e this!"

It was near midnight when he came to Pierrot's cabin, but a light was
still burning in the half-breed's log home. Philip kicked off his snow
shoes and knocked at the door. In a moment Pierrot opened it, stepped
back, and stared at the white figure that came in out of the storm.

"Mon Dieu--it ees you--Mee-sair Philip!"

Philip held out his hand to Jacques, and shot a quick glance about him.
There had been a change in the cabin since he had visited it last. One
of Pierrot's hands was done up in a sling, his face was thin and pale,
and his dark eyes were sunken and lusterless. In the little wilderness
home there was an air of desertion and neglect, and Philip wondered
where Pierrot's rosy-cheeked, black-haired wife and his half dozen
children had gone.

"Mon Dieu--it ees you, Mee-sair Philip," cried Pierrot again, his face
lighting up with pleasure. "You come late. You are hongree?"

"I've had supper," replied Philip. "I've just come from Lac Bain.
But what's up, old man--?" He pointed to Pierrot's hand, and looked
questionably about the cabin again.

"Eh--Iowla--my wife--she is at Churchill, over on the bay," groaned
Jacques. "And so are the children. What! You did not hear at Lac Bain?
Iowla is taken seek--ver' seek--with a strange thing which--ugh!--has to
be fixed with a knife, Mee-sair Philip. An' so I take her to the doctor
over at Churchill, an' he fix her--an' she is growing well now, an' will
soon come home. She keep the children with her. She say they mak'
her think of Jacques, on his trap-line. Eh--it ees lonely--dam'--dam'
lonely, and I have been gone from my Iowla but two weeks to-morrow."

"You have been with her at Fort Churchill?" asked Philip, taking off his
pack and coat.

"Oui, M'sieur," said Jacques, falling into his French. "I have been
there since November. What! They did not tell you at Lac Bain?"

"No--they did not tell me. But I was there but a few hours, Jacques.
Listen--" He pulled out his pipe and began filling it, with his back to
the stove. "You saw people--strangers--at Fort Churchill, Jacques? They
came over on the London ship, and among them there was a woman--"

Pierrot's pale face flashed up with sudden animation.

"Ah--zee angel!" he cried. "That is what my Iowla called her, M'sieur.
See!" He pointed to his bandaged hand. "Wan day that bete--the Indian
dog of mine--did that, an' w'en I jumped up from the snow in front
of the company's store, the blood running from