her ver' careful. Still shoot straight. Here are shells,
too. Tak' it, and keep her clean. Keep it inside your dress. Good
thing for girl to have."

Bela's instinct was to run away to examine her prize in secret. As she
rose the old man pointed a portentous finger.

"Remember what I tell you! You got mak' yourself hard to get."

During the rest of the day Bela was unobtrusively busy with her
preparations for the journey. Like any girl, red or white, she had her
little store of finery to draw on. Charley did not show himself in the
tepee.

Her mother, seeing what she was about, watched her with tragic eyes
and closed mouth. At evening, without a word, she handed her a little
bag of bread and meat. Bela took it in an embarrassed silence. The
whole blood of the two women cried for endearments that their red
training forbade them.

More than once during the night Bela arose to look at the weather. It
was with satisfaction that she heard the pine-trees complaining. In
the morning the white horses would be leaping on the lake outside.

She had no intention of taking Musq'oosis with her. She respected the
old man's advice, and meant to apply it, but an imperious instinct
told her this was her own affair that she could best manage for
herself. In such weather the old man would never follow her. For
herself, she feared no wind that blew.

At dawn she stole out of the teepee without arousing anybody, and set
forth down the river in her dugout alone.

CHAPTER III

AT NINE-MILE POINT

The camp at Nine-Mile Point was suffering from an attack of nerves. A
party of strong men, suddenly condemned in the heat of their labours
to complete inaction, had become a burden to themselves and to each
other.

Being new to the silent North, they had yet to learn the virtue of
filling the long days with small, self-imposed tasks. They had no
resources, excepting a couple of dog-eared magazines--of which they
knew every word by heart, even to the advertisements--and a pack of
cards. There was no zest in the cards, because all their cash had been
put into a common fund at the start of the expedition, and they had
nothing to wager.

It was ten o'clock at night, and they were loafing indoors. Above the
high tops of the pines the sky was still bright, but it was night in
the cabin. They were lighted by the fire and by a stable lamp on the
table. They had gradually fallen into the habit of lying abed late,
and consequently they