ow who she is?" asked Mrs. Kilrea, a severe looking and
angular woman.

"Sure, heem gal is friend o' Hugo," answered the Frenchman, simply.
"Mebbe you better no go to-day. Hugo heem seek. I got to 'urry, so
good-by."

He lashed his dogs on again, while Pat cracked his whip and the party
went on. Mrs. Kilrea was looking rather horrified, thought Sophy
McGurn. Her turn was coming at last. There would be a scene that would
repay her for her trouble, she gleefully decided.

As they went on at a steady pace, over a road which none but horses
inured to lumbering could have followed without breaking a leg or
getting hopelessly stalled in deep snow, Philippe hurried over to the
station and got Joe Follansbee to send a telegram. The young man would
have given a good deal to have made one of the party but his official
duties detained him.

"Who wants a doctor?" he asked, curiously.

"Hugo," answered Papineau, impatiently. "You don't h'ask so moch
question, you fellar. Jus' telegraph quick now an' h'ask for answer
ven dat _docteur_ he come, you 'ear me?"

Joe looked at the Frenchman, intending to resent his sharp orders, but
thought better of it. The small, square-built, wide-shouldered man was
not one to be trifled with. He was known as a calm, cool sort of a
chap with little sense of humor, and the youth reflected that, in this
neck of the woods, it was best not to trifle with men who were apt to
end a quarrel by fighting over an acre of ground and mauling one
another until one or both parties were utterly unrecognizable, even to
their best friends.

"Come back in about an hour and I expect I'll have an answer," he told
the Frenchman, quite meekly.

The latter went into McGurn's store and purchased some tobacco and a
few needed groceries. Suddenly he bethought himself of Stefan.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed. "Heem ought know right avay, sure."

He drove his team around to Stefan's smithy but failed to find him. At
the house Mrs. Olsen told him that her husband had gone out a half an
hour ago. He would probably be at Olaf Jonson's, at the other end of
the village. Thither drove Philippe and found his man.

"'Ello, Stefan, want for see you right avay," said the trapper. "Come
'long!"

The Swede hastened to him.

"Vat it iss, Philippe?" he asked, eyeing the dogs expertly. "Py de
looks off tem togs I tink you ban in some hurry, no?"

"Uh huh! I come to telegraph for de _docteur_. Hugo heem 'urted
h'awful bad. Look