t'll
let it. I'll get back in a hell of a hurry. Meanwhile you need to put
Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie wise, and see and fix things
to start out right away. We're going to hit out north-west to a silver
fox country I know of, and when we're through with it Lorson Harris'll
start in to drop silver fox prices to the level of grey timber wolf. It
makes me feel good--the thought of it."

He sprang up with an energy that suggested the effort it required to
tear himself away. And promptly the woman in Keeko asserted itself.

"But you'll eat first?" she said invitingly.

Marcel laughed in frank delight.

"Why, surely," he cried. "I was guessing you might ask me."

Keeko joined in his laugh. They were children at heart, and little more
in years.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEART OF THE WILDERNESS

Marcel and Keeko were standing at the dawn of a new life. The man had
looked into a woman's wide, blue eyes. He had gazed upon softly rounded
cheeks, as perfect as physical well-being could make them. He had
contemplated rich, ripe lips that tempted him well-nigh to distraction.
Thus it was that the passionless life of the outworld had no longer
power before the stirring of a soul at last awakened from its pristine
slumbers.

The meaning of their encounter was no less for Keeko. She was less of
the wilderness, perhaps, than Marcel. She had not been so wholly bred to
it as he. Her child's eyes had looked upon some measure of civilization,
and her mind had gathered a brief training amongst the youth of her own
sex. But the result was no less. The grey shadows, which, as far back as
she could remember, had overhung her home life seemed suddenly to have
been lifted, and the rugged desolation of the Northland had been
transformed into a veritable Eden of hope and delight.

It was his new inspiration that lent wings to the feet of Marcel when he
hastened to collect his personal outfit. It was under the same
inspiration that he flung himself into the task of preparing for the
fulfilment of his pledge. And from the moment he joined the girl's
outfit on the banks of the river that came up out of the south he
became the acknowledged leader, whose will was absolute.

And Keeko's spirit was swift to respond. She displayed a readiness that
must have astonished the Indians who were accustomed to implicit
acknowledgment of her rule. Or, perhaps, in their savage hearts, they
understood something of the change that had been