energy always primitive and sometimes savage. But
he held her entire respect. It was not pleasant to admit this. Her
mind clung to the shadowy excuse that he had been a wolfer, although
the Indians looked on him now as a good friend and a trader who would
not take advantage of them. Angus McRae himself had said there was no
better citizen in the Northland.

No, she could not hold Tom Morse in contempt as she would have liked.
But she could cherish her animosity and feed it on memories that
scorched her as the whiplash had her smooth and tender flesh. She
would never forgive him--never. Not if he humbled himself in the dust.

Toward Angus McRae she held no grudge whatever. He had done only his
duty as he saw it. The circumstances had forced his hand, for her word
had pledged him to punishment. But this man who had walked into her
life so roughly, mastered her by physical force, dragged her to
the ignominy of the whip, and afterward had dared to do her a
service--when she woke at night and thought of him she still burned
with shame and anger. He had been both author and witness of her
humiliation.

The girl's reverie stirred reflection of other men, for already she
had suitors in plenty. Upon one of them her musing lingered. He had
brought to her gifts of the friendly smile, of comradeship, of youth's
debonair give-and-take. She did not try to analyze her feeling for
Winthrop Beresford. It was enough to know that he had brought into her
existence the sparkle of joy.

For life had stalked before her with an altogether too tragic mien.
In this somber land men did not laugh much. Their smiles held a
background of gravity. Icy winter reigned two thirds of the year and
summer was a brief hot blaze following no spring. Nature demanded of
those who lived here that they struggle to find subsistence. In that
conflict human beings forgot that they had been brought into the world
to enjoy it with careless rapture.

Somewhere in the house a board, creaked. Jessie heard it
inattentively, for in the bitter cold woodwork was always snapping and
cracking.

Beresford had offered her a new philosophy of life. She did not quite
accept it, yet it fascinated. He believed that the duty of happiness
was laid on people as certainly as the duty of honesty. She remembered
that once he had said....

There had come to her no sound, but Jessie knew that some one had
opened the door and was standing on the threshold watching her. She
turned