ther a
bad one, and balsam is good for healing."

"But where did you get it?"

"From I forget how many trees. There are quite a number of them
hereabouts."

"I didn't know you knew so much of wood lore," he said smilingly.

"I don't," she retorted, quickly. "I am very ignorant of the things
that really matter up here. I suppose that balsam would have been the
very first thing an Indian girl would have thought of, and would have
searched for and applied at once, but I only thought of it this
morning. You see one of my uncle's men had a little accident, and an
Indian went out to gather the gum. I happened to see him pricking the
blisters on the trees and gathering the gum in a dish and I inquired
why he was doing it. He explained to me, and this morning when I saw
the cut, it suddenly came to me that if I could find balsam in the
neighbourhood it would be helpful. And here it is, and now with your
permission I will apply it."

"I wonder I never thought of it myself," he answered with a smile. "It
is a very healing ungent. Apply to your heart's content, Miss Yardely."

Deftly, with gentle fingers, the girl applied the balsam and then bound
the wound with a strip of linen torn from a handkerchief. When the
operation was finished, still kneeling beside him, she leaned back on
her heels to survey the result.

"It looks quite professional," she said; "there isn't an Indian girl in
the North could have done it better."

"There isn't one who could have done it half as well," he answered with
a laugh.

"Are you sure?" she asked quickly. "How about Miskodeed?"

"Miskodeed?" he looked at her wonderingly.

"Yes, that beautiful Indian girl I saw you talking with up at Fort
Malsun."

Stane laughed easily. "I know nothing whatever about her capacity as a
healer," he said. "I have only spoken to her on two occasions, and on
neither of them did we discuss wounds or the healing of them."

"Then----" she began, and broke off in sudden confusion.

He looked at her in some surprise. There was a look on her face that he
could not understand, a look of mingled gladness and relief.

"Yes?" he asked inquiringly. "You were about to say--what?"

"I was about to say the girl was a comparative stranger to you!"

"Quite correct," he replied. "Though she proved herself a friend on the
night I was kidnapped, for I saw her running through the bushes towards
my tent, and she cried out to warn me, just as I was struck."

"If she kne