e round profile, awaiting that final word which she
felt must be given. Murray McTavish was part of the life she lived on
the bitter heights of the Yukon territory. In her mind he was a
fixture of the fort which years since had been given her father's name.
He was a young man, a shade on the better side of thirty-five, but he
possessed none of the features associated with the men of the trail.
His roundness was remarkable, and emphasized by his limited stature.
His figure was the figure of a middle-aged merchant who has spent his
life in the armchair of a city office. His neck was short and fat.
His face was round and full. The only feature he possessed which
lifted him out of the ruck of the ordinary was his eyes. These were
unusual enough. There was their great size, and a subtle glowing fire
always to be discovered in the large dark pupils. They gave the man a
suggestion of tremendous passionate impulse. One look at them and the
insignificant, the commonplace bodily form was forgotten. An
impression of flaming energy supervened. The man's capacity for
effort, physical or mental, for emotion, remained undoubted.

But Jessie Mowbray was too accustomed to the man to dwell on these
things, to notice them. His easy, smiling, good-natured manner was the
man known to the inhabitants of Fort Mowbray, and the Mission of St.
Agatha on the Snake River.

The man's reply came at last. It came seriously, earnestly.

"I can't guess how this notion's got into you, Jessie," he said, his
eyes still dwelling on the broken horizon. "Allan's the hardest man in
the north--not even excepting John Kars, who's got you women-folk
mesmerized. Allan's been traipsing this land since two years before
you were born, and that is more than twenty years ago. There's not a
hill, or valley, or river he don't know like a school kid knows its
alphabet. Not an inch of this devil's playground for nigh a range of
three hundred miles. There isn't a trouble on the trail he's not been
up against, and beat every time. And now--why, now he's got a right
outfit with him, same as always, you're worrying. Say, there's only
one thing I can figger to beat Allan Mowbray on the trail. It would
need to be Indians, and a biggish outfit of them. Even then I'd bet my
last nickel on him." He shook his head with decision. "No, I guess
he'll be right along when his work's through."

"And his work?"

The girl's tone was one of relief. Murray's conf