ld are you speaking about, Mrs Davidson?" he asked
carelessly.

"Mrs Perrin's," she replied, with a familiar nod to the visitor, who
often dropped in on them casually in this way.

The reply was so unexpected and sudden, that McKay could not avoid a
slight start and a peculiar expression, in spite of his usual
self-command. He glanced quickly at Dan and Peter, but they were busy
with their food, and had apparently not noticed the guilty signs.

"Ah, poor thing," returned the youth, in his cynical and somewhat nasal
tone, "it _iss_ hard on her. By the way, Dan, hev ye heard that the
wolves hev killed two or three of McDermid's horses that had strayed out
on the plains, and Elspie's mare Vixen iss out too. Some of us will be
going to seek for her. The day bein' warm an' the snow soft, we hev a
good chance of killin' some o' the wolves. I thought Peter might like
to go too."

"So Peter does," said the youth, rising and brushing the crumbs off his
knees: "there's nothing I like better than to hunt down these sneaking,
murderous brutes that are so ready to spring suddenly unawares on friend
or foe."

Again Duncan McKay cast a quick inquiring glance at Peter, but the lad
was evidently innocent of any double meaning. It was only a movement,
within the man-slayer, of that conscience which "makes cowards of us
all."

"Louise!" shouted Dan, as he also rose from the table.

"Oui, monsieur," came, in polite deferential tones, from the culinary
department, and the little half-breed maiden appeared at the door.

"Did you mend that shot-bag last night?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"Fetch it here, then, please; and, Jessie, stir your stumps like a good
girl, and get some food ready to take with us."

"Will you tell me the precise way in which good girls stir their
stumps?" asked Jessie; "for I'm not quite sure."

Dan answered with a laugh, and went out to saddle his horse, followed by
his brother and Duncan McKay.

"Rescuing seems to be the order of the day this year," remarked Peter,
as they walked towards the stable behind the cottage. "We've had a good
deal of rescuing men in the winter, and now we are goin' to rescue
horses."

"Rescuing is the grandest work that a fellow can undertake," said Dan,
"whether it be the body from death or the soul from sin."

"What you say iss true--whatever," remarked McKay, whose speech,
although not so broad as that of his father, was tinged with similar
characteristics. "It will b