lves on the black
trail that wound up the Red River of the North and reached the
straggling hamlet of Winnipeg.

There, in one of Winnipeg's homes, they found generous welcome
and a maiden, guarded by a stern old timer for a father and four
stalwart plain-riding brothers, but guarded all in vain, for
laughing at all such guarding, the two brothers with the hot
selfishness of young love, each unaware of the other's intent,
sought to rifle that house of its chief treasure.

To Herbert, the younger, that ardent pirate of her heart, the
maiden struck her flaming flag, and on the same night, with fearful
dismay, she sought pardon of the elder brother that she could not
yield him like surrender. With pale appealing face and kind blue
eyes, she sought forgiveness for her poverty.

"Oh, Mr. French," she cried, "if I only could! But I cannot give
you what is Herbert's now."

"Herbert!" gasped Jack with parched lips.

"And oh, Jack," she cried again with sweet selfishness,
"you will love Herbert still, and me?"

And Jack, having had a moment in which to summon up the reserves
of his courage and his command, smiled into her appealing eyes,
kissed her pale face, and still smiling, took his way, unseeing
and unheeding all but those appealing, tearful eyes and that
pleading voice asking with sweet selfishness only his life.

Three months he roamed the plains alone, finding at length one sunny
day, Night Hawk Lake, whose fair and lonely wildness seemed to suit
his mood, and there he pitched his camp. Thence back to Winnipeg a
month later to his brother's wedding, and that over, still smiling,
to take his way again to Night Hawk Lake, where ever since he spent
his life.

He passed his days at first in building house and stables from the
poplar bluffs at hand, and later in growing with little toil from
the rich black land and taking from prairie, lake and creek with
rifle and with net, what was necessary for himself and his man,
the Scotch half-breed Mackenzie, all the while forgetting till he
could forget no longer, and then with Mackenzie drinking deep and
long till remembering and forgetting were the same.

After five years he returned to Winnipeg to stand by her side whose
image lived ever in his heart, while they closed down the coffin
lid upon the face dearest to her, dearest but one to him of all
faces in the world. Then when he had comforted her with what
comfort he had to give, he set face again toward Night Hawk L