till warm. Ugh! And she looked in! And she
says she heard something that was no louder than the peep of a bird.
Into that death-hole she went--and brought out a baby. The parents,
starving and half crazed after their sickness, had left it--thinking it
was dead.

"Josephine brought it to a cabin close to home, in two weeks she had
that kid out rolling in the snow. Then the mother and father heard
something of what had happened, and came to us as fast as their legs
could bring them. You should have seen that Indian mother's gratitude!
She didn't think it so terrible to leave the baby unburied. She thought
it was dead. Pasoo is the Indian father's name. Several times a year
they come to see Josephine, and Pasoo brings her the choicest furs of
his trap-line. And each time he says: 'Nipa tu mo-wao,' which means
that some day he hopes to be able to kill for her. Nice, isn't it--to
have friends who'll murder your enemies for you if you just give 'em
the word?"

"One never can tell," began Philip cautiously. "A time might come when
she would need friends. If such a day should happen--"

He paused, busying himself with his steak. There was a note of triumph,
of exultation, in Adare's low laugh.

"Have you ever seen a fire run through a pitch-dry forest?" he asked.
"That is the way word that Josephine wanted friends would sweep through
a thousand square miles of this Northland. And the answer to it would
be like the answer of stray wolves to the cry of the hunt-pack!"

All over Philip there surged a warm glow.

"You could not have friends like that down there, in the cities," he
said.

Adare's face clouded.

"I am not a pessimist," he answered, after a moment. "It has been one
of my few Commandments always to look for the bright spot, if there is
one. But, down there, I have seen so many wolves, human wolves. It
seems strange to me that so many people should have the same mad desire
for the dollar that the wolves of the forest have for warm, red,
quivering flesh. I have known a wolf-pack to kill five times what it
could eat in a night, and kill again the next night, and still the
next--always more than enough. They are like the Dollar Hunters--only
beasts. Among such, one cannot have solid friends--not very many who
will not sell you for a price. I was afraid to trust Josephine down
among them. I am glad that it was you she met, Philip. You were of the
North--a foster-child, if not born there."

That day was one of gl