow of rage. Sam was already up. He kicked the impeding box away. When Joe rushed him he ran around the other side of the table.

Sam had planned everything out. Above all he wished to avoid a rough and tumble, in which he would stand no chance at all. He had speed, wind, and nerve to pit against a young mountain of muscle.

"Will you see fair play, boys?" he cried.

"Sure!" answered half a dozen voices.

Big Jack stopped Joe in mid-career. "Let's do everything proper," he said grimly.

By this time all were up. Of one accord they shoved the trestles back against the wall and kicked the boxes underneath. Every breast responded to the thrill of the keenest excitement known to man—a fight with fists.

Sam and Joe, obeying a clothed creature's first impulse, wriggled out of their coats and flung them on the ground. Joe took off his boots. Sam was wearing moccasins.

Young Coulson came to Sam with tears of vexation actually standing in his eyes. He gripped Sam's hand.

"I can't be present at a thing like this," he said. "Oh, damn the luck! I'd lose my stripes if it came out. But I'm with you. I hope you'll lick the tar out of him! I'll be watching through the window," he added in a whisper. He ran out.

Big Jack took the centre of the floor. "I'll referee this affair if agreeable to both," he said.

"Suits me," replied Sam briefly.

Jack pointed out their respective corners and called for a second for each. Several volunteered to help Joe. He chose young Mattison.

Sam remained alone in his corner. While his pluck had won him friends, there was no man who wished to embrace a cause which all thought was hopeless. Young Joe was a formidable figure. He had calmed down now.

From behind the tall white men a little bent figure appeared and went to Sam.

"I be your man," he whispered; "if you not ashame' for a red man."

Sam smiled swiftly in his white, set face, and gripped the old man's hand hard. "Good man!" he said. "You're the best!"

Mahooley, Birley, and another, abashed by this little scene, now stepped forward. Sam waved them back.

"Musq'oosis is my second," he said.

"Straight Marquis of Queensberry rules," said Big Jack. "No hitting in the break-away."

This was an advantage to Sam.

"Time!" cried Big Jack.

The adversaries stepped out of their corners.

All this while Bela had been standing by the kitchen door with her hands pressed tight to her breast and her agonized eyes following all that went on. She did not clearly understand. But when they advanced toward each other she knew. She ran into the middle of the room between them.

"Stop!" she cried. "This is my house. I won't have no fightin' here!" She paused, shielding Sam and glaring defiantly around her. "You cowards, mak' them fight! This is no fair fight. One is too big!"

All the men became horribly uneasy. In this man's affair they had completely overlooked the woman. After all, it was her house. And it was too dark now to pull it off outside.

The silence was broken by a sneering laugh from Joe. He made a move as if to get his boots again. The sound was like a whiplash on Sam. He turned to Bela, white with anger.

"Go to the kitchen!" he commanded. "Shut the door behind you. I started this, and I'm going to see it through. Do you want to shame me again?"

Bela collapsed under his bitter, angry words. Her head fell forward, and she retreated to the kitchen door like a blind woman. She did not go out. She stayed there through the terrible moments that followed, making no sound, and missing no move with those tragic, wide eyes.

The adversaries advanced once more, Big Jack stepping back. The two circled warily, looking for an opening. They made a striking contrast. "David and Goliath," somebody whispered.

Joe's head was thrust forward between his burly shoulders and his face lowered like a thundercloud. Sam, silent and tense, smiled and paraded on his toes.

"Why don't you start something, Jeffries?" asked Sam.

Joe, with a grunt of rage, leaped at him with a sledge-hammer swing that would have ended the fight had it landed. Sam ducked and came up on the other side. Joe's momentum carried him clear across the room.

Sam laughed. "Missed that one, Jumbo," he taunted. "Try another."

Joe rushed back and swung again. Once more Sam ducked, this time as he went under Joe's arm, contriving to land an upper-cut, not of sufficient force to really shake the mountain, but driving him mad with rage.

Joe wheeled about, both arms going like flails. This was what Sam desired. He kept out of reach. He kept Joe running from one side of the room to the other. Joe was not built for running. At the end of the round, the big man was heaving for breath like a foundered horse.

Such was the general style of the battle. The spectators, pressed against the wall to give them plenty of room, roared with excitement.

In the beginning the cries were all for Joe. Then Sam's clever evasions began to arouse laughter. Finally a voice or two was heard on Sam's side. This was greatly stimulating to Sam, who had steeled himself to expect no favour, and correspondingly depressing to Joe.

For three rounds Sam maintained his tactics without receiving a serious blow. He was trying to break the big man's wind—not good at the best—and to wear him out in a vain chase. He aimed to make him so blind with rage he could not see to land his blows. To this end he kept up a running fire of taunts.

"I shan't have to knock you out, Blow-Hard. You're doing for yourself nicely. Come on over here. Pretty slow! Pretty slow! Who was your dancing teacher, Joe? You're getting white around the lips now. Bum heart. You won't last long!"

Between rounds little Musq'oosis, watching all that Mattison did, did likewise for his principal.

Finally the spectators began to grow impatient with too much footwork. They required a little blood to keep up their zest. Sam was blamed.

"Collide! Collide!" they yelled. "Is this a marathon or hare and hounds? Corner him, Joe! Smash him! Stand, you cook, and take your punishment!"

Big Jack fixed the last speaker with a scowl.

"What do you want—a murder?" he growled.

The referee's sympathies were clearly veering to Sam's corner. Big Jack, whatever his shortcomings, was a good sport, and Joe was showing a disposition to fight foul. Jack watched him closely in the clinches. Joe was beginning to seek clinches to save his wind. Jack, in parting them, received a sly blow meant for Sam.

Like a flash, Jack's own experienced right jabbed Joe's stomach, sending him reeling back into his corner. The spectators howled in divided feelings. Jack, however, controlled the situation with a look.

In the fourth round Joe turned sullen and refused to force the fighting any longer. He stood in front of his corner, stooping his shoulders and swinging his head like a gorilla. Such blows as Sam had been able to land had all been addressed to Joe's right eye. His beauty was not thereby improved.

Now he stood, deaf alike to Sam's taunts and to the urgings of his own supporters. Sam, dancing in front of him, feinting and retreating, could not draw a blow. Strategy was working in Joe's dull brain. He dropped his arms.

Instantly Sam ran in with another blow on the damaged eye. Over-confidence betrayed him. Joe's right was waiting. The slender figure was lifted clean from the floor by the impact. He crashed down in a heap and, rolling over, lay on his face, twitching.

A roar broke from the spectators. That was what they wanted.

Bela ran out from her corner, distracted. Musq'oosis intercepted her.

"No place for girl," he said sternly. "Go back."

"He's dead! He's dead!" she cried wildly.

"Fool! Only got wind knocked out!" He thrust her back to her place by the door.

Big Jack was stooping over the prostrate figure, counting with semaphore strokes of his arm: "One! Two! Three!"

The spectators began to think it was all over, and the tension let down. Joe grinned, albeit wearily. There was not much left in him.

Meanwhile Sam's brain was working with perfect clearness. He stirred cautiously.

"Nothing broken," he thought. "Take nine seconds for wind enough to keep away till the end of the round. Then you have him!"

At the count of nine he sprang up, and the spectators roared afresh. Joe, surprised, went after him without overmuch heart. Sam managed to escape further punishment.

A growing weariness now made Joe's attacks spasmodic and wild. He was working his arms as if his hands had leaden weights attached to them. A harrowing anxiety appeared in his eyes. At the sight of it a little spring of joy welled up in Sam's breast.

"Pretty near all in, eh?" he said. "You're going to get licked, and you know it! There's fear in your eye. You always had a yellow streak. Crying Joe Hagland!"

Joe, missing a wild swing, fell of his own momentum amid general laughter. Derision ate the heart out of him. He rose with a hunted look in his eyes. Sam suddenly took the offensive, and rained a fusillade of blows on the damaged eye, the heart, the kidneys. Joe, taken by surprise, put up a feeble defence.

The next round was the last. Around Caribou Lake they still talk about it. A miracle took place before their eyes. David overcame Goliath at his own game. Jack beat down the giant. At the referee's word, Sam sprang from his corner like a whirlwind, landing right and left before Joe's guard was up.

The weary big man was beaten to his knees. Struggling up, he tried to clinch, only to be met by another smashing blow in the face. He turned to escape, but the dancing figure with the battering fists was ever in front of him.

He went down again, and, stretching out on the floor, began to blubber aloud in his confusion and distress.

"He's had enough," said Sam grimly.

The result was received in the silence of surprise. A few laughed at the spectacle Joe made. Others merely shrugged. The victory was not a popular one.

Big Jack went through the formality of counting, though it was patent to all that the fighting was done. Afterward he turned to Sam and shook his hand.

"I didn't think you had it in you," he said.

This was sweet to Sam.

Joe raised himself, snivelling, and commenced to revile Sam.

"Aw, shut up!" cried Big Jack, with strong disgust. "You're licked!"

Joe got to his feet. "Only by trickery!" he cried. "He wouldn't stand up to me! I could have knocked him out any time. Everybody was against me! It takes the heart out of a man." Tears threatened again.

General laughter greeted this.

"That's all right!" cried Joe furiously from the door. "I'll get you yet!" He went out.

The others now began to crowd around Sam, congratulating him a little sheepishly, slapping his back. A great, sweet calm filled Sam. This was the moment he had dreamed of during his long days on the trail and his lonely nights at Grier's Point.

He had made good. He was a man among men. They acknowledged it. It was like a song inside him. The hideous wound that Bela had dealt him was healed.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. From her corner she was gazing at him as at a young god. Calm filled her breast, too. Joe was gone, and her secret still safe. Surely after to-night, she thought, there would be no need of keeping it.

They heard Joe climb into his wagon outside and curse at his horses. Instead of turning into the road, he drove back to the door and pulled up. Bela turned pale again.

Joe shouted through the doorway: "Anyhow, no woman keeps me!"

"Damn you! What do you mean?" cried Sam.

"You owe the clothes you wear to her, and the gun you carry! The horses you drive are hers!"

"You lie!" cried Sam, springing toward the door.

Joe whipped up his horses. "Ask her!" he shouted back.

Sam whirled about and, seizing the wrist of the shrinking Bela, dragged her out of her corner.

"Is it true," he demanded—"the horses? Answer me before them all!"

She fought for breath enough to lie.

He saw it. "If you lie to me again I'll kill you!" he cried. "Answer me! Is it your team that I drive?"

His violence overbore her defences. "Yes," she said tremulously. "What difference does it make?"

The men looked on, full of shamefaced curiosity at this unexpected turn. One or two, more delicate-minded, went outside.

Sam's ghastly wound was torn wide open again. "What difference?" he cried, white and blazing. "Oh, my God, it means you've made a fool of me a second time! It means I've nerved myself and trained myself to fight this brute only to find he's able to give me the laugh after all!"

"Sam—you so poor, then," she murmured.

It was like oil on the flames. He flung off her beseeching hand. "I didn't ask your help!" he cried passionately. "I told you to leave me alone! You can't understand a man has his pride. You're loathsome to me now!"

Mahooley interfered with good intent. "Sam, you're foolish. What difference does it make? Nobody blames you!"

"Keep your mouth out of this!" cried Sam, whirling on him.

To Bela he went on blindly: "The team is at the Point. I'll have it here in an hour! My credit at the store is yours! You hear that, Mahooley? Turn over what's coming to me to her. The gun, the axe, the blankets I'll keep. I'll pay you for them when I earn it. I'll make you a present of my labour, driving for you. And I hope to God I'll never see you again!" He ran out.

* * * * *

Bela stood in an oddly arrested attitude, as if an icy blast had congealed her in full motion. There was no sense in her eyes. In acute discomfort, the men stood on one foot, then the other.

Mahooley, as the leader, felt that it was incumbent on him to make the first move.

"Look here, Bela," he began. "Don't you take on——"

The sound of his voice brought her to life. She threw back her head with a laugh. It had a wretched, mirthless sound; but a laugh is a laugh. They were glad to be deceived. They laughed with her.

"Tak' on?" cried Bela recklessly. Her voice had a tinny ring. "W'at do I care? I glad he gone. I glad both gone. I never let them come here again. Maybe we have some peace now."

Naturally the other men were delighted.

"Good for you, Bela!" they cried. "You're a game sport, all right! You're right; they're not worth bothering about. We'll stand by you!"

She seemed unimpressed by their enthusiasm.

"Time to go," she said, shepherding them toward the door. "Come to-morrow. I have ver' good dinner to-morrow."

"You bet I'll be here!" "Count on me!" "Me, too!" "You're all right, Bela!" "Good night!" "Good night!"

They filed out.

Only Musq'oosis was left sitting on the floor, staring into the fire. He did not turn around as Bela came back from the door.

"Why don't you go, too?" she demanded in a harsh, tremulous voice.

"T'ink maybe you want talk to me."

"Talk!" she cried. "Too moch talk! I sick of talkin'!" Her voice was breaking. "Go 'way! Let me be!"

He got up. He had dropped his innocent affectations. "My girl——" he began simply.

"Go 'way!" cried Bela desperately. "Go quick, or I hit you!"

He shrugged and went out. Bela slammed the door after him and dropped the bar in place. She barred the other door.

She looked despairingly around the disordered cabin, and moving uncertainly to the nearest box, dropped upon it, and spreading her arms on the table, let her head fall between them and wept like a white woman.



CHAPTER XXIII

MAHOOLEY'S INNINGS

The next day, as far as the settlement was concerned, Sam Gladding had ceased to be. Bringing the team to Bela's as he had promised, he left it tied outside, and the night had swallowed him.

At first it was supposed he had started to walk out around the north shore, the way he had come; but Indians from below Grier's Point reported that no white man had passed that way. They found likewise that he had not gone toward Tepiskow. He could not have crossed the river, save by swimming, an impossible feat burdened with a rifle and an axe.

Those who came in from around the bay said he had not been seen over there, though Joe Hagland had barricaded himself in his shack in the expectation of a visit.

It was finally decided that Sam must be hiding in the bush somewhere near, and that he would come in with his tail between his legs when he got hungry.

There was not much concern one way or the other. Most of the men indulged in the secret hope that Sam would stay away. He was a game kid, they were now ready to confess, but altogether too touchy; there was no getting along comfortably with him. Had he not almost put the resteraw out of business? It was as Bela said—if both the hotheads kept out of the way, they might have some peace and comfort there.

Sergeant Coulson had compunctions. He proposed getting up a search-party for Sam. The idea was laughed down. Nice fools they'd make of themselves, opined Mahooley, setting out to look for a man in good health and in the full possession of his faculties who hadn't committed any crime.

There was a good attendance at Bela's dinner, and a full house at night. To their undiscerning eyes Bela seemed to be her old self. That is to say, she was not moping over what had happened. A wise man would have guessed that she was taking it much too quietly; he would have seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition became keen for her smiles.

When they finished their supper there were loud calls for her to come in and sit among them. Bela shrugged and, picking up a box, stood looking over them. They fell suddenly silent, wondering which she would choose. She laughed mockingly and, turning, carried her box in front of the fire.

From this point Mahooley, in the midst of the general chaffing, unexpectedly received a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder that went to his head a little. He promptly arose and carried his box to her side. Mahooley was the greatest man present, and none presumed to challenge him.

Bela bridled and smiled. "What for you come over here?" she demanded. "I not tell you to."

"Oh, I took a chance," said the trader coolly. At the same time his wicked, dancing little eyes informed her that he knew very well she had asked him over. The sanguine Mahooley was no celibate, and he cared not who knew it.

"You think 'cause you the trader you do w'at you like," said Bela mockingly.

"Any man can do pretty near what he wants if he has the will."

"What is will?"

"Oh—determination."

"You got plenty 'termination, I suppose." This with a teasing smile.

Mahooley looked at her sharply. "Look here, what are you getting at?" he demanded.

"Not'ing."

"I'm no hand to bandy words. I'm plain spoken. I go direct to a thing."

Bela shrugged.

"You can't play with me, you know. Is there anything you want?"

"No," said Bela with a provoking smile.

As Mahooley studied her, looking into the fire, a novel softness confused him. His astuteness was slipping from him, even while he bragged of it. "Damned if you're not the handsomest thing in this part of the world!" he said suddenly. It was surprised out of him. His first maxim was: "A man must never let anything on with these girls."

"Pooh! W'at you care about 'an'some?" jeered Bela. "Girls all the same to you."

This flecked Mahooley on the raw. A deep flush crept into his face. "Ah, a man leads a man's life," he growled. "That ain't to say he don't appreciate something good if it comes his way."

"They say you treat girls pretty bad," said Bela.

"I treat 'em as they deserve," replied Mahooley sullenly. "If a girl don't get any of the good out of me, that's up to her."

It was the first time one of these girls had been able to put him out of countenance.

"Poor girls!" murmured Bela.

He looked at her sharply again. The idea that a native girl might laugh at him, the trader, was a disconcerting one. "Some time when the gang ain't around I'll show you I ain't all bad," he said ardently.

Bela shrugged.

Musq'oosis was in the shack again to-night. He sat on the floor in the corner beyond the fire-place. Neither Bela nor Mahooley paid any attention to him, but he missed nothing of their talk.

By and by the group around the table moved to break up.

"I'll go with them and come back after," whispered Mahooley.

"No you don't," said Bela quickly. "W'en they go I lock the door. Both door."

"Sure! But it could be unlocked for a friend."

"Not for no man!" said Bela. "Not to-night any'ow," she added with a sidelong look.

"You devil!" he growled. "Don't you fool yourself you can play with a man like me. A door has got to be either open or shut."

"Well, it will be shut—to-night," she said, with a smile dangerous and alluring.

When they had gone she sent Musq'oosis also.

"Not want talk?" he asked wistfully.

She laughed painfully and harshly.

"I your good friend," he said.

"Go to bed," she returned.

He waited outside until he heard her bolt both doors. For an hour after that he sat within the door of his tepee with the flap up, watching the road. Nothing stirred on it.

* * * * *

Bela had obtained Gilbert Beattie's permission to keep her team in the company's stable for the present. After breakfast next morning, without saying anything to anybody, Musq'oosis climbed the hill and hitched Sambo and Dinah to the wagon. Taking a native boy to drive, he disappeared up the road. He was gone all day.

Bela was setting the table for supper when he came in. With an elaborate affectation of innocence he went to the fire to warm his hands.

"Where you been?" she demanded, frowning.

"Drivin'."

"Who tell you tak' the horses?"

"Nobody."

"Those my horses!" she said stormily.

Musq'oosis shrugged deprecatingly. "Horses go out. Get wicked in stable all tam."

"All right," said Bela. "I say when they go out."

"W'at's the matter?" asked Musq'oosis mildly. "Before w'at is mine is yours, and yours is mine."

"All right. Don't tak' my horses," Bela repeated stubbornly.

Musq'oosis sat down by the fire. Bela rattled the cups to justify herself. The old man stole a glance at her, wondering how he could say what he wished to say without bringing about another explosion.

"For why you mad at me?" he asked finally.

"You mind your business!" Bela cried passionately. "Keep out of my business. I know where you been to-day. You been lookin' for Sam. Everybody t'ink I send you look for Sam. That mak' me mad. I wouldn't go to Sam if he was bleed to death by the road!"

"Nobody see me," said Musq'oosis soothingly.

"Everyt'ing get known here," she returned. "The trees tell it."

"I know where he is," Musq'oosis murmured with an innocent air.

Bela made a clatter among the dishes.

After a while he said again: "I know where he is."

Bela, still affecting deafness, flounced into the kitchen.

She did not come back until the supper guests were arriving.

With a glance of defiance toward Musq'oosis, Bela welcomed Mahooley with a sidelong smile. That, she wished the Indian to know, was her answer. The red-haired trader was delighted. To-night the choicest cuts found their way to his plate.

When she was not busy serving, Bela sat on a box at Mahooley's left and suffered his proprietary airs. Afterward they sat in front of the fire, whispering and laughing together, careless of what anybody might think of it.

This was not particularly entertaining to the rest of the crowd, and the party broke up early.

"Bela is changed," they said to each other.

At the door Stiffy said, as a matter of form: "Coming, Mahooley?"

Mahooley, glancing obliquely at the inscrutable Bela, decided on a bold play.

"Don't wait for me," he said. "I'll stop and talk to Bela for a while. Musq'oosis will play propriety," he added with a laugh.

Bela made no remark, and the shack emptied except for the three of them. Mary Otter had gone to call at the mission.

For a while Mahooley passed the time in idly teasing Musq'oosis after his own style.

"Musq'oosis, they tell me you were quite a runner in your young days."

"So," said the old man good-humouredly.

"Yes, fellow said when the dinner-bell rang in camp, you beat the dog to the table!"

Mahooley supplied the laughter to his own jest.

"Let him be," said Bela sullenly.

"Don't mak' stop," observed Musq'oosis, smiling. "I lak hear what fonny thoughts come in his head."

Mahooley glanced at him narrowly, suspecting a double meaning.

When the rumble of the last wagon died away in the distance, Mahooley said carelessly: "Well, Musq'oosis, you know the old saying: 'Two is company, three is none.'"

Musq'oosis appeared not to have understood.

"In other words, your room is preferred to your company."

Musq'oosis did not budge from the position of the squatting idol. His face likewise was as bland and blank as an image's.

"Oh, in plain English, get!" said Mahooley.

"Go to your teepee," added Bela shortly.

Musq'oosis sat fast.

Mahooley jumped up in a rage. "This is a bit too thick! Get out before I throw you out!"

Musq'oosis, with the extraordinary impassivity of the red race, continued to stare before him. Mahooley, with an oath, seized him by the collar and jerked him to his feet. This was too much for Bela. Her hard air broke up. Jumping to her feet, she commenced to belabour Mahooley's back with her fists.

"Let him go! Let him go!" she commanded.

Mahooley dropped the old man and turned around astonished. "What's the matter with you? You told him yourself to go."

"I don't care," said Bela. "Now I want him stay."

"What do you think I am?" cried Mahooley. "I don't want no third party present when I call on a girl."

She shrugged indifferently. "It wouldn't do you no good to put him out. I got not'ing for you. Not to-night."

Mahooley seized her wrist. "My God, if you think you're going to play fast and loose——"

Bela smiled—scornfully, unafraid, provoking. "W'at you t'ink?" she said. "I not same lak those girls down by your place. They come w'en you whistle. I come when I ready. Maybe I never come."

There was a battle between their eyes. "You need a master!" cried Mahooley.

Her eyes glowed with as strong a fire as his. "You can't get me easy as them," said Bela.

Mahooley laughed and dropped her wrist. "Oh, you want a bit of wooing!" he cried. "All right. You're worth it."

Bela changed her tactics again. She smiled at him dazzlingly. "Go now. Come to-morrow."

He went willingly enough. He did not know it, but he was well on the way of being tamed.

* * * * *

"Go!" said Bela to Musq'oosis.

"I got talk to you," he said.

"Talk! Talk!" cried Bela irritably. "You bus' my head open wit' your talk. I had enough talk. Go to bed."

"No, to-night I goin' stay," said Musq'oosis calmly. "I your fat'er's friend, I your friend. I see you goin' to the bad. I got say somesing, I guess."

Bela laughed harshly. "Bad! Ol' man talk! What is bad? Everything is bad!"

"Mahooley is bad to women," said Musq'oosis.

"I know that. He can't hurt me. Because I hate him. I goin' mak' a fool of him. You see."

"Mahooley never marry you," said the old man.

"Marry me if I want," said Bela defiantly. "I got him goin' already. But I not want marry him. Not marry no man, me! When you marry a man, you his slave. Always I goin' live in my house and have men come see me. Men are fools. I do w'at I like wit' 'em."

"That is bad talk," said Musq'oosis.

"All right!" cried Bela passionately. "I goin' be bad woman now. I lak that. I am good woman before. W'at do I get? I get throw down. I get cursed. Now I goin' be bad! I have a fire inside me burn me up lak dry grass. I got do somesing. I goin' be moch bad. Everybody talk about me. Men fight for me! I am handsome. What's the use bein' good? I not goin' cry again. I goin' laugh and have some fun now!"

Musq'oosis let it all come out before he spoke. When his opportunity came he said calmly: "You are a big fool. You don't know w'at's the matter wit' you."

She fell into his trap. "W'at is the matter wit' me?" she demanded sullenly.

"Sam!" he said scornfully. "I tell you before. You what they call in love wit' Sam. It is the white woman's sickness."

Bela gazed at him a moment in white silence. Her tongue was unable to convey its load of anger. She flung her arms up helplessly.

"Love him!" she stammered. "I hate him! I hate him! I am burning with my hate! I—I can't say it! I lak see Joe strike him down. I lak see the men mak' mock of him. I would laugh. That mak' me feel little better."

Musq'oosis shrugged.

"Maybe before I love him," she went on passionately. "I want be friends. I want help him because he poor. Always I am think how can I help him, not mak' him mad. I buy horses for him. I come here so I feed him good and mak' him strong. W'at he do for me? He shame me! Twice he shame me before all the people! He throw me away lik' dirt. Now, all my good feeling is turn bad inside. I hate him!"

Tears poured down her cheeks, and sobs choked her utterance. Fearful that he might misunderstand these evidences, she cried: "I not cry for sorry. I cry for hate!"

Again Musq'oosis waited patiently until she was in a state to hear him.

"Sam gone to Spirit River," he said calmly.

"I don' care!" cried Bela. "He can't go too far from me!"

"Maybe he sorry now," suggested the old man.

"Not sorry him!" cried Bela. "He not care for nobody. Got hard heart!"

"If you let me tak' team I lak go see him."

Bela stared at him full of excitement at the idea, but suspicious.

"W'at you want see him for?"

"Maybe I bring him back."

"Don' you tell him I want him back," she said. "I hate him!"

"Can I tak' horses?"

"Yes," she cried suddenly. "Go tell Sam I crazy 'bout Mahooley. Tell him I gone wit' Mahooley. He rich. Give me ev'ryt'ing I want."

"I not tell Sam that kind of stuff," returned Musq'oosis scornfully.

"It is truth," she insisted sullenly. "I goin' all right."

"If Sam come back sorry you feel bad you gone wit' Mahooley."

"No, I glad!" she cried passionately. "I hope he want me when it is too late. I want turn him down. That mak' me feel good."

Musq'oosis debated with himself. It was a difficult case to deal with.

"Tak' the team," said Bela. "Tell Sam all I say."

The old man shook his head. "W'at's the use if you goin' wit' Mahooley, anyway? You wait a while. Maybe I bring him back. Mak' say him sorry."

Bela hesitated. Angry speech failed her, and her eyes became dreamy. In spite of herself, she was ravished by the picture of Sam at her feet, begging for forgiveness.

"Well, maybe I wait," she said.

Musq'oosis followed up his advantage. "No," he said firmly. "Not lak travel in wagon, me. Mak' my bones moch sore. I am old. I not go wit'out you promise wait."

"Not wait all tam," declared Bela.

"Six days," suggested Musq'oosis.

She hesitated, fighting her pride.

"If you go wit' Mahooley, Sam get a white wife," went on Musq'oosis carelessly. "Maybe him send letter to chicadee woman to come back."

"All right," said Bela with an air of indifference, "I promise wait six days. I don' want go wit' Mahooley before that, anyhow."

They shook hands on it.



CHAPTER XXIV

ON THE SPIRIT RIVER

The sun looked over the hills and laid a commanding finger on Sam's eyelids. He awoke, and arose from under the little windbreak he had made of poplar branches.

Before him rolled a noble green river with a spruce-clad island in the middle, stemming the current with sharp prow like a battleship. On the other side rose the hills, high and wooded. More hills filled the picture behind him on this side, sweeping up in fantastic grass-covered knolls and terraces.

The whole valley up and down, bathed in the light of early morning, presented as fair a scene as mortal eyes might hope to behold.

Sam regarded it dully. He looked around him at the natural meadow sloping gently up from the river-bank to the grassy hills behind, a rich field ready to the farmer's hand and crying for tilth, and he said to himself, "This is my land," but there was no answering thrill. Life was poisoned at its source.

He had walked for three days borne up by his anger. His sole idea was to put as much distance as possible between him and his fellow-men. He chose to trail to Spirit River, because that was the farthest place he knew of.

Each day he walked until his legs refused to bear him any longer, then lay down where he was in his blankets and slept. The day-long, dogged exercise of his body and the utter weariness it induced drugged his pain.

His gun kept him supplied with grouse and prairie chicken, and he found wild strawberries in the open places and mooseberries in the bush.

Bread he went without until he had the luck to bring down a moose. Returning to an Indian encampment he had passed through, he traded the carcass for a little bag of flour and a tin of baking-powder.

His sufferings were chiefly from thirst, for he was crossing a plateau, and he did not know the location of the springs.

Excepting this party of Indians, he met no soul upon the way. For the most part the rough wagon trail led him through a forest of lofty, slender aspen-trees, with snowy shafts and twinkling, green crowns.

There were glades and meadows, carpeted with rich grass patterned with flowers, and sometimes the road bordered a spongy, dry muskeg.

All the country was flat, and Sam received the impression that he was journeying on the floor of the world. Consequently, when he came without warning to the edge of a gigantic trough, and saw the river flowing a thousand feet below, the effect was stunning.

At any other time Sam would have lingered and marvelled; now, seeing some huts below, he frowned and thought: "I'll have to submit to be questioned there."

This was Spirit River Crossing. The buildings consisted of a little company store, a tiny branch of the French outfit, kept by a native, and the police "barracks," which housed a solitary corporal.

The coming of a white man was an event here, and when Sam got down the hill the company man and the policeman made him heartily welcome, glancing curiously at the slenderness of his outfit. They wanted to hear the latest news of the settlement, and Sam gave it, suppressing only the principal bit. He left that to be told by the next traveller.

In the meantime he hoped to bury himself farther in the wilderness. As soon as he told his name Sam saw by their eyes that they were acquainted with his earlier adventures. Everything is known up north.

In answer to Sam's questions, they informed him there was first-rate bottom-land fifteen miles up the river on the other side. This was the famous Spirit River land, eighteen inches of black loam on a sandy subsoil.

A white man, Ed Chaney, had already squatted on a piece of it, a lonely soul. There were some Indians nearer in.

Naturally, they were keen to know what Sam had come for. The last time they had heard of him he was a freighter. His reticence stimulated their curiosity.

"Come to look over the land before you bring your outfit in, I suppose?" suggested Sollers, the trader.

"No, I'm going to stop," said Sam.

"How are you going to farm with an axe and a gun?"

"I'll build me a shack, and hunt and fish till I have a bit of luck," said Sam.

The two exchanged a look which said either this young man was concealing something or he hadn't good sense.

"Luck doesn't come to a man up here," said the trader. "Nothing ever happens of itself. You've got to turn in and make it."

Declining invitations to stop a night or a few days, or all summer, Sam got the trader to put him across the river in a canoe. There was also a scow to transport heavier loads. Landing, he turned up-stream. Their description of the utter lonesomeness of that neighbourhood had appealed to him.

The sun was growing low when he spied a little tent in the meadow, rising from the river. The faint trail he was following ended at the gate of a corral beside it. There was a cultivated field beyond. These objects made an oddly artificial note in a world of untouched nature. At the door of the tent stood a white man, gazing. A shout reached Sam's ears. He was lucky in his man. Though he and Ed Chaney had had but the briefest of meetings when the latter passed through the settlement, Ed hailed him like a brother. He was a simple soul, overflowing with kindness.

"Hello! Hello!" he cried. "Blest if I didn't think you was a ghost! Ain't seen one of my own colour since I come. Gee! a fellow's tongue gets rusty for the lack of wagging. Come on in. Ain't got much to show, but what there is is yours. I'll have supper for you in two shakes. It certainly was white of you to come on to me for the night."

Ed seemed to see nothing strange in Sam's situation, nor was he in the least curious concerning the gossip of the country. This comforted Sam strangely. Ed was a little, trim, round-headed man, with a cropped thatch of white, and dancing brown eyes. Sixty years had in nowise impaired his vigour. He was an incorrigible optimist and a dreamer.

His long-pent tongue ran like a mechanical toy when the spring is released. He had a thousand schemes for the future, into all of which, as a matter of course, he immediately incorporated Sam. Sam had come to be his partner. That was settled without discussion. Sam, weary in body and mind, was content to let somebody run him.

"West of me, on the other side of the gully yonder, there's another handsome piece of land. Slopes down from the hills to the river-bank smooth as a lady's bosom! Not a stick on it, either; all ready to turn over. Now you take that and put up a shack on it, and we'll work the two pieces together with my tools.

"In the meantime, till you get a little ahead, you work for me for wages, see? I've got my crop in, all right—potatoes and barley; now I've got to build me a house. I need help with it. I'll pay you in grub."

"That certainly is decent of you," murmured Sam.

"Cut it out!" cried Ed. "A man has got to have a partner. Say, in a month already I'm near gibbering with the lonesomeness. It was a lucky stroke for both of us that brought you to my door."

They talked until late—that is to say, Ed talked. Sam warmed gratefully to his friendliness—it was genuine friendliness, that demanded nothing in return; but in the end the uninterrupted stream of talk confused his dulled faculties.

He could neither take it in properly nor answer intelligently. When Ed suggested turning in, therefore, he declined to share the tent.

"I like to lie by myself," he said.

"That's all right!" cried Ed. "Many is like that. Maybe you wouldn't get much sleep with me anyhow. I ain't half talked out yet."

"I'll go lie in my own field," said Sam with a wry smile.

So he had made the little shelter of leaves, facing the river, and built a fire in front. But to-night he could not win forgetfulness.

In three days he had walked close on a hundred miles, and the last long day had overtaxed his strength. He was in that most wretched of states, too fatigued to sleep. His body ached all over, and his mind was filled with black hopelessness.

As long as he had been on the road he had been buoyed up by movement, by the passing scene. To youth a journey always suggests escape from oneself. Now that he had arrived he found that he had brought his burden along with him.

There was no more fight left in him. He was conscious only of an immense desire for something he would not acknowledge to himself.

When at last he did fall asleep it was only to dream of Bela. By the irony of fate he saw Bela as she might have been, wistful, honest, and tender; anything but the sullen, designing liar his anger had built up in the daytime. In dreams she smiled on him, and soothed his weariness with an angel's touch.

He awoke with all his defences undermined and fallen. He could have wept with vexation at the scurvy tricks sleep played him. Then he would drop off and dream of her again; combing her hair in the firelight; leading him by the hand through forests; paddling him down rivers; but always transfigured with tenderness.

That was why he found no zest in the morning sunshine.

Ed Chaney, casting a glance at him, said: "You've overdone it. Better lay off for a couple of days."

"I'm able to work," replied Sam. "I want to work."

"All right!" agreed Ed cheerfully. "You can hoe the garden. I'll go to the piny ridge and chop."

All day Sam kept himself doggedly at work, though as soon as Ed disappeared he had to fight the impulse to drop everything and fly farther. It did not matter where he went, so he kept moving. It seemed to him that only in movement was any escape to be had from the weight pressing on his brain. He wanted to be alone. In his disorganized state of nerves even Ed's friendliness was a kind of torture.

Nevertheless, when night came, another reaction set in, and he elected to sleep with Ed because he could not face such another night alone. They lay down side by side in their blankets. Ed babbled on as inconsequentially as a child. He required no answers.

"We'll build a two-room house so's you can be by yourself when you want. Two men living together get on each other's nerves sometimes, though both are good fellows, and friends, too. Begin to grouse and snarl like man and wife. Why, up here they tell of a man who up and murdered his partner for no reason but he was tired looking at him.

"Afterward we will build you a house of your own, so you can hold your land proper. Expect there'll be quite a rush next spring. This year most of them is stopping by Caribou Lake. But I want a river. I love a flowing river at my door; it seems to bring you new thoughts. This river is navigable for six hundred miles up and down. Some day we'll see the steamboats puffing in front here. I'll put out a wharf for them to land at.

"And you and me's got the best piece of land the whole way! Eighteen inches of black loam! We'll be rich men before we die. Wheat ought to be the best. When others come around us we will put in a little mill to grind the crop. The company would buy all our flour. What do you think of that for a scheme, eh?... Bless my soul, he's dropped off!"

In the middle of the night Sam awoke to find the moon shining in his face through the open door of the tent. He had had a real sleep. He felt better. He was irresistibly drawn to look outside.

In the pale sky the great, full moon shone with an extraordinary transparency. The field sloping down to the water was powdered with silver dust. The river was like a steel shield with a bar of shining gold athwart it.

On the other side the heights crouched like black beasts at the feet of the moon. The night seemed to be holding its breath under the spell of beauty. Only a subtle murmur arose from the moving river.

So much loveliness was like a knife in Sam's breast. The pain surprised him. It was as if nature had rested him with sleep only to enable him to suffer more keenly.

"What's the use of it if a man must be alone!" his heart cried. "No beauty, no happiness, no peace ever for me! I want her! I want her! I want her!"

Terrified by the trend of his own thoughts, he turned inside and shook Ed Chaney by the shoulder. Ed, with many a snort and grunt, slowly came back to consciousness.

"What's the matter?" he demanded. "The horses—wolves?"

"No, everything is all right," said Sam.

"What's the matter, then?"

"Would you mind staying awake a little?" begged Sam. "I—I can't sleep. Got the horrors, I guess."

"Sure thing!" said Ed. He took "horrors" quite as a matter of course. He was a comfortable soul. He crept to the door and looked out, gradually yawning himself into complete wakefulness.

"God! what a night!" he said simply. "The moon is like a lady coming down to bathe!"

"I hate it!" cried Sam shakily. "Close the flaps."

Ed did so, and returned to his blankets. "Let's have a smoke," he suggested cosily.

They lit up. Sam's pipe, however, went out immediately.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy," he said deprecatingly.

"Oh, I've been young myself," replied Ed.

"If you don't mind I want to talk about it," said Sam. "It's driving me crazy!"

"Fire away," assented Ed. "Is it a woman?"

"Yes," replied Sam. "How did you know?"

Ed smiled to himself.

"She's no good!" went on Sam bitterly. "That's what hurts. She's just a scheming, lying savage! She's only working to get me in her power. I can't trust her. I've got good reason to know that, and yet—oh God! she's right in my blood! I can't stop thinking about her a minute.

"Sometimes I think she's a good woman, you know, the real thing, gentle and true! It's my imagination makes me think that. I know she's no good—but it's driving me crazy. I want her so bad, it seems as if I'd die if I didn't go back to her. That's what she wants, to get me under her thumb. I'm a fool! I've got no strength to resist her!"

"Well, now," said Ed comfortably, "you're all excited. Maybe she ain't as bad as all that."

"She is! She is!" cried Sam. "I've got good reason to know it."

"'Tain't the thing itself that drives you crazy," Ed went on philosophically. "It's thinking about it too much. Your brain goes round like a squirrel in his little cage, and you don't know where you are. Now, if you could put the whole business out of your mind a little while, shut a door on it, so to speak, by and by, when you open it again, there's the right answer standing there plain as a pike-staff!"

"Forget it!" cried Sam. "It's with me night and day! If I let go, I'll cave in. I'll go running back! God help me, if she ever gets hold of me. I'd be the laughing-stock of the whole country! I couldn't look a child in the face! No! No! If you're my friend, keep me from going back! Have you got a Bible?"

"Sure," said Ed. "There in the top of that dunnage bag at your hand. What do you want it for?"

"I'll settle it," Sam muttered, searching for the book. He found it.

"I'll take an oath on it," he said to Ed. "I want you to hear it. Because a man can find a way to get out of an oath he swears to himself. Listen!"

A faint effulgence filtering through the canvas revealed him kneeling on his blankets, with the book in his hands.

He said solemnly: "I swear on this holy book and on my honour that I will never go back to this woman. And if I break this oath may all men despise me! So help me God. Amen!"

"That's a good strong one," remarked Ed cheerfully.

"Yes, a man could hardly break that," murmured Sam, oddly calmed.

"Light up," said Ed.

"No, I think I can sleep now."

* * * * *

Sam did sleep until morning. He arose, not exactly in a jovial mood, nevertheless calm. He might have a dull ache in the bottom of his breast, but the wild struggle was over. The matter was disposed of for good.

After breakfast he and Ed hitched up the team and went to the pine ridge to haul the logs Ed had cut the day before. They had returned with a load, and were throwing them off at the site of the proposed house, when Ed suddenly cocked his head to listen.

"Horses," he said, "and wheels."

"Some of the natives," suggested Sam.

Ed shook his head. "No occasion for them to bring a wagon. They come horseback."

Sam scowled; dreading, hoping—what he knew not.

By and by the team and wagon clattered into view from among the trees along the river.

"My horses!" cried Sam involuntarily. Filled with a kind of panic, his eyes sought the hills.

A second glance showed him both the figures visible in the wagon-box were of men. He calmed down. Whether his principal feeling was of relief or disappointment, he could not have said. Ed was looking at him curiously.

"Not mine," said Sam, blushing. "I mean the team I used to drive."

As the horses mounted the rise, Sam called in a softened voice: "Sambo! Dinah!"

The little black pair pricked up their ears and whinnied. Sam went to meet them. The two men he dimly remembered as breed-boys around the settlement. Scarcely regarding them, he pulled the horses' ears and rubbed their noses, while they nozzled him capriciously with delicate whickerings.

"Old boy! Old girl!" whispered Sam. "You haven't forgotten me, eh? Maybe you miss me just the same as I miss you!"

"How did you come by this team?" he demanded of the driver.

As he looked up he saw that a third head and shoulders had risen above the edge of the box. He saw a face incredibly wrinkled, framed in long, straggling grey hair. The bright eyes twinkled merrily.

"Hello, Sam!"

"Musq'oosis!" cried Sam, recoiling. Fearful of other surprises, he hastened to look in the wagon-box. There was nothing more in it save their bedding and grub.

Musq'oosis clambered down and shook hands with Sam and Ed.

"Tell them to unhitch," said Sam, mindful of the duties of hospitality.

Musq'oosis shook his head. "Got go back," he said. "Got sleep to-night on Little Prairie. Home to-morrow night."

Sam felt relieved. His ordeal was not to be long continued then. Whatever colour might be given it, he knew what Musq'oosis had really come for.

Ed, out of a sentiment of delicacy, retired to finish unloading his wagon. Musq'oosis sent the two breed-boys to help him. Musq'oosis himself squatted in the grass, while Sam stood caressing the horses.

* * * * *

"Then you not comin'," said Musq'oosis, a quarter of an hour later. He had spent his best efforts in vain.

Sam gloomily shook his head.

"I moch sorry," said the old man.

"Did she send you after me?" demanded Sam abruptly.

"No."

"What made you come, then?"

"I t'ink she look too moch at Mahooley. He bad man to woman. Bela, she mos' lak my daughter. I feel bad."

A horrible pain went through Sam's breast. He laughed as he thought blithely. "If she wants Mahooley she'll marry him. You and I have got nothing to do with it."

"You could come and tak' her 'way from him maybe."

"Nothing doing," said Sam grimly.

"Mahooley maybe not marry her honest," suggested Musq'oosis.

A spasm passed over Sam's face. The horses strained back, startled, from his hand. "Oh, for God's sake, I've told you a dozen times it is nothing to me!" he cried. "Nobody can make Bela do what she doesn't want to do. If she goes with Mahooley, that's her look out!"

Fearing that his self-control was about to escape him altogether, Sam walked away a few steps. When he came back his face was set.

Musq'oosis saw no hope there. He shrugged. "Well—got no more to say. I moch sorry!"

Sam wished with all his heart that he would go and be done with it.

"You say goin' tak' up land here," said Musq'oosis politely. "Let me see your land."

Sam, calling to one of the boys to watch the horses, led the way across the planted ground and over the gully to his own fair field.

Musq'oosis surveyed it with bright eyes. "Ah, miwasan!" he cried. "Beautiful! There is no better land!"

"Good enough," said Sam indifferently.

"There on that little hill. You will build good house there."

"I suppose so."

"You will have porch lak Gilbert Beattie got for sittin' on. You sit in chair, and look up and down river every night. You build big barn. Have moch horse and cattle, I guess. You will be rich, all right."

Sam laughed mirthlessly. "You're as bad as Ed."

"What good your richness do you if you all alone," asked Musq'oosis slyly. "You want a wife to mak' your heart glad. A handsome wife and many fat babies. There is only one girl for you. Good face to see; good hands to work; good heart to love. I know her, and I say so. There was never any girl so fine as her in this country. Will you let ot'er man get her?"

Sam turned on him with extraordinary violence. "I told you to cut it out!" he cried. "By God, if you say another word——You make me mad! Once I thought you were my friend. Get out of here before I forget you're old and helpless! For the last time, I tell you I will not go! I have sworn an oath. It is ended!"

Musq'oosis shrugged. "All right! I go back!" he said dully.



CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUSION

On the second morning after, as the walls of Ed Chaney's house were beginning to rise from the ground, the partners were astonished to see a little black horse appear loping along the river-bank, bearing a rider.

It proved to be the elder of the Indian boys who had accompanied Musq'oosis. His name was St. Paul. His smooth, brown face and bright, flat eyes gave no hint of the nature of his errand. The horse had been ridden hard.

"What's the matter?" demanded Sam, frowning.

"Musq'oosis sick," returned the boy, without a flicker of expression. He spoke good English.

"Where?"

"Jus' 'cross Little Prairie, I guess twenty miles from river."

"What did you come to me for?" said Sam. "There were white men nearer. I don't know anything about doctoring."

"Musq'oosis say want nobody come but Sam," answered the boy. "Him say doctor got not'ing for him. Him say time has come. Him say want friend to close his eyes. Him say mak' Sam mad before. Him sorry. Want Sam tak' his hand before he go."

"Better go right back," suggested Ed with quick sympathy. "The poor old guy!"

Sam debated the matter scowling. Musq'oosis had made him angry, and he distrusted him. Yet he could not but be drawn to the quaint little philosopher, too. He could not but remember that Musq'oosis had been kind to him at a time when he most needed it.

"How did it happen?" he asked, partly softened.

The boy illustrated his story with the graphic gesticulation of his race.

"Yes'day Musq'oosis not wake up at all. I got shake him in his blanket. Wake moch slow. Say feel moch bad. All tam sleepy. Can't stan' up. Can't eat not'ing. So we put him in the wagon and go.

"Bam-by say stop! Say can't go no furder. Wagon too moch shake. So we lay him on the ground in his blankets. We wait a while. T'ink maybe get better. Afternoon spell no better. He say no goin' get better. Say to me go get Sam. Ot'er boy Jack stay by him. So I come. Sleep las' night at the crossing."

The story was detailed and convincing, and Sam's suspicions were partly lulled.

"You and the boy take my team," said Ed gravely. "Leave the black horse here to rest up."

A few minutes later they were on the way.

St. Paul had made an appointment with Sollers to come and get them in his canoe, and the trader was waiting when they got there. They swam the horses across. On the way over Sam discussed the case with Sollers. The trader, in addition to everything else, was often obliged to be a doctor.

"Sounds like general collapse," he suggested. "He's over seventy. That's the way they go at last. Under a bush beside the trail."

"I wish you'd come with us," said Sam.

"I'll follow as soon as I can catch a horse."

Sam swung himself on his horse and clapped heels to his ribs. St. Paul lingered to tighten girths. Looking over his shoulder, Sam saw him in talk with Sollers. He had an impression that both turned their heads as he looked around.

When the boy overtook him, he demanded to know what they had been talking about.

"I say to Sollers better bring some pain-killer out of the store," the boy answered readily. "Sollers say all right."

Reaching the flat country above at the end of the long pull, they halted for the briefest possible time to eat and let the horses feed. As they prepared to mount again, Sam said:

"Funny Sollers hasn't overtaken us."

"Guess can't catch his horse," said St. Paul.

They rode forward through the aspen woods, and across the open spaces. Having crossed the widest of these that goes by the name of Little Prairie, Sam began to keep watch ahead for evidences of the camp. Every few minutes he asked St. Paul where it was.

"On'y little way now," was the boy's invariable reply.

"You said twenty miles from the river."

"Maybe I mak' little mistak'."

After an hour of this Sam turned sullen. "If it's a trick it won't do anybody any good," he said. "I shall ride back without dismounting."

St. Paul merely looked bland.

Finally Sam looked at the sun. "Four o'clock," he said. "If we don't arrive in half an hour I'll turn back anyway."

"Jus' little way, now," said St. Paul.

"Don't say that again!"

"Ot'er side this muskeg, then piny ridge and little small prairie. It is there."

This time St. Paul proved to be telling the truth. As they issued out on the meadow Sam saw the wagon standing under a tree on the other side. Coming closer he made out a recumbent figure under a willow-bush. The other boy and the other horse were not visible.

It was Musq'oosis. The bush protected him from the sun. With the first glimpse Sam had of his face, remorse attacked him for his suspicions. In truth the old man was far gone. His skin had taken on a waxy, yellow consistency. He looked as serene and unearthly as if he had already passed away. His eyes were closed. Sam spoke his name in alarm.

He opened his eyes and smiled, and feebly moved his hand toward Sam's. "I glad you come," he murmured. "Wait long."

Sam gripped his hand. He forgot all his anger. It seemed shocking to him to find the old man untended in his extremity. He had heard tales of Indian callousness.

"Where's the other boy?" he demanded. "Has he run away?"

Musq'oosis shook his head. "Jack good boy," he said. "I send him look for ot'er horse. I 'fraid horse run home."

Sam ordered St. Paul to unsaddle the horses, to make a fire, and put on water.

"How do you feel?" he asked Musq'oosis solicitously.

"Pretty good," the old man answered, smiling. "I not feel bad no more I guess."

"Sollers will be along directly with medicine. He will know what to do for you."

"Medicine not mak' old heart go on," said Musq'oosis. "I have finish my hunt."

"I wish I could get you home!" murmured Sam.

The old man moved his head from side to side to see the trees and the sky. "This my home," he said. "It is good grass. There is no better bed."

"You mustn't talk like that," cried Sam, distressed. "You mustn't give up."

Musq'oosis smiled. "Not givin' up w'en old man die," he returned. "I lak live ver' well. I lak the summer an' the winter. Mos' of all I lak my big lak. I lak smooth and rough. I lak the green shore and the round bays and the little rivers that come down. It is a good worl'. But I lak leave it now. I lak go to bed after big hunt."

"You shouldn't talk so much," said Sam. "It tires you."

"Let me talk," returned Musq'oosis, smiling still. "I soon done talkin'. I lak tell yo'ng man all an old man know. But not moch good, I guess. Yo'ng man got learn same lak his fat'er."