any distinct recognition of his Maker.

Once, in conversation with his youngest son and namesake Duncan junior,
he had somehow got upon this subject, not by any means in a reverential,
but in an argumentative, controversial spirit, and had expressed the
opinion that as man knew nothing whatever about God, and had no means of
finding out anything about Him, there was no need to trouble one's head
about Him at all.

"I just go about my work, Tuncan," he said, "an' leave preachin' an'
prayin' an' psalm-singin' to them that likes it. There's Elspie, now.
She believes in God, an' likes goin' to churches an' meetin's, an' that
seems to make her happy. Ferry goot--I don't pelieve in these things,
an' I think I'm as happy as hersel'."

"Humph!" grunted the son in a tone of unconcealed contempt; "if ye _are_
as happy as hersel', faither, yer looks give the lie to your condeetion,
_whatever_. An' there's this great dufference between you an' her, that
she's not only happy hersel', but she does her best to mak other folk
happy--but you, wi' your girnin' an' snappin', are always doin' the best
ye can to mak everybody aboot ye meeserable."

"Tuncan," retorted the sire, with solemn candour, "it iss the same
compliment I can return to yoursel' with interest, my boy--what_ever_."

With such sentiments, then, it is not remarkable that Duncan McKay
senior turned over to sleep as he best could without looking to a higher
source than earth afforded for help in his extremity. Happily his
daughter was actuated by a better spirit, and when she at last lay down
on her pile of brushwood, with her feet towards the fire, and her head
on a buffalo robe, the fact of her having previously committed herself
and her father to God made her sleep all the sounder.

In another clump of wood not many miles distant from the spot where the
father and daughter lay, two hunters were encamped. One was Duncan
McKay, to whom we have just referred as being in discord with his
father. The other was a Canadian named Henri Perrin.

Both men were gaunt and weakened by famine. They had just returned to
camp from an unsuccessful hunt, and the latter, being first to return,
had kindled the fire, and was about to put on the kettle when McKay came
in.

"I've seen nothing," remarked McKay as he flung down his gun and then
flung himself beside it. "Did you see anything?"

"No, nothing," answered Perrin, breaking off a piece of pemmican and
putting it into t