ig
Lena, advanced boldly toward him. MacNair's jaw closed with a snap as
the girl approached smiling. For in the smile was no hint of
friendliness--only defiance, not unmingled with contempt.

"You see, Mr. Brute MacNair," she said, "I have kept my word. I told
you I would invade your kingdom--and here I am."

MacNair did not reply, but stood leaning upon his rifle. His attitude
angered her.

"Well," she said, "what are you going to do about it?" Still the man
did not answer, and, stooping, plucked a tiny weed from among the
blades of grass. The girl's eyes followed his movements. She started
and looked searchingly into his face. For the first time she noticed
that the mound was a grave.

CHAPTER X

AN INTERVIEW

"Oh, forgive me!" Chloe cried, "I--I did not know that I was intruding
upon--sacred ground!" There was real concern in her voice, and the
lines of Bob MacNair's face softened.

"It is no matter," he said. "She who sleeps here will not be
disturbed."

The unlooked for gentleness of the man's tone, the simple dignity of
his words, went straight to Chloe Elliston's heart. She felt suddenly
ashamed of her air of flippant defiance, felt mean, and small, and
self-conscious. She forgot for the moment that this big, quiet man who
stood before her was rough, even boorish in his manner, and that he was
the oppressor and debaucher of Indians.

"A--a woman's grave?" faltered the girl.

"My mother's."

"Did _she_ live here, on Snare Lake?" Chloe asked in surprise, as her
glance swept the barren cliffs of its shore.

MacNair answered with the same softness of tone that somehow dispelled
all thought of his uncouthness. "No. She lived at Fort Norman, over
on the Mackenzie--that is, she died there. Her home, I think, was in
the Southland. My father used to tell me how she feared the
North---its snows and bitter cold, its roaring, foaming rivers, its
wild, fierce storms, and its wind-lashed lakes. She hated its rugged
cliffs and hills, its treeless barrens and its mean, scrubby timber.
She loved the warm, long summers, and the cities and people, and--" he
paused, knitting his brows--"and whatever there is to love in your land
of civilization. But she loved my father more than these--more than
she feared the North. My father was the factor at Fort Norman, so she
stayed in the North--and the North killed her. To live in the North,
one must love the North. She died calling for the green g