en up her life. And the full force of the tragedy of it
all found a deep echo of pitying admiration in his heart. It seemed to
him that the hand of Providence had fallen hard, and, in his human
understanding, with more than questionable justice.

His examination completed he turned to the dusky creature at his side.

"I guess her sufferings are over--sure. Her poor soul's gone to join her
man, and the boy's just--alone."

The squaw's dark eyes were soft with that velvet look so peculiar to
the Indian woman in moments of deep emotion.

"Maybe it best so," she said, in a manner which bespoke long association
with white folk. "Him good woman. Him suffer much--so much. Poor--poor
Missis. It not him fault. Oh, no. Him think all the time for her man,
an' little Marcel. Oh, yes. Not think nothing else all time. This devil
man come. Him kill her man. She not know. Poor Missis. She not think.
Only so she please her man. So this devil man kill her man. So."

"What d'you mean?"

The man's gaze was compelling. Its steady light searched the soft eyes
of the squaw. The woman withstood his gaze unflinchingly. Then she
suddenly bent across, and drew the coverlet up, and tenderly hid the
face of the dead. Then she looked up again into Steve's face.

"Come," she said quietly. "I tell you."

Without waiting for reply she led the way out of the room into the store
beyond, with its bare counter, and shelves, and bins so meagrely
supplied. Steve followed without a word. He had suddenly realized that
as yet he knew only a part of the story of these people. There was more
to be told.

The store displayed much the same purpose and care which everything else
about the work of Marcel Brand revealed. The completeness of it all must
have been surprising, had not Steve understood that the chemist had come
here to carry his life's work to its logical completion. There were
signs everywhere of capacity, and unstinted expenditure of money. But
the haulage of it all. The thought was always in Steve's mind. The great
stove in the corner of the long, low room. The carpentered shelvings,
and drawers, and cupboards. The counter, too, no makeshift barrier set
up for the purposes of traffic, but with every sign of skilled
workmanship about it. He felt certain that all these things must have
been borne up the slopes of the great table-land, hauled overland, or by
water, from the workshops of civilization.

Habit was strong and An-ina moved at once t