hen I get your call I'll answer--right away."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FIRST STREAK OF DAWN

Fort Mowbray was enveloped in a black cloud of tragedy. Its simple
life flickered on. But it seemed to have been robbed of all its past
reality, all its quiet strength, all that made it worth while.

Nor was the change confined to the white people. Even the Indians,
those stoic creatures born to the worst buffets life knows how to
inflict, whose whole object at the Mission was white man's bounty, to
be paid for by the worship of the white man's God, yielded to the
atmosphere of hopelessness prevailing. Alec had been the young white
chief after the great hunter who had paid his debt at the hands of the
Bell River terror. He, too, was gone, and they felt that they were in
the hands of the "smiling one" for whom their regard was chiefly
inspired by fear. The little white Father was their remaining hope,
and he was very, very old.

So they set up their lamentations, surrounding them with all the rites
of their race. The old women crooned their mystic tuneless dirges.
The younger "charmed" the evil spirits haunting their path. The men
sat in long and profound council which was beset with doubt of the
future.

Ailsa Mowbray and Jessie fought out their own battle, as once before
they had had to fight, and herein their native fortitude strove on
their behalf. For days they saw no one but the little priest who
remained ever at their call. The primitive in their lives demanded for
them that none should witness their hurt. They asked neither sympathy
nor pity, wherein shone forth the mother's wondrous courage which had
supported her through every trial.

The days passed without the departure of Kars and Bill. The excuse was
the state of the river, by which they were to make the headwaters. The
ice was still flowing northward, but in ever lessening bulk, and the
time was filled in with repairs to the canoes which had suffered during
the long portage of the trail.

This was the excuse, but it was only excuse. Both men knew it, and
neither admitted it verbally. The condition of the river would not
have delayed John Kars in the ordinary way. There was always the
portage.

The truth lay in the passionate yearning of the heart of a man who had
remained so long beyond the influence of a woman upon his life. He had
set his task firmly before him, but its fulfilment now must wait till
he had made sure for himself of tho