en; and his child--on the Chaudiere, m'sieu'. The
child came and the mother went on the same day of the Great Birth. He
has a soft heart--that Babiche!"

"And the white bear--so strange a thing!"

"M'sieu', who can tell? The world is young up here. When it was all
young, man and beast were good comrades, maybe."

"Ah, maybe. What shall be done with Little Babiche, Pierre?"

"He will never be the same again on the old trail, m'sieu'!"

There was silence for a long time, but at last the governor said,
musing, almost tenderly, for he never had a child: "Ma p'tite
Corinne!--Little Babiche shall live near his child, Pierre. I will see
to that."

Pierre said no word, but got up, took off his hat to the governor, and
sat down again.

AT POINT O' BUGLES

"John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?"

"What's that, Pierre?" said Sir Duke Lawless, starting to his feet and
peering round.

"Hush!" was Pierre's reply. "Wait for the rest.... There!"

"King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy
bugles."

Sir Duke was about to speak, but Pierre lifted a hand in warning, and
then through the still night there came the long cry of a bugle, rising,
falling, strangely clear, echoing and echoing again, and dying away.
A moment, and the call was repeated, with the same effect, and again a
third time; then all was still, save for the flight of birds roused from
the desire of night, and the long breath of some animal in the woods
sinking back to sleep.

Their camp was pitched on the south shore of Hudson's Bay, many leagues
to the west of Rupert House, not far from the Moose River. Looking north
was the wide expanse of the bay, dotted with sterile islands here and
there; to the east were the barren steppes of Labrador, and all round
them the calm, incisive air of a late September, when winter begins to
shake out his frosty curtains and hang them on the cornice of the north,
despite the high protests of the sun. The two adventurers had come
together after years of separation, and Sir Duke had urged Pierre to
fare away with him to Hudson's Bay, which he had never seen, although he
had shares in the great Company, left him by his uncle the admiral.

They were camped in a hollow, to the right a clump of hardy trees, with
no great deal of foliage, but some stoutness; to the left a long finger
of land running out into the water like a wedge, the most eastern
point of the western shore of Hudson