rs!" cried Julie. "How pretty they are!"

First speaking to Fleur and patting her head, Jean picked up a squirming
ball of fur and as the mother whined anxiously, put it in Julie's arms.

"Oh, mon cher!" cried the girl, nestling the warm little body to her
cheek. "What a morsel of softness!" But when Pere Breton reached to
touch the puppy a rumble from Fleur's deep throat warned him that Julie
alone was privileged to take such liberties with her offspring.

Jean quieted the anxious mother, whose nose sought his hand. "See,
Father, what a dog-team she has given me."

One after another he proudly exhibited the puppies. "Mark the bone of
their legs. They will make a famous team with Fleur as leader. Is it not
so?"

"They are a possession to be proud of, Jean," agreed the priest,
standing discreetly out of reach, for Fleur's slant eyes never left him.

"Which of them do you wish, Julie?" Jean asked. "One, you know, is for
you."

"Oh, Jean; you are too good!" cried the girl. "I should love this one,
marked like Fleur," and she stooped to take the whimpering puppy in her
arms, while Jean's hand rested on Fleur's massive head, lest the fear of
the mother dog for the safety of her offspring should overpower her
friendship for Julie.

As the girl fearlessly reached and lifted the puppy, Fleur suddenly
thrust forward her long muzzle and licked her hand.

"_Bon!_" cried Jean, delighted. "Fleur would allow no one on earth to do
that except you. The puppy's name must be Julie."

In his joy at the coming of Fleur's family Marcel had forgotten, for the
time being, the hearing. But later in the morning at the trade-house,
Gillies, whose obstinacy had been deeply aroused by the attitude of
Inspector Wallace, planned with the accused man how they should handle
the Lelacs.

For the factor had no intention of permitting Jean's exoneration to
hang in the balance of the prejudiced mind of Wallace. The canny Scot
realized that if the Lelacs were thoroughly discredited at the hearing
at which the leaders of the Crees would be present; were shown to have
an ulterior motive in their attempt to fix the crime upon Marcel, there
would be a strong reaction in favor of Jean--that his story would be
generally accepted; so to this end he carefully laid his plans. Wallace,
busy prying into the books of the post, he did not take into his
confidence, wishing to surprise him as well as the Crees by the
bomb-shell the defense had in store for t