normous quantity of fish was to be found. It was nearly the end
of March, but as yet there was not the slightest prospect of the
frost breaking up. The nights were getting shorter, and the days
were brilliant with sunshine, but it was only a cold brilliance as
yet.

The Indians had remained there all the winter, so they said,
because there was such an abundance of fish for food. Their winter
quarters consisted of holes, about four feet deep, dug in the
earth, roofed over with spruce branches heaped with snow. Fires
were kindled in these lairs, and the people rarely came out save
when driven to it by the necessity to catch fish for food.

The day Katherine and Miles went to the encampment it was
gloriously fine, and for the first time that year the sun had real
warmth in it. This had induced some of the miserable creatures to
crawl out to the daylight, who perhaps had not been outside the
holes for weeks. There was quite a crowd of children visible, and
Katherine, whose heart always warmed to the pitiable little
objects, with their mournful black eyes, produced a packet of
sweets, which speedily brought a swarm of youngsters round her,

Doling the sweets out with strict impartiality, she noticed that
one child had a fragment of paper in its skinny hand. This was
puzzling, for the Indians were not given to education or culture in
any shape or form, and the paper looked like a fragment from a
letter, for she could plainly see writing upon it.

With a sign to Miles to keep the elders busy, Katherine proceeded
to bribe the child to give up his dirty fragment of paper in
exchange for the bag, which still had some sweets in it.

When this was done, she told Miles to cut the business short, and
then they started for home. She had thrust the fragment of paper
in her glove, and did not venture to look at it until they were
miles away from the lake, because she did not wish the Indians to
know that her curiosity had been aroused. But when the dogs had
dropped into a walk, and were coming slowly up the hill at some
distance behind, she pulled off her glove and proceeded to examine
the dirty fragment.

It was part of a letter, and directly she saw it she recognized the
handwriting as that of Mrs. Ferrars, the mother of Jervis. He had
shown her some of his mother's letters, and there was no mistaking
the regular, delicate handwriting. The paper was only written on
on one side, and only two lines of the writing were