amidships, among the packages of pelts and duffel, sat a stranger,
The canoe was that of the post at Kettle Portage.

She saw the stranger to be a young man with a clean-cut face, a
trim athletic figure dressed in the complete costume of the
_voyageurs_, and thin brown and muscular hands. When the canoe
touched the bank he had taken no part in the scramble to shore, and
so had sat forgotten and unnoticed save by the girl, his figure
erect with something of the Indian's stoical indifference. Then
when, for a moment, he imagined himself free from observation, his
expression abruptly changed. His hands clenched tense between his
buckskin knees, his eyes glanced here and there restlessly, and an
indefinable shadow of something which Virginia felt herself obtuse
in labelling desperation, and yet to which she discovered it
impossible to fit a name, descended on his features, darkening
them. Twice he glanced away to the south. Twice he ran his eye
over the vociferating crowd on the narrow beach.

Absorbed in the silent drama of a man's unguarded expression,
Virginia leaned forward eagerly. In some vague manner it was borne
in on her that once before she had experienced the same emotion,
had come into contact with someone, something, that had affected
her emotionally just as this man did now. But she could not place
it. Over and over again she forced her mind to the very point of
recollection, but always it slipped back again from the verge of
attainment. Then a little movement, some thrust forward of the
head, some nervous, rapid shifting of the hands or feet, some
unconscious poise of the shoulders, brought the scene flashing
before her--the white snow, the still forest, the little square pen
trap, the wolverine, desperate but cool, thrusting its blunt nose
quickly here and there in baffled hope of an orifice of escape.
Somehow the man reminded her of the animal, the fierce little woods
marauder, trapped and hopeless, but scorning to cower as would the
gentler creatures of the forest.

Abruptly his expression changed again. His figure stiffened, the
muscles of his face turned iron. Virginia saw that someone on the
beach had pointed toward him. His mask was on.

The first burst of greeting was over. Here and there one or
another of the _brigade_ members jerked their heads in the
stranger's direction, explaining low-voiced to their companions.
Soon all eyes turned curiously toward the canoe. A hum of
low-vo