It was at this period that the former visitor again appeared,
clothed in purple and fine linen, and, strange as it may seem, succeeded
in carrying off the little child, leaving the father and mother broken,
but still devoted to each other.

"Pretty Pierre closed his narration with these words: ''Bien,' that
Malbrouck, he is great. I have not much love of men, but he--well, if
he say,--"See, Pierre, I go to the home of the white bear and the winter
that never ends; perhaps we come back, perhaps we die; but there will
be sport for men--" 'voila!' I would go. To know one strong man in this
world is good. Perhaps, some time I will go to him--yes, Pierre, the
gambler, will go to him, and say: It is good for the wild dog that he
live near the lion. And the child, she was beautiful; she had a light
heart and a sweet way.'"

It was with this slight knowledge that Gregory Thorne set out on his
journey over the great Canadian prairie to Marigold Lake, for his
December moose-hunt.

Gregory has since told me that, as he travelled with Jacques Pontiac
across the Height of Land to his destination, he had uncomfortable
feelings; presentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, and
melancholy--a thing far from habitual with him. Insolence is all very
well, but you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn't effective
with vague presentiments. And when Gregory's insolence was taken away
from him, he was very like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him;
his brown cheek and frank eye had lost something of their charm. It was
these unusual broodings that worried him; he waked up suddenly one night
calling, "Margaret! Margaret!" like any childlike lover. And that did
not please him. He believed in things that, as he said himself, "he
could get between his fingers;" he had little sympathy with morbid
sentimentalities. But there was an English Margaret in his life; and he,
like many another childlike man, had fallen in love, and with her--very
much in love indeed; and a star had crossed his love to a degree that
greatly shocked him and pleased the girl's relatives. She was the
granddaughter of a certain haughty dame of high degree, who regarded
icily this poorest of younger sons, and held her darling aloof. Gregory,
very like a blunt unreasoning lover, sought to carry the redoubt by wild
assault; and was overwhelmingly routed. The young lady, though
finding some avowed pleasure in his company, accompanied by brilliant
misunderstan