r tacked on the door, and I hardly recognised myself.

"'Good-day, Mr. Fawdor,' said the governor, handing me the map. 'There
is some brandy in your stores; be careful that none of your Indians
get it. If they try to desert, you know what to do.' With a gesture of
dismissal he turned, and began to speak with the chief trader.

"For me, I went from that room like a man condemned to die. Fort Ungava
in Labrador,--a thousand miles away, over a barren, savage country, and
in winter too; for it would be winter there immediately! It was an exile
to Siberia, and far worse than Siberia; for there are many there to
share the fellowship of misery, and I was likely to be the only white
man at Fort Ungava. As I passed from the door of the Post the words of
Shakespeare which had brought all this about sang in my ears." He ceased
speaking, and sank back wearily among the skins of his couch. Out of the
enveloping silence Pierre's voice came softly:

"Thou shalt judge with the minds of twelve men, and the heart of one
woman."

II

"The journey to the village of Pont Croix was that of a man walking over
graves. Every step sent a pang to my heart,--a boy of twenty-one, grown
old in a moment. It was not that I had gone a little lame from a hurt
got on the expedition with the governor, but my whole life seemed
suddenly lamed. Why did I go? Ah, you do not know how discipline gets
into a man's bones, the pride, the indignant pride of obedience! At that
hour I swore that I should myself be the governor of that Company one
day,--the boast of loud-hearted youth. I had angry visions, I dreamed
absurd dreams, but I did not think of disobeying. It was an unheard-of
journey at such a time, but I swore that I would do it, that it should
go into the records of the Company.

"I reached the village, found the Indians, and at once moved on to the
settlement where we were to stay that night. Then my knee began to pain
me. I feared inflammation; so in the dead of night I walked back to the
village, roused a trader of the Company, got some liniment and other
trifles, and arrived again at St. Saviour's before dawn. My few clothes
and necessaries came in the course of the morning, and by noon we were
fairly started on the path to exile.

"I remember that we came to a lofty point on the St. Lawrence just
before we plunged into the woods, to see the great stream no more. I
stood and looked back up the river towards the point where Lachine lay.
All