her into the clutches of
Lapierre? And had the man set about deliberately to use her school as
an excuse for the establishment of a trading-post within easy reach of
his Indians? MacNair was inclined to believe so--and the matter caused
him grave concern. He foresaw trouble ahead, and a trouble that might
easily involve the girl who, he felt, was entirely innocent of
wrongdoing.

His jaw clamped hard as he swung on and on through the scrub. He had
no particular objective, a problem faced him and, where other men would
have sat down to work its solution, he walked.

In many things was Bob MacNair different from other men. Just and
stern beyond his years, with a sternness that was firmness rather than
severity; slow to anger, but once his anger was fairly aroused terrible
in meting out his vengeance. Yet, withal, possessed of an
understanding and a depth of sympathy, entirely unsuspected by himself,
but which enshrined him in the hearts of his Indians, who, in all the
world were the men and women who knew him.

Even his own father had not understood this son, who devoured books as
ravenously as his dogs devoured salmon. Again and again he
remonstrated with him for wasting his time when he might be working for
the company. Always the younger man listened respectfully, and
continued to read his books and to search for the lost mines with a
determination and singleness of purpose that aroused the secret
approbation of the old Scotchman, and the covert sneers and scoffings
of others.

And then, after four years of fruitless search, at the base of a ridge
that skirted the shore of an unmapped lake, he uncovered the mouth of
an ancient tunnel with rough-hewn sides and a floor that sloped from
the entrance. Imbedded in the slime on the bottom of a pool of
stinking water, he found curious implements, rudely chipped from flint
and slate, and a few of bone and walrus ivory. Odd-shaped,
half-finished tools of hammered copper were strewn about the floor, and
the walls were thickly coated with verdigris. Instead of the sharp
ring of steel on stone, a dull thud followed the stroke of his pick,
and its scars glowed with a red lustre in the flare of the smoking
torches.

Old Elk and Wee Johnnie Tamarack looked on in stolid silence, while the
young man, with wildly beating heart, crammed a pack-sack with samples.
He had found the ancient mine--the lost mine of the Indians, which men
said existed only in the fancy of Bob