imed. "Lorson Harris'll need to
pay more than sixteen dollars for those pelts. We'll need twenty. Say,
gal, you've done well. You surely have."

Keeko desired none of his praise. One thought only was in her mind. Up
to that moment she had been playing the game she knew to be necessary.
Now she reckoned she could safely abandon tactics in favour of her own
desire.

"How's--mother?" she demanded.

Nicol stood up. His movement was a little precipitate. Nevertheless a
moment passed before he withdrew his gaze from the treasure he coveted.
When he finally did so it was not to look in the girl's direction. He
was gazing out at the forest backing the fort.

Keeko became impatient. She was alarmed, too.

"How is she?" she cried urgently.

Nicol shook his head. He turned to the waiting Indians.

"We'll have them up at the store, and fix 'em ready for transport," he
ordered. Then he sought to take the girl's arm while his hard eyes
assumed a regret that utterly ill-suited them. "Come along up to the
fort while I tell you."

But Keeko avoided him. Panic had seized her.

"No," she cried, in a tone she rarely permitted herself. "Tell me
here--right now. Is--is she dead?"

She would take no denial. There was something in her clear, fearless
eyes finely compelling. The man nodded.

"Dead?"

The girl spoke in a low, heart-broken whisper. She had forgotten the
man. Dead! Her mother was dead. That poor suffering creature who had
clung so long to life in her frantic desire to safeguard her child.
Dead! And she would never know the success of the plans she had laboured
so ardently to work out.

Stunning as was the blow Keeko promptly reacted.

"When did she die?" she demanded, in a tone that no longer needed
disguise.

"I'd say a month after you quit."

"And where--where's she buried?"

The man nodded in the direction of the woods at the back of the fort.

"Back there," he said. Then his manner became urgent. "Say, once we saw
the end was coming ther' wasn't a thing left undone to make her easy.
Lu-cana'll tell you that. We sat with her the whole time, and did all we
knew. And we buried her deep down wher' the wolves couldn't reach her,
and I set up a cross I fixed myself, and cut her name deep on it so
it'll take years to lose."

Keeko recognized a sort of defence in the man's words and in his manner.
It seemed to be his paramount purpose. She saw in him not a sign of real
sorrow, real regret. Contempt and bitter