that he lives somewhere in the country we are going through."

As he spoke, the Hudson Bay agent came in and walked over to Clarke.

"That was good stuff you gave me a dose of last night," he said to him.
"It cured my ague right off."

"It's a powerful drug," Clarke answered, "and must be used with
discretion. If you feel you need it, I'll give you another dose. It's
an Indian remedy; I learned the secret up in the timber belt, but I
Spent some time experimenting before I was satisfied about its
properties."

"Then you get on with Indians?"

"Yes," Clarke said shortly. "It isn't difficult when you grasp their
point of view. You ought to know something about that. On the whole,
the Hudson Bay people treat the Indians well; there was a starving lad
you picked up suffering from snow-blindness near Jack-pine River and
sent back safely to his tribe."

"That's so; but I don't know how you knew. I'm sure I haven't talked
about it, and my clerk has never left the factory. There wasn't
another white man within a week's Journey."

Clarke smiled.

"I heard, all the same. You afterward had some better furs than usual
brought in."

The agent looked surprised.

"Some of these people are grateful, but although I've been in the
country twelve years I don't pretend to understand them."

"They understand you. The proof of it is that you can keep your
factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce, and you have
had very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment."

Blake noticed something significant in Clarke's tone.

"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.

"Pretty well, though it's not easy to reach. I came down it one winter
from the Wild-goose hills. I'd put in the winter with a band of
Stonies."

"The Northern Stonies? Did you find them easy to get on with?"

"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered dryly. "I went
there to study."

"Ah!" said the agent. "What plain folk, for want of a better name,
call the occult. But it's fortunate that there's a barred door between
white men and the Indian's mysticism."

"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."

"Oh, yes! He stepped through into the darkness and never came out
again. There was an instance I could mention."

"Civilized people would have no use for him afterward," Harding broke
in. "We want sane, normal men on this continent. Neurotics, hoodoos
and fakirs are worse than the plague; there's con