er and the sinner, as many another has done. Lazenby's
morals were not bad, however. He was simply fond of making them appear
terrible; even when in London he was more idle than wicked. He gravely
suggested at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre should go out
on the pad together. This was a mere stroke of pleasantry on his part,
because, the most he could loot in that far North were furs and caches
of buffalo meat; and a man's capacity and use for them were limited.
Even Pierre's especial faculty and art seemed valueless so far
Polewards; but he had his beat throughout the land, and he kept it like
a perfect patrolman. He had not been at Fort Luke for years, and he
would not be there again for more years; but it was certain that he
would go on reappearing till he vanished utterly. At the end of the
first week of this visit at Fort Luke, so completely had he conquered
the place, that he had won from the Chief Factor the year's purchases
of skins, the stores, and the Fort itself; and every stitch of clothing
owned by Lazenby: so that, if he had insisted on the redemption of
the debts, the H. B. C. and Lazenby had been naked and hungry in
the wilderness. But Pierre was not a hard creditor. He instantly and
nonchalantly said that the Fort would be useless to him, and handed
it back again with all therein, on a most humorously constructed
ninety-nine years' lease; while Lazenby was left in pawn. Yet Lazenby's
mind was not at certain ease; he had a wholesome respect for Pierre's
singularities, and dreaded being suddenly called upon to pay his debt
before he could get his new clothes made, maybe, in the presence of Wind
Driver, chief of the Golden Dogs, and his demure and charming daughter,
Wine Face, who looked upon him with the eye of affection--a matter
fully, but not ostentatiously, appreciated by Lazenby. If he could
have entirely forgotten a pretty girl in South Kensington, who, at her
parents' bidding, turned her shoulder on him, he would have married
Wine Face; and so he told Pierre. But the half-breed had only a sardonic
sympathy for such weakness. Things changed at once when Shon McGann
arrived. He should have come before, according to a promise given
Pierre, but there were reasons for the delay; and these Shon elaborated
in his finely picturesque style.

He said that he had lost his way after he left the Wapiti Woods, and
should never have found it again, had it not been for a strange being
who came upon h