tors eagerly watched for the final scene of the humorous and
original drama. Bela, unconscious of everybody but one man, made a
lovely, appealing figure.

"Sam," she whispered, "now you know I your friend. Don' go! Wait
little while. Sam--here is the bishop. Marry me, and let them laugh!"

Sam flung off the timid arm. "Marry you!" he cried with a quiet
bitterness that burned like lye. "I'd sooner jump into the river!"

Empty-handed and hatless, he strode out of the shack.

"Sam, wait!" she cried, despairingly flying after.

CHAPTER XV

THE NORTH SHORE

Into the bay that occupies the north-easterly corner of Caribou Lake
empties a creek too small to have a name. To the left of its mouth, as
one faces the lake, ends the long, pine-clad dune that stretches along
the bottom of the lake from the intake of Musquasepi.

To the right as the shore turns westward the land rises a little and
the forest begins. Back of the beach the little creek is masked by
thickly springing willows.

An hour after the sun had passed the meridian the branches of the
willows were softly parted, and Bela's pale face looked through, her
eyes tense with anxiety. She searched the lake shore right and left.
The wide expanse of sunny water and the bordering shore were empty.

Reassured, she came from behind the bushes, walking in the creek, and
splashed down to the beach, still keeping wary eyes about her. She
carried her gun in one hand, and over the other shoulder the carcass
of a wild goose hung limply.

Standing in the creek, she anxiously searched the sand of the beach
for tracks. Finding none, a breath of relief escaped her. She flung
the dead goose in the sand. From this position she could see down the
beach as far as the intake of the little river, two miles or more
away.

Careless of the icy water flowing over her feet, she stood for a
while straining her keen, anxious eyes in this direction. Finally she
made out a tiny dark spot moving toward her on the sand.

She retreated up the creek and crouched behind the willows in the pose
of lifeless stillness she had inherited from the red side of the
house. The red people in the first place learned it from the wild
creatures. She watched through the leaves.

A coyote trotting with his airy gait came along the top of the dune,
looking for ill-considered trifles. He squatted on his haunches a
couple of hundred yards away, and his tongue hung out.

He saw the dead goose below,