have a
picture in it of the great scoundrel Judas as he went to hang himself.
Judas was a fool--what was thirty dollars!--you give me hunder' to take
you to the Barren Grounds. Pah!"

The half-breed chuckled, shook his head sagely, swore half-way through
his vocabulary at Whiskey Wine, gratefully received a pipe of tobacco
from Shon M'Gann, and continued: "He come in on us slow and still, and
push out long thin hands, the fingers bent like claws, towards the pot.
He was starving. Yes, it was so; but I nearly laugh. It was spring--a
man is a fool to starve in the spring. But he was differen'. There was
a cause. The factor give him soup from the pot and a little rum. He was
mad for meat, but that would have kill him--yes. He did not look at you
like a man.

"When you are starving, you are an animal. But there was something more
with this.--He made the flesh creep, he was so thin, and strange, and
sulky--eh, is that a word when the face looks dark and never smiles? So.
He would not talk. When we ask him where he come from, he points to the
north; when we ask him where he is going, he shake his head as he not
know. A man is mad not to know where he travel to up here; something
comes quick to him unless, and it is not good to die too soon. The
trader said, 'Come with us.' He shake his head, No. 'P'r'aps you want to
stay here,' said Ridley loud, showing his teeth all in a minute. He nod.
Then the trader laugh thick in his throat and give him more soup. After,
he try to make the man talk; but he was stubborn like that dirty Whiskey
Wine--ah, sacre bleu!"

Whiskey Wine had his usual portion of whip and anathema before Jacques
again took up the thread. "It was no use. He would not talk. When the
trader get angry once more, he turned to me, and the look in his face
make me sorry. I swore--Ridley did not mind that, I was thick friends
with him. I say, 'Keep still. It is no good. He has had bad times. He
has been lost, and seen mad things. He will never be again like when God
make him.' Very well, I spoke true. He was like a sun dog."

"What's that ye say, Parfaite?" said Shon--"a sun dog?"

Sir Duke Lawless, puzzled, listened eagerly for the reply.

The half-breed in delight ran before them, cracking his whip and
jingling the bells at his knees. "Ah, that's it! It is a name we have
for some. You do not know? It is easy. In the high-up country"--pointing
north"--you see sometimes many suns. But it is not many after all;
it i