een removed, and
passed on to the finding of the remains by the big boulder in the
marsh, Mrs. Gray interrupting now and again to ask a fuller
explanation here and there.

When Ed told of gathering up the fragments of torn clothing, she asked
to see them at once. Ed hesitated, and Douglas suggested that she wait
until a later time when her nerves were steadier; but she was
determined, and insisted upon seeing them without delay, and there was
nothing to do but produce them. Contrary to their expectations, she
made no scene when they were placed before her, and though her hand
trembled a little was quite collected as she took up the blood-stained
pieces of cloth and examined them critically one by one. Finally she
raised her head and announced:

"None o' _them_ were ever a part o' Bob's clothes."

"Whose now may un be if not Bob's?" asked Ed, sceptical of her
decision.

"None of un were _Bob's_. I were makin' all o' Bob's clothes,
an'--I--_knows_: I _knows_," she insisted.

"But th' flat sled were Bob's, an' th' tent an' other things," said
Ed.

"Th' _clothes_ were not Bob's--an' Bob were not killed by wolves--my
lad is livin'--somewheres--I _feels_ my lad is livin'," she asserted.

Then Ed told of the two axes found--one on the toboggan and the other
on the snow--and Mrs. Gray raised another question.

"Why," she asked, "had he two axes?"

It was explained that he had probably taken one in on a previous trip
and cached it. But she argued that if he needed an axe going in on the
previous trip he must have needed it coming out too, and it was not
likely that he would have cached it. Besides, she was quite sure that
he had but one axe with him in the bush, as there was no extra axe for
him to take when he was leaving home; and Douglas said that when he
left the trail at the close of the previous season he had left no axe
in any of the tilts.

"Richard 'll know un when he comes," said she. "Richard'll know Bob's
axe."

The mother was still more positive now that the remains they had found
were not Bob's remains, and Ed and Douglas, though equally positive
that she was mistaken, let her hold the hope--or rather belief--that
Bob still lived. She asserted that he was alive as one states a fact
that one knows is beyond question. The circumstantial evidence against
her theory was strong, but a woman's intuition stands not for reason,
and her conclusions she will hold against the world.

"I must be takin' th' wor