id. "Was ever such another letter written
to any man? And it came too late; this, with the king's recall, came too
late!"

"So--so. He died out there where that wild duck flies--a Great Slave.
Years after, the Company's man brought word of all."

Tybalt was looking at the name on the outside of the letter.

"How do they call that name?" asked Pierre. "It is like none I've
seen--no."

Tybalt shook his head sorrowfully, and did not answer.

THE RED PATROL

St. Augustine's, Canterbury, had given him its licentiate's hood, the
Bishop of Rupert's Land had ordained him, and the North had swallowed
him up. He had gone forth with surplice, stole, hood, a sermon-case, the
prayer-book, and that other Book of all. Indian camps, trappers' huts,
and Company's posts had given him hospitality, and had heard him with
patience and consideration. At first he wore the surplice, stole, and
hood, took the eastward position, and intoned the service, and no man
said him nay, but watched him curiously and was sorrowful--he was so
youthful, clear of eye, and bent on doing heroical things.

But little by little there came a change. The hood was left behind at
Fort O'Glory, where it provoked the derision of the Methodist missionary
who followed him; the sermon-case stayed at Fort O'Battle; and at last
the surplice itself was put by at the Company's post at Yellow Quill.
He was too excited and in earnest at first to see the effect of his
ministrations, but there came slowly over him the knowledge that he was
talking into space. He felt something returning on him out of the air
into which he talked, and buffeting him. It was the Spirit of the North,
in which lives the terror, the large heart of things, the soul of the
past. He awoke to his inadequacy, to the fact that all these men to
whom he talked, listened, and only listened, and treated him with a
gentleness which was almost pity--as one might a woman. He had talked
doctrine, the Church, the sacraments, and at Fort O'Battle he
faced definitely the futility of his work. What was to blame--the
Church--religion--himself?

It was at Fort O'Battle that he met Pierre, and heard a voice say over
his shoulder, as he walked out into the icy dusk: "The voice of one
crying in the wilderness... and he had sackcloth about his loins, and
his food was locusts and wild honey."

He turned to see Pierre, who in the large room of the Post had sat and
watched him as he prayed and preached. He had