which perhaps remained unacknowledged by
either. But nevertheless they were as surely a part of the lure as the
chase itself, with all its elemental attraction.

They had restored just as much of the old factor's house as they
needed for their simple wants. Two rooms were all they occupied, two
rooms as simple and plain as their own lives. Buck had added a new
roof of logs and clay plaster. He had set up two stretchers with
straw-stuffed paillasses for beds. He had manufactured a powerful
table, and set it upon legs cut from pine saplings. To this he had
added the removal of a cook-stove and two chairs, and their own
personal wardrobe from the farm, and so the place was complete. Yet
not quite. There was an arm rack upon the wall of the living-room, an
arm rack that had at one time doubtless supported the old flintlocks
of the early fur hunters. This he had restored, and laden it with
their own armory and the spare traps of their craft; while their only
luxury was the fastening up beside the doorway of a frameless
looking-glass for shaving purposes.

They required a place to sleep in, a place in which to store their
produce, a place in which to break their fast and eat their meal at
dusk. Here it lay, ready to their hand, affording them just these
simple necessities, and so they adopted it.

But the new life troubled the Padre in moments when he allowed himself
to dwell upon the younger man's future. He had offered him his
release, at the time he had parted with the farm, from a sense of
simple duty. It would have been a sore blow to him had Buck accepted,
yet he would have submitted readily, even gladly, for he felt that
with the passing of the farm out of their hands he had far more
certainly robbed Buck of all provision for his future than he had
deprived himself, who was the actual owner. He felt that in seeking to
help the little starving colony he had done it, in reality, at Buck's
expense.

Something of this was in his mind as he pushed away from their frugal
breakfast-table. He stood in the doorway filling his pipe, while Buck
cleared the tin plates and pannikins and plunged them into the boiler
of hot water on the stove.

He leant his stalwart shoulders against the door casing, and stared
out at the wooded valley which crossed the front of the house. Beyond
it, over the opposite rise, he could see the dim outline of the crest
of Devil's Hill several miles away.

He felt that by rights Buck should be th