urself, for I don't think
Mr Gambart could have planned it without your aid."

"What!" exclaimed Redding, with a look of sudden surprise, "what was the
name of your place in Partridge Bay?"

"I gave it a Highland name," said McLeod, with a sad smile, "after a
place in Scotland that once belonged to my mother's family,--Loch Dhu."

For a moment or two the young fur-trader remained speechless. He looked
first at Flora and then at her father, and after that at her brothers,
without being able to make up his mind how to act. He now understood
the reason of Gambart's silence as to the former owners of Loch Dhu, and
he would have given worlds at that moment if he had never seen or heard
of the place, for it seemed such a heartless position to be placed in--
the fortunate owner of the lovely spot, over the loss of which Flora and
her family evidently mourned so deeply. He could not bear the thought
of having to reveal the truth; still less could he bear the thought of
concealing it. He was therefore about to make the disagreeable
confession, when the thoughts of the whole party were suddenly diverted
to another channel, by the opening of the door and the entrance of one
of those gaunt sons of the forest who were wont to hang on the skirts of
civilisation, as it advanced to wrest from them their native wilderness.

The Indian stalked into the room, handed a dirty piece of folded paper
to McLeod, and sat down beside the fire, after the fashion of his race,
in solemn silence.

CHAPTER SIX.

OUT IN THE SNOW.

When Jonas Bellew set off in search of the rumoured wreck, as related in
a previous chapter, he passed the Cliff Fort without calling there,
partly because he did not wish to waste time, and partly because he had
no desire to hold converse at that time with Mr Smart, who, he rightly
suspected, must have shared in Redding's suspicions as to the intentions
of the McLeods.

Making a straight cut, therefore, across the bay in front of the
fur-trading establishment, on ice that had not yet been floated away, he
gained the land below the fort and continued his journey down the coast.
That night he slept in the snow.

Let not the reader entertain the mistaken idea that such a
sleeping-place was either cold, wet, or uncomfortable. It was the
reverse of all that, being warm, dry, and cosy. The making of this bed
we record here, for the benefit of housemaids, and all whom it may
concern.

First of all, the sturdy