joy, and gratitude.
In her simple way she understood something of the debt owed her for her
years of untiring, watchful care of the small body which had grown to
such splendid manhood. But the thought of its discharge never occurred
to her uncalculating mind. That which she beheld more than repaid.

Marcel was great for Indian eyes to gaze upon. Tall as was the woman,
comely in her maturing years, she was left dwarfed beside the youthful
manhood she had watched grow from its earliest days. The young man had
the erect, supple, muscular body of a trained athlete and the face of
the mother who had long since been laid to rest in the woods of the
Sleeper Indians. He had moreover the strength of the father's unspoiled
character, and all the purposeful method which the patient upbringing of
"Uncle Steve" had been capable of inspiring. He was a simple human
product, unspoiled by contamination with the evil which lurks under the
veneer of civilization, yet he possessed all the trained mind that both
Steve and he had been able to achieve from the wealth of learning which
his father's laboratory had been found to contain.

Beyond this, the bubbling springs of youth were in full flood, and the
tide ran strong in his rich veins. A passionate enthusiasm was the
outlet for this tide. A buoyant, fearless energy, a youthful pride in
strenuous achievement. It was with these he faced the bitterness of the
cruel Northland which he had grown to look upon like the Indians, who
knew no better, as the whole setting of human life and all that was to
be desired.

He was a hunter and a man of the trail before all things. His every
thought was wrapt up in the immensity of the striving. He had absorbed
the teachings of Steve, and added to them his own natural instincts. And
in all this he had raised himself to that ideal of manhood which nature
had implanted in An-ina's Indian heart. If she had thought of him as she
would have thought of him years ago in the teepees of her race, she
would have been content that he was a great "brave" and a "mighty
hunter." As it was her feelings were restricted to an immense pride that
she had been permitted the inestimable privilege of raising a real white
child to well-nigh perfect manhood.

Marcel knocked out the pipe he was smoking. It was with something like
reluctance he withdrew his gaze from the far distance.

"I've only two days more, An-ina," he said. "The outfit's ready to the
last ounce of tea an