ellously varied merchandise,
he found that Macmillan had long since taken the trail and was by
this time miles on his journey toward Edmonton. The boy was lonely
and sick at heart. Macmillan had been a friend to him, and had
constituted the last link that held him to the life he had left
behind in the city. It was to Macmillan that the little white-faced
lady who was to the boy the symbol of all that was high and holy
in character, had entrusted him for safe deliverance to her brother
Jack French. Kalman had spent an unhappy night, his sleep being
broken by the recurring vision of the fierce and bloated face of
the man who had cursed him and threatened him on the previous
evening. The boy had not yet recovered from the horror and surprise
of his discovery that this drunken and brutalized creature was the
noble-hearted brother into whose keeping his friend and benefactress
had given him. That a man should drink himself drunk was nothing to
his discredit in Kalman's eyes, but that Mrs. French's brother, the
loved and honoured gentleman whom she had taught him to regard as
the ideal of all manly excellence, should turn out to be this
bloated and foul-mouthed bully, shocked him inexpressibly. From
these depressing thoughts he was aroused by a cheery voice.

"Hello! my boy, had breakfast?"

He turned quickly and beheld a tall, strongly made and handsome
man of middle age, clean shaven, neatly groomed, and with a fine
open cheery face.

"No, sir," he stammered, with unusual politeness in his tone,
and staring with all his eyes.

It was Jack French who addressed him, but this handsome, kindly,
well groomed man was so different from the man who had reeled over
him and poured forth upon him his abusive profanity the night before,
that his mind refused to associate the one with the other.

"Well, boy," said Jack French, "you must be hungry. Jimmy, anything
left for the boy?"

"Lots, Jack," said Jimmy eagerly, as if relieved to see him clothed
again and in his right mind. "The very best. Here, boy, set in here."
He opened a door which led into a side room where the remains of
breakfast were disclosed upon the table. "Bacon and eggs, my boy,
eggs! mind you, and Hudson's Bay biscuit and black strap. How's that?"

The boy, still lost in wonder, fell to with a great access of good
cheer, and made a hearty meal, while outside he could hear Jack
French's clear, cheery, commanding voice directing the packing of
his buckboard.