ildren. All this the girl learned through her interpreter,
LeFroy; and not a few of these Indians remained to take up their abode
in dormitories or cabins, until the little settlement boasted some
thirty or forty colonists.

It was hard, discouraging work, this striving to implant the rudiments
of education in the minds of the sullen, apathetic savages, whose chief
ambition was to gorge themselves into stupidity with food from the
storehouse. With the adults the case seemed hopeless. And, indeed,
the girl attempted little beyond instruction in the simplest principles
of personal and domestic cleanliness and order. Even this met with no
response, until she established a daily inspection, and it became known
that the filthy should also go hungry.

With the children, Chloe made some slight headway, but only at the
expense of unceasing, monotonous repetition, and even she was forced to
admit that the results were far from encouraging. The little savages
had no slightest conception of any pride or interest in their daily
tasks, but followed unvaryingly the line of least resistance as
delineated by a simple system of rewards and punishments.

The men had shown no aptitude for work of any kind, and now when the
ice skimmed thinly the edges of the lake and rivers, they collected
their traps and disappeared into the timber, cheerfully leaving the
women and children to be fed and cared for at the school. As the days
shortened and the nights grew longer, the girl realized, with
bitterness in her heart, that almost the only thing she had
accomplished along educational lines was the imperfect smattering of
the Indian tongue that she herself had acquired.

But her chiefest anxiety was a more material one, and Lapierre's
appearance with the supplies became a matter of the gravest importance,
for upon their departure the trappers had drawn heavily upon the
slender remaining stores, with a result that the little colony on the
Yellow Knife was already reduced to half rations, and was entirely
dependent upon the scows for the winter's supply of provisions.

Not since the night of the battle had Chloe heard directly from
MacNair. He had not visited the school, nor had he expressed a word of
regret or apology for the outrage. He ignored her existence
completely, and the girl guessed that many of the Indians who refused
her invitation to camp in the clearing, as they passed and repassed
upon the river, did so in obedience to Mac