doubt, or
weakness. Not at once would justice punish the parents of this babe and
blot out at once the record of their fault. Storm and lightning,
darkness and the night yielded to the voice of the infant and allowed
the old story of humanity and sin, and hope and mercy to run on.

The babe wailed faintly in the silence of the night. Under the
hearth-log there still endured the fire. And then the red West, seeing
itself conquered, smiled and flung wide its arms, and greeted them with
the burgeoning dawn, and the voices of birds, with a sky blue and
repentant, a sun smiling and not unkind.

CHAPTER III

AU LARGE

It was weeks after the night of the great storm, and the camp of the
_voyageurs_ still held its place on the shore of the great Green Bay.
The wild game and the abundant fishes of the lake gave ample provender
for the party, and the little bivouac had been rendered more comfortable
in many ways best known to those dwellers of the forest. The light jest,
the burst of laughter, the careless ease of attitude showed the
light-hearted _voyageurs_ content with this, their last abode, nor for
the time did any word issue which threatened to end their tarrying.

Law one morning strolled out from the lodge and seated himself on a bit
of driftwood at the edge of the forest's fringe of cedars, where,
seemingly half forgetting himself in the witchery of the scene, he gazed
out idly over the wide prospect which lay before him. He was the same
young man as ever. Surely, this increased gauntness was but the result
of long hours at the paddle, the hollow cheeks but betokened hard fare
and the defining winds of the outdoor air. If the eye were a trace more
dim, that could be due but to the reflectiveness induced by the quiet
scene and hour. Yet why should John Law, young and refreshed, drop chin
in hand and sit there moodily looking ahead of him, comprehending not at
all that which he beheld?

Indeed there appeared now to the eye of this young man not the white
shores and black crowned bluffs and distant islands, not the sweep of
broad-winged birds circling near the waters, nor the shadow of the
high-poised eagle drifting far above. He felt not the soft wind upon his
cheek, nor noted the warmth of the on-coming sun. In truth, even here,
on the very threshold of a new world and a new life, he was going back,
pausing uncertainly at the door of that life and of that world which he
had left behind. There appeared to hi