inst the door jamb, while the girl rested a sympathetic hand
on his shoulder.

"Poor Jean!"

"I worked so hard to get her. I loved that puppy, Julie; she was my
child," he groaned.

"I know, Jean, how you feel; after what you have been through--to have
lost her----"

"But I have not lost her!" the boy exclaimed fiercely, drawing a deep
breath and facing the girl with features set like stone. "I have not
lost her, Julie Breton! I will follow them and bring back my dog if I
have to trail those men to Rupert House."

The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint she had
never known--a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, so
intense, so bitter, that she thrilled inwardly as she gazed at his
transformed face. Instinctively, Julie Breton knew that the lad who
faced her was no longer the playmate of old to be treated as a boy, but
the possessor of a high courage and unbreakable will that men in the
future would reckon with.

Jean entered the trade-house to find Gillies in conversation with a tall
stranger, who, Jules whispered, was Mr. Wallace, the new inspector of
the East Coast posts, who had come with the steamer.

"A few days after you left, Jean," explained Gillies, "two half-breeds
dropped in here with the story that they had travelled up the coast from
Rupert House to buy dogs from the Huskies. There were no dogs for sale
here, and they seemed pretty sore at missing the York-boat bound south
with the dogs bought by the Company for East Main and Fort George. Why,
we didn't know, for they couldn't get any of those dogs. They were a
weazel-faced, mean-looking pair and when Jules found them feeding two of
our huskies one day, there was trouble."

"What did they do to you, Jules?" asked Jean, smiling faintly at the big
Company bowman.

"What did Jules do to them, you mean," broke in Angus McCain.

"Well," continued Gillies, "we got outside in time to see Jules break
his paddle over the head of one and pile into the other who had a knife
out and looked mean.

"Then I kicked them out of the post. They left that night with your dog,
for the next day at Little Bear Island they passed a canoe of
goose-hunters bound for Whale River and the Indians noticed the puppy
who seemed to be muzzled and tied."

During the recital, Marcel walked the floor of the trade-house, his
blood hot with rage.

"French half-breeds, M'sieu Gillies, or Scotch?" he asked.

"Scotch, Jean, medium sized; one h