half Frenchman.
But there was the law, which had no sentiment. The recorder had sent an
agent north to investigate. If there were two sets of stakes there
could be but one verdict. Both claims would be thrown out, and then--

All knew what would happen, or thought that they knew. It would be a
magnificent race to see who could set out fresh stakes and return to
the recorder's office ahead of the other. It would be a fight of brawn
and brain, unless--and those few who knew the "inner story" spoke
softly among themselves.

An ox in strength, gigantic in build, with a face that for days had
worn a sneering smile of triumph, O'Grady was already picked as a
ten-to-one winner. He was a magnificent canoeman, no man in Porcupine
City could equal him for endurance, and for his bow paddle he had the
best Indian in the whole Reindeer Lake country. He stalked up and down
the one street of Porcupine City, treating to drinks, cracking rough
jokes, and offering wagers, while Jan Larose and his long-armed Cree
sat quietly in the shade of the recorder's office waiting for the final
moment to come.

There were a few of those who knew the "inner story" who saw something
besides resignation and despair in Jan's quiet aloofness, and in the
disconsolate droop of his head. His face turned a shade whiter when
O'Grady passed near, dropping insult and taunt, and looking sidewise at
him in a way that only HE could understand. But he made no retort,
though his dark eyes glowed with a fire that never quite died--unless
it was when, alone and unobserved, he took from his pocket a bit of
buckskin in which was a silken tress of curling brown hair. Then his
eyes shone with a light that was soft and luminous, and one seeing him
then would have known that it was not a dream of gold that filled his
heart, but of a brown-haired girl who had broken it.

On this day, the forenoon of the sixth since the agent had departed
into the north, the end of the tense period of waiting was expected.
Porcupine City had almost ceased to carry on the daily monotony of
business. A score were lounging about the recorder's office. Women
looked forth at frequent intervals through the open doors of the
"city's" cabins, or gathered in two and threes to discuss this biggest
sporting event ever known in the history of the town. Not a minute but
scores of anxious eyes were turned searchingly up the river, down which
the returning agent's canoe would first appear. With the dawn