ked the fire together, threw on
fresh fuel, and after one look towards the still sleeping Post,
returned to the tent, wrapped himself in a blanket, and shortly after
fell asleep.

Three hours later he was awakened by a clatter of voices and the
clamour of barking dogs, passing from sleep to full wakeness like a
healthy child. Kicking the blanket from him he slipped on his moccasins
and stepped outside where the source of the clamour at once manifested
itself. A party of Indians had just beached their canoes, and were
exchanging greetings with another party, evidently that whose tepees
stood on the meadow outside the fort, for among the women he saw the
Indian girl who had fled through the willows after encountering him. He
watched the scene with indifferent eyes for a moment or two, then
securing a canvas bucket went down to the river for water, and made his
toilet. That done, he cooked his breakfast, ate it, tided up his camp,
and lighting a pipe strolled into the enclosure of the Post. Several
Indians were standing outside the store, and inside the factor and his
clerk were already busy with others; bartering for the peltries brought
from the frozen north to serve the whims of fashion in warmer lands. In
the Square itself stood the plump gentleman who had landed the day
before, talking to a cringing half-breed, whilst a couple of ladies
with him watched the aborigines outside the store with curious eyes.
Stane glanced further afield. Two men were busy outside the warehouse,
a second half-breed sprawled on the bench by the store, but the man for
whom he had waited through the night was not in sight.

With a grimace of disappointment he moved towards the store. As he did
so a little burst of mellow laughter sounded, and turning swiftly he
saw the man whom he was looking for round the corner of the warehouse
accompanied by a girl, who laughed heartily at some remark of her
companion. Stane halted in his tracks and looked at the pair who were
perhaps a dozen yards or so away. The monocled Ainley could not but be
aware of his presence, yet except that he kept his gaze resolutely
averted, he gave no sign of being so. But the girl looked at him
frankly, and as she did so, Hubert Stane looked back, and caught his
breath, as he had reason to.

She was fair as an English rose, moulded in spacious lines like a
daughter of the gods, with an aureole of glorious chestnut hair, shot
with warm tints of gold and massed in simplicit