ne yellow leg in the calm shallows. He did not
offer to move as they slipped past, but stood there peacefully, in
water which reflected the sunset skies and small opalescent clouds
floating above. Backed by the green rushes, surrounded by the mirrored
glow of sunset, he stood and watched them out of sight with wild, sad
eyes--untamed, fearless, and alone. And thus he remained always in
Dick's remembrance.

After a time, they hid the canoe in a tiny creek, and took to
land-travelling again. Peter's haste increased, and Dick was sometimes
hard put to it to keep up with him. His caution increased also as they
advanced into more open country--country which gradually grew to
foreshadow the prairies. But Peter kept to the trees as much as
possible, speeding swiftly and stealthily northwestward.

"One would think we were thieves," murmured Dick, with an uneasy
English dislike of stealthiness. It was the first time he had in any
way rebelled against Peter's leadership. "All right," the Indian
responded, "go on your way, see how far you get. What you know? What
you see? What you hear? Nothin'. You blind, deaf, sleepy all times.
I see, hear, know. You come with me, or you go alone. But if come
with me, you come quiet. I lead you," he concluded, thrusting his
little dark face with its strange eyes close to Dick's. Thus the
incipient mutiny was crushed.

In all those weeks they had seen and spoken with no one but the
solitary trapper to whom Dick had consigned the letter, and the
absolute loneliness had become as natural to Dick as the splendid
clearness of air was natural. So when one morning in September he came
upon the ashes of a fire that were still warm, it gave him a curious
feeling of wistful excitement. "Look, Peter," he said, "feel here.
The ground is not cold yet under the ashes. Someone was here only a
little while ago!"

Peter snarled something inarticulate, and peered about the fire with a
frowning face. "White man," he grunted uneasily at last.

"How do you know?" asked Dick; and then, not waiting for an answer, "I
should have liked to have spoken to him. I wish we had met him."

"Company's man," grunted Peter, still restless and uneasy. "They bad
people. Not like us here." But Dick was full of his own thoughts, and
scarcely heeded. There was some reason for Peter's uneasiness, for
they were then almost within the vast territories ruled over by the
Hudson Bay Company. And at no time