rist'll have
to help you if we can't. That's what the Factor says, and that's how the
case stands, Idiot--'bien?'"

"Grah want pipe--bubble--bubble--wind blow," muttered the daft one.

Pretty Pierre bent over and said slowly: "If you stay here, Grah, the
Indian get your scalp; if you go, the snow is deep and the frost is like
a badger's tooth, and you can't be carried."

"Oh, Oh!--my mother dead--poor Annie--by God, Grah want pipe--poor Grah
sleep in snow-bubble, bubble--Oh, Oh!--the long wind, fly away."

Pretty Pierre watched the great head of the Idiot as it swung heavily on
his shoulders, and then said: "'Mais,' like that, so!" and turned away.

When the party were about to sally forth on their perilous path to
safety, Gyng stood and cried angrily: "Well, why hasn't some one bundled
up that moth-eaten Caliban? Curse it all, must I do everything myself?"

"But you see," said Pierre, "the Caliban stays at Fort o' God."

"You've got a Christian heart in you, so help me, Heaven!" replied
the other. "No, sir, we give him a chance,--and his Maker too for that
matter, to show what He's willing to do for His misfits."

Pretty Pierre rejoined, "Well, I have thought. The game is all against
Grah if he go; but there are two who stay at Fort o' God."

And that is how, when the Factor and his half-breeds and trappers stole
away in silence towards the Devil's Causeway, Pierre and the Idiot
remained behind. And that is why the flag of the H. B. C. still flew
above Fort o' God in the New Year's sun just twenty years ago to-day.

The Hudson's Bay Company had never done a worse day's work than when
they promoted Gyng to be chief factor. He loathed the heathen and he
showed his loathing. He had a heart harder than iron, a speech that
bruised worse than the hoof of an angry moose. And when at last he drove
away a band of wandering Sioux, foodless, from the stores, siege and
ambush took the place of prayer, and a nasty portion fell to Fort o'
God. For the Indians found a great cache of buffalo meat, and, having
sent the women and children south with the old men, gave constant and
biting assurances to Gyng that the heathen hath his hour, even though he
be a dog which is refused those scraps from the white man's table which
give life in the hour of need. Besides all else, there was in the Fort
the thing which the gods made last to humble the pride of men--there was
rum.

And the morning after Gyng and his men had departed, beca