that one swift moment, even as he
watched his torture, his friend on whose faith and goodness he would
stake his soul anew. It was strange what a keen joy surged through him
with that subtle knowledge, what smart of tear-mist stung his eyes.

Long their gaze clung, filled with unspeakable things, things that were
high as Heaven itself, that pass only between men clean of heart on the
Calvaries of earth.

Then, as gleaming eyes began to follow the fixed look of McElroy, heads
to turn with waving of feathers on scalp-locks, the factor with an
effort took his eyes from Ridgar's.

"Dog-eaters!" De Courtenay was laughing. "Birds of carrion! Old men!
Squaws of the North!"

And above the hubbub the ritual chanting in his brain turned into an Act
of Thanksgiving.

CHAPTER XXII "CHOOSE, WHITE WOMAN!"

Another day had gone into the great back country of time, from which the
hand of God alone can pluck them and their secrets. Soft haze of blue
and gold hung over forest and stream, sweet breath of summer fondled the
high carpet of interlaced tree-tops, blew down the waters and wimpled
the bending grasses, and the wolf had sighted the caribou herd.

In a shelter of spruce within sight of the Indian smoke the lone canoe
and its people lay hidden, awaiting the coming of night.

"Now, Ma'amselle," said Dupre earnestly, "do you remain close here with
Frith and Wilson and Alloybeau while Brilliers and McDonald go with me
to reconnoitre."

Maren knelt beside a fallen log binding up the heavy ropes of her
hair. Before her were spread the meagre adjuncts of her toilet, in all
conscience slim enough for any masculine runner of the forest,--a dozen
little pegs hand-whittled from hard wood and polished to finest gloss by
contact with the shining braids.

She looked up at him with eyes that were unreadable to his simple
understanding.

"Remain?" she said; "and send you into my danger alone? You know me not,
M'sieu."

Purple dusk was thick upon the underworld of lesser growth beneath the
towering woods. In its half-light the trapper saw that her face, usually
of so sad a calm, was glowing with excitement.

"Brilliers," she said, rising and fastening the last strand, "bring me
the brown no-wak-wa berries from the pail yonder."

She stood crushing the ripe fruit in her hands and looked into the faces
of her little band. In every countenance she read what she had read in
men's faces all of her life, the dumb longing to serve,