o something for me. A day's journey or so further
on you will find a camp, it is the camp of a great man of the
Company----"

"I know it," interrupted the half-breed, "I haf seen it."

"Of course, I had forgotten you had been in the neighbourhood of it!
Well, I want you to go there as fast as you can and to take a note for
me. There will be a reward."

"I will take zee note."

"Then you must wait whilst I write it."

Seating himself upon a fallen tree he scribbled a hasty note to Sir
James Yardely, telling him that he had news of Helen and that he hoped
very shortly to return to camp with her, and having addressed it gave
it to the half-breed.

"There is need for haste," he said. "I will reward you now, and the
great man whose niece the girl is, will reward you further when you
take the news of her that is in the letter. But you will remember not
to talk. I should say nothing about what you saw up the river a few
days back. Sir James is a suspicious man and he might think that you
fired those shots yourself--in which case----" He shrugged his
shoulders, then taking out a ten-dollar note, handed it to the
half-breed, whose eyes gleamed as he took it. "Now," he continued,
"shoulder your canoe, and come along to the river. I should like to see
you start. I'll carry your gun, and that sack of yours."

He took the half-breed's gun, picked up the beans, and in single file
they marched through the wood back to where the Indian sat patiently
waiting. On their appearance he looked round, and as his eyes fell on
the half-breed's face a momentary flash came into them, and then as it
passed he continued to look at the new-comer curiously.

Ainley rapidly explained the situation and the Indian listened without
comment. He waited until the half-breed was actually afloat and out of
earshot, and then he spoke.

"Bad man!" he said. "No good. Heem liar. I have seen heem b'fore."

"Maybe," answered Ainley lightly. "So much the better--for one thing!
But there's no reason why he should lie about this matter, and I think
he was telling the truth about that meeting up the other river. We'll
follow the trail anyway; and we will start at once. Will the portage or
the river be the better way?"

"Portage," said the Indian, following the half-breed with his eyes.

"Then we had better get going. We've no time to lose, and you needn't
worry yourself about that fellow. He'll do what I've asked him, for the
sake of himself. He can have