d the filling of the last cartridge. The Sleepers
are wide awake, and squatting around waiting for the word to 'mush.' We
just daren't lose the snow for the run to our headquarters. I wish Uncle
Steve would get around. I just can't quit till he comes."

"No."

The squaw's reply was one of complete agreement. She understood. The
long summer trail was claiming the man. The hunter in him was clamouring
for the silent forests, where King Moose reigned supreme, the racing
mountain streams alive with trout and an untold wealth of salmon, the
open stretches of plain where the caribou browsed upon the weedy, tufted
Northern grass, the marsh land and lakes, where the beavers spend the
open season preparing their winter quarters. Then the traps, and the
wealth of fox pelts they would yield, while the eternal dazzle of the
much-prized black fox was always before his eyes. But stronger than all
was his thought for Steve. No passion, so far, was greater in his life
than his regard for this man who had been father, mother, and mentor to
him in the years of his helplessness.

An-ina pointed down the course of the winding river where it came out of
the southern hills.

"He come that way," she said. Then she smiled. "The same he come always.
The same he come long time gone, when Marcel hide by waters and make big
shout. Him much scared. Marcel think? Oh, yes."

The man laughed in a happy boyish way.

"I'd like to, but I just can't," he said. Then he added: "You always
think of that, An-ina. No," he went on with a shake of the head. "I
remember riding Uncle Steve's back. Seems it was for days and days. I
sort of remember sitting around and watching him while he looked down at
a pair of feet like raw meat, with the flies all trying to settle on
them. The sort of way flies have. Then there were his eyes. I've still
got the picture of 'em in my mind. They were red--red with blood, it
seemed. They were sort of straining, too. And they shone--shone like the
blazing coals of a camp-fire."

An-ina nodded, and into her dark eyes came a look of the dread of the
days he had recalled.

"That so," she said, in a tone of suppressed emotion. "It was bad--so
bad. Him carry Marcel. Oh, yes. Carry all time, like the squaw carry
pappoose. So you live,--and An-ina glad."

"Yes." The man bestirred himself abruptly. He stood up from his lounging
against the gatepost, and his great height and breadth of muscular
shoulders seemed suddenly to have gr