seated at a small table, green-baized, littered
with account-books and a profusion of papers. But he was not regarding
these things. Instead, his dark, intelligent eyes were raised to the
smallish, dingy window in front of him, set in its deep casing of
centuries-old logs. Nor was the warm light shining in his eyes
inspired by the sufficiently welcome sunlight beyond. His gaze was
entirely absorbed by a fur-clad figure, standing motionless in the open
jaws of the gateway of the heavily timbered stockade outside.

It was the figure of a young woman. A long coat of beaver skin, and a
cap of the same fur pressed down low over her ruddy brown hair, held
her safe from the bitter chill of the late semi-arctic fall. She, too,
was absorbed in the scene upon which she was gazing.

Her soft eyes, so gray and gentle, searched the distance. The hills,
snow-capped and serrated. The vast incline of ancient glacier, rolling
backwards and upwards in discolored waves from the precipitate opposite
bank of Snake River. The woods, so darkly overpowering as the year
progressed towards its old age. The shaking tundra, treacherous and
hideous with rank growths of the summer. The river facets of broken
crags awaiting the cloak of winter to conceal their crude nakedness.
Then the trail, so slight, so faint. The work of sleds and moccasined
feet through centuries of native traffic, with the occasional variation
of the hard shod feet of the white adventurer.

She knew it all by heart. She read it all with the eyes of one who has
known no other outlook since first she opened them upon the world.
Yes, she knew it all. But that which she did not know she was seeking
now. Beyond all things, at that moment, she desired to penetrate some
of the secrets that lay beyond her grim horizon.

Her brows were drawn in a slight frown. The questions she was asking
peeped out of the depths of her searching eyes. And they were the
questions of a troubled mind.

A step sounded behind her, but she did not turn. A moment later the
voice of Murray McTavish challenged her.

"Why?"

The brief demand was gentle enough, yet it contained a sort of playful
irony, which, at the moment, Jessie Mowbray resented. She turned.
There was impatience in the eyes which confronted him. She regarded
him steadily.

"Why? It's always _why_--with you, when feelings get the better of me.
Maybe you never feel dread, or doubt, or worry. Maybe you never feel
a