k mother."

"Yes."

The girl's reply was almost inaudible. Marcel wrenched the wood in half
with his powerful hands. It snapped, and he examined the pronged ends
critically.

With an effort Keeko bestirred herself from her despondency.

"Yes," she cried desperately. "I must get home. I want to. I love my
mother, Marcel. She's suffered. Oh, how she suffers. Yet through it all
she thinks only of me. She schemes and hopes only for me. Maybe I can't
hope to save her life, but I can tell her the things that'll let her die
almost happy. It's the best I can do, and I--I'm glad to do it."

Marcel nodded over his two pieces of wood.

"That's how I feel about it," he said. "It seems to me we haven't any
sort of right to set up the things that 'ud please us against the
happiness of those who've been good to us. I'd thought of beating down
this river with you, to see things through for you. Then I remembered a
sort of mother woman who looks to me for the help of a son. Then I
thought of asking you to cut the home with a step-father, who's a
murderer at heart, and come along where you'd find only love and
friendship. Then I remembered your sick mother. I'm guessing the self of
things is mighty big, but there's something bigger. Still--Say, come and
sit right here!"

He was smiling. But his eyes were full of a deep tenderness.

Keeko obeyed. She had no desire to deny him. He seemed to have robbed
her of all will of her own. His will had become wholly her desire. She
took her seat on the tree-trunk, just removed from his side by a rift in
the great log which was hidden under a growth of lichen.

Marcel's eyes sought hers. But she had turned from him. She was gazing
out at the moose head set up over the gorge.

"How am I to hear if you're needing my help?" he demanded. "I can't make
here till the first break of spring. There's just one hell of a long
winter before that."

Marcel was endeavouring to smother his feeling. Keeko shook her head.
Had she not thought and thought over this very thing?

"I won't need help," she said. "Not now. You've helped me through my
only worry. If mother lives, things'll just go on the same. If--she
doesn't? She and I--we got it fixed. I hit right out for myself as we've
planned it--that's all."

But the hot blood had mounted to Marcel's head. "It's not!" he cried
with startling force. "D'you think you're going out of my life that way?
You?" Suddenly he broke into a laugh that echoed down t