necessity that stared her in the face knew naught of
mercy, and the winter stillness often re-echoed to the sound of her
arquebuse. So expert had she become that she rarely wasted a charge of
powder.

December passed, and January was nearly over, when the crowning sorrow
which Fate had in store for this heroic woman fell upon her. She woke
one morning to find her child cold and lifeless at her side. She seized
him in her arms, pressed the little icy form close to her warm breast,
but felt no answering warmth. Madly she kissed his lips and eyes and
cheeks; she would not believe that he was dead. When at length she
became convinced of the truth, she rushed wildly from the hut.

There had been a heavy snowfall during the night. She was in her bare
feet, but she heeded not the cold. She rushed to the cliff, her child in
her arms, her hair streaming about her shoulders. The end had at last
come; there was nothing further to live for. Fate had conquered. She
could but throw herself into the sea, and, with her baby in her arms,
confront the good God who had seen fit to pursue her with such
suffering. But as she stood upon the cliff, the rolling waves beating
against the rocky hollows in the grey dawn seemed to her the hoarse
voices of the demons. Once more she heard them calling for her soul, and
for the soul of her child. She turned, and retraced her steps to her
empty hut.

Laying the baby's body on the bed, she sat down beside it on the floor,
her hands clasped about her knees. Silent she sat there, beside the fire
she had heaped up to try to revive the child, till night fell, and the
stars shone out bright and clear in the frosty sky. Silent she sat till
they faded again before the grey light of dawn, and the morning of a new
day broke. The wind had risen during the night, and the waves had been
bellowing up the beach; but she heard neither wind nor waves. Dry-eyed
she sat beside her long-dead fire, and felt not cold nor fear. Her
faculties were deadened, her brain numbed, and it was not till her
faithful companion, Francois the bear, tired of waiting to be taken
notice of, pressed his nose against her clasped hands, and breathed his
warm breath into her face, that she awoke from her trance.

She rose mechanically, turned to her brush heap, selected some dry
sticks for her fire, and was about to place them on the embers when she
noticed that it had long been dead. Her hands were like ice; she was
chilled to the very bo