other,
but all of them were very different from the ordinary scalping-knives
supplied by the fur-traders to the half-breeds and Indians.

"I see no name on it--no mark," said the woman who found it, after a
critical inspection. Her companion examined it with equal care and
similar result.

The two women had at first intended to encamp at this spot, but now they
determined to push forward to the Settlement as fast as their exhausted
condition permitted, carrying the knife, with the coat and gun of the
murdered man, along with them.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SAVED.

Duncan McKay senior was dreaming of, and gloating over, the flesh-pots
of Red River, and his amiable daughter was rambling over the green
carpet of the summer prairies, when the sun arose and shone upon the
bushes which surrounded their winter camp--Starvation Camp, as the old
man had styled it.

There is no saying how long Duncan would have gloated, and the fair
Elspie wandered, if a hair of the buffalo robe on which the former lay
had not entered his nostril, and caused him to sneeze.

Old McKay's sneeze was something to be remembered when once heard.
Indeed it was something that could not be forgotten! From the
profoundest depths of his person it seemed to burst, and how his nose
sustained the strain without splitting has remained one of the mysteries
of the Nor'-West unto this day. It acted like an electric shock on
Elspie, who sat bolt upright at once with a scared look that was quite
in keeping with her tousled hair.

"Oh! daddy, what a fright you gave me!" Elspie said, remonstratively.

"It iss goot seventeen years an' more that you hev had to get used to
it, whatever," growled the old man. "I suppose we've got nothin' for
breakfast?"

He raised himself slowly, and gazed at Elspie with a disconsolate
expression.

"Nothing," returned the girl with a look of profound woe.

It is said that when things are at the worst they are sure to mend. It
may be so: the sayings of man are sometimes true. Whether or not the
circumstances of Elspie and old McKay were at the worst is an open
question; but there can be no doubt that they began to mend just about
that time, for the girl had not quite got rid of her disconsolate
feelings when the faint but merry tinkle of sleigh-bells was heard in
the frosty air.

The startled look of sudden surprise and profound attention is
interesting to behold, whether in old or young. It is a condition of
being tha