his
handkerchief. The danger he had undergone coolly, but this
overcame his iron self-control. Galen Albret, like an anxious
bear, weaved back and forth the length of the couch. In him the
rumble of the storm was but just echoing into distance.

"Go into the next room," he growled at the Free Trader, when
finally he noticed the latter's presence.

Ned Trent hesitated.

"Go, I say!" snarled the Factor. "You can do nothing here." He
followed the young man to the door, which he closed with his own
hand, and then turned back to the couch on which his daughter lay.
In the middle of the floor his foot clicked on some small object.
Mechanically lie picked it up.

It proved to be a little silver match-safe of the sort universally
used in the Far North. Evidently the Free Trader had nipped it
from his pocket with his handkerchief, The Factor was about to
thrust it into his own pocket, when his eye caught lettering
roughly carved across one side. Still mechanically, he examined it
more closely, The lettering was that of a man's name. The man's
name was Graehme Stewart.

Without thinking of what he did, he dropped the object on the small
table, and returned anxiously to the girl's side, cursing the
tardiness of the Indian woman. But in a moment Wishkobun returned.

"Will she recover?" asked the Factor, distracted at the woman's
deliberate examination.

The latter smiled her indulgent, slow smile. "But surely," she
assured him in her own tongue, "it is no more than if she cut her
finger. In a few breaths she will recover. Now I will go to the
house of the Cockburn for a morsel of the sweet wood [camphor]
which she must smell." She looked her inquiry for permission.

"Sagaamig--go," assented Albret.

Relieved in mind, he dropped into a chair. His eye caught the
little silver match-safe, He picked it up and fell to staring at
the rudely carved letters.

He found that he was alone with his daughter--and the thoughts
aroused by the dozen letters of a man's name.

All his life long he had been a hard man. His commands had been
autocratic; his anger formidable; his punishments severe, and
sometimes cruel. The quality of mercy was with him tenuous and
weak. He knew this, and if he did not exactly glory in it, he was
at least indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others.
But always he had been just. The victims of his displeasure might
complain that his retributive measures were harsh, that his