he
knew that the farewell must be said now, for both their sakes, for the
sake of honour, of loyalty, for the sake of Love itself.

Oh, yes. He knew how easy it would be to sweep along on the tide of
passion. But he loved Keeko. Loved her with all his simple heart and
body, and his love was bound up with an honour which he had no power to
outrage.

Time and again in the madness of the moment he thought to urge Keeko to
abandon all and return with him to the home which he knew would hold
nothing but welcome for her. He thought of all that happiness which
might be hers in the kindly associations of Uncle Steve and An-ina. He
thought of all the wretchednesses of soul he would save her from, the
dread of that step-father, whom she had declared to be a murderer at
heart. Then he remembered the dying mother whose one care was the child
of her heart, and he realized that his own desire must not be. The
farewell must be taken now.

Once he thought to continue the journey with her to help her complete
her final task of trading her pelts. But he remembered in time, and
thrust temptation from him. There was An-ina demanding his protection in
Uncle Steve's absence during the winter. There was his pledge to that
man who never questioned his given word.

Looking up his ardent gaze rested on the figure poised so near the brink
of the gorge.

"Keeko!"

His voice was deep with feeling. Its tone was imperative, too.

"Yes--Marcel?"

Keeko's reply was low-voiced and almost humble. She felt his gaze even
before he spoke. Had she not intercepted it a hundred times in their
work together? Oh, yes. She knew it. And that which she had seen, and
read, had been the answer she most desired to all the yearnings of her
woman's heart. Now she knew that the moment she most dreaded had come at
last. And she wondered and feared as she had never feared in her life
before.

Marcel drove his knife deeply in a diagonal cut into the hard wood of
the tamarack.

"You've a month to the freeze up," he said. "It's the limit you need.
I've figgered it. I've talked it out with Little One Man."

"Yes. I can make home in a month."

Keeko drew a sharp breath. She could make home. Never in her life had
she felt as she felt now. Home!

Marcel ripped his knife in an opposite diagonal on the reverse of the
wood. The force he applied seemed almost vicious.

"Are--you glad?"

"I--s'pose so."

"You--s'pose so? Of course you are. There's your poor sic