r and Loneliness. The one destroyeth the body and the other
the brain. But Grah was not lonely, nor did he hunger. He blew his
bubbles, and muttered of a wind whereon a useless thing--a film of
water, a butterfly, or a fool--might ride beyond the reach of spirit,
or man, or heathen. His flesh remained the same, and grew not less; but
that of Pierre wasted, and his eye grew darker with suffering. For man
is only man, and hunger is a cruel thing. To give one's food to feed a
fool, and to search the silent plains in vain for any living thing to
kill, is a matter for angels to do and bear, and not mere mortals. But
this man had a strength of his own like to his code of living, which was
his own and not another's. And at last, when spring leaped gaily forth
from the grey cloak of winter, and men of the H. B. C. came to relieve
Fort o' God, and entered at its gates, a gaunt man, leaning on his
rifle, greeted them standing like a warrior, though his body was like
that of one who had lain in the grave. He answered to the name of Pierre
without pride, but like a man and not as a sick woman. And huddled
on the floor beside him was an idiot fondling a pipe, with a shred of
pemmican at his lips.

As if in irony of man's sacrifice, the All Hail and the Master of Things
permitted the fool to fulfil his own prophecy, and die of a sudden
sickness in the coming-on of summer. But he of God's Garrison that
remained repented not of his deed. Such men have no repentance, neither
of good nor evil.

A HAZARD OF THE NORTH

Nobody except Gregory Thorne and myself knows the history of the Man and
Woman, who lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog Ear River falls
into Marigold Lake. This portion of the Height of Land is a lonely
country. The sun marches over it distantly, and the man of the East--the
braggart--calls it outcast; but animals love it; and the shades of the
long-gone trapper and 'voyageur' saunter without mourning through its
fastnesses. When you are in doubt, trust God's dumb creatures--and the
happy dead who whisper pleasant promptings to us, and whose knowledge is
mighty. Besides, the Man and Woman lived there, and Gregory Thorne
says that they could recover a lost paradise. But Gregory Thorne is
an insolent youth. The names of these people were John and Audrey
Malbrouck; the Man was known to the makers of backwoods history as
Captain John. Gregory says about that--but no, not yet!--let his first
meeting with the Man