ng station and
the lighthouse, the point ran out in shingle, bone white, outcropping
above the water; then for miles away the shallow water was treacherous
green and white to where at the north, around the bend of the shore, it
deepened and grew blue again, and a single white tower--Ile-aux-Galets
Light--kept watch above it.

This was Uncle Benny's country. Here, twenty-five years before, he had
first met Henry, whose birthplace--a farm, deserted now--was only a few
miles back among the hills. Here, before that, Uncle Benny had been a
young man, active, vigorous, ambitious. He had loved this country for
itself and for its traditions, its Indian legends and fantastic
stories. Half her own love for it--and, since her childhood, it had
been to her a region of delight--was due to him and to the things he
had told her about it. Distinct and definite memories of that
companionship came to her. This little bay, which had become now for
the most part only a summer playground for such as she, had been once a
place where he and other men had struggled to grow rich swiftly; he had
outlined for her the ruined lumber docks and pointed out to her the
locations of the dismantled sawmills. It was he who had told her the
names of the freighters passing far out, and the names of the
lighthouses, and something about each. He had told her too about the
Indians. She remembered one starry night when he had pointed out to
her in the sky the Indian "Way of Ghosts," the Milky Way, along which,
by ancient Indian belief, the souls of Indians traveled up to heaven;
and how, later, lying on the recessed seat beside the fireplace where
she could touch the dogs upon the hearth, he had pointed out to her
through the window the Indian "Way of Dogs" among the constellations,
by which the dogs too could make that journey. It was he who had told
her about Michabou and the animals; and he had been the first to tell
her of the Drum.

The disgrace, unhappiness, the threat of something worse, which must
have made death a relief to Uncle Benny, she had seen passed on now to
Alan. What more had come to Alan since she had last heard of him?
Some terrible substance to his fancies which would assail him again as
she had seen him assailed after Luke had come? Might another attack
have been made upon him similar to that which he had met in Chicago?

Word had reached her father through shipping circles in May and again
in July which told of inquiries r