n travel here, without its consent, for it controls
the food and the Indians. The Free Trader enters, but he does not
stay for long. The Company's servants are mindful of their old
fanatical ideal. Nothing is ever known, no orders are ever given,
but something happens, find the man never ventures again.

"If he is an ordinary _metis_ or Canadian, he emerges from the
forest starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be
believed in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of
wilderness travel are many: he succumbs to them. That is the whole
story. Nothing definite is known; no instances can be proved; your
father denies the legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims
to be ignorant of it, perhaps its greater officers really are, but
the legend holds so good that the journey has its name--_la Longue
Traverse_.

"But remember this, no man is to blame--unless it is he who of
knowledge takes the chances. It is a policy, a growth of
centuries, an idea unchangeable to which the long services of many
fierce and loyal men have given substance. A Factor cannot change
it. If he did, the thing would be outside of nature, something not
to be understood.

"I am here. I am to take _la Longue Traverse_. But no man is to
blame. If the scheme of the thing is wrong, it has been so from
the very beginning, from the time when King Charles set his
signature to the charter of unlimited authority. The history of a
thousand men gives the tradition power, gives it insistence. It is
bigger than any one individual. It is as inevitable as that water
should flow down hill."

He had spoken quietly, but very earnestly, still holding her two
hands, and she had sat looking at him unblinking from eyes behind
which passed many thoughts. When he had finished, a short pause
followed, at the end of which she asked unexpectedly,

"Last evening you told me that you might come to me and ask me to
choose between my pity and what I might think to be my duty. What
are you going to ask of me?"

"Nothing. I spoke idle words."

"Last evening I overheard you demand something of Mr. Crane," she
pursued, without commenting on his answer. "When he refused you I
heard you say these words 'Here is where I should have received
aid; I may have to get it where I should not.' What was the aid you
asked of him? and where else did you expect to get it?"

"The aid was something impossible to accord, and I did not expect
to