so queer. You
warned the Government two, three months ago, did you not,
that there was likely to be trouble, but still they did
not heed? Is not that so?"

"I did, but I've heard no more about it. And now the
Police are beginning to get uneasy. They're a mighty fine
body of men, but if the half-breeds and Indians get on
the war-path, they'll swamp the lot, and--"

"Shoo!" interrupted the giant, again looking at the girl,
but this time with unmistakable alarm on his face. "Them
Injuns ain't going to eat us. You've been a good friend
to them and to the metis. So!"

Jacques St. Arnaud had been in the rancher's service
since before the latter's child had been born down in
Ontario, some eighteen years ago, and followed him into
the great North-West to help conquer the wilderness and
establish his new home. He had a big heart in a large
body, and his great ambition was to be considered a rather
terrible and knowing fellow, while, as a matter of fact,
he was the most inoffensive of mortals, and as simple in
some ways as a child.

"Bah!" he continued after a pause, "the metis are
ungrateful dogs, and the Indians, they are mad also. I
would like to take them one by one and wring their
necks--so!"

The rancher tried to conceal the concern he felt. His
fifty odd years sat lightly upon him, although his hair
was grey. His daughter had only been back from Ontario
for two years, but in that time she had bulked so largely
in his life that he wondered now how he could ever have
got along without her. She reminded him of that helpmate
and wife who had gone hence a few years after her daughter
was born, and whose name was now a sacred memory. He had
sent the girl down East to those whom he knew would look
after her properly, and there, amid congenial surroundings,
she grew and quickened into a new life. But the spell of
the vast, broad prairie lands was upon her, and the love
for her father was stronger still, so she went, back to
both, and there her mind broadened, and her spirit grew
in harmony with the lessons that an unconventional life
was for ever working out for itself in those great,
unfettered spaces where Nature was in the rough and the
world was still young. She grew and blossomed into a
beautiful womanhood, as blossoms the vigorous wild-flower
of the prairies. When she smiled there was the light and
the glamour of the morning star in her dark hazel eyes,
and when her soul communed with itself, it was as if one