the good that might accrue. His blank ignorance
of the salient points of human contact, of why men work and play, why
they love and fight and marry and bend all their energies along certain
given lines until they grow old and gray and in the end cease to be,
only served to bewilder him. His association with Tommy Ashe and with
Carr and Carr's daughter--especially with Carr's daughter--further
accentuated the questioning uncertainty of his mind.

But that was all--merely an uncertainty which he tried to dissipate by
prayer and stern repression of smoldering doubts. At the same time while
he decried and resented their outspoken valuation of material
considerations he found himself constantly subject to those material
factors of daily living.

The first of these was food. When Mr. Thompson outfitted himself for
that spiritual invasion of Lone Moose he brought in four months'
supplies. He discovered now that his supply of certain articles was not
so adequate as he had been told it would be. Also he had learned from
Carr and Lachlan that if a man wintered at Lone Moose it was well to
bring in a winter's grub before the freeze-up--the canoe being a far
easier mode of transport than a dog-team and sled.

So Thompson stopped his building activities long enough to make a trip
to Pachugan. He got Lachlan's oldest son to go with him. His quarterly
salary was due, and he had a rather reluctant report of his work to
make. With the money he would be able to replenish his stock of sugar
and tea and dried fruit and flour. He decided too that he would have to
buy a gun and learn to use it as the source of his meat supply.

His sublime confidence in the organization which had sent him there
suffered a decided shock when he reached Fort Pachugan, and found no
remittance awaiting him. There was a letter from the Board secretary
breathing exhortations which sounded rather hollow in conjunction with
the absence of funds. Mr. Thompson, for the first time in his career,
found himself badly in need of money, irritated beyond measure by its
lack, painfully cognizant of its value. But he was too diffident to
suggest a credit on the strength of the cheque which, upon reflection,
he decided was merely delayed in the more or less uncertain mails. He
could make shift with what he had for another month. Nor did he mention
this slight difficulty to MacLeod.

That gentleman had greeted him heartily enough.

"Man, but ye look as if the country agre