what Van Horn would say if he knew the circumstances. He
looked down at his companion; saw the sheen of her hair as it rippled
out from under her fur turban, studied the soft contour of her cheek and
chin, without himself being observed, and noticed, incidentally, that
the top of the bewitching head beside him came just about to a level
with his cigar which he was smoking. He wondered if he were making a
fool of himself. If so, he assured himself that there was at least one
compensation. This night in Prince Albert would not be so uninteresting
as it had promised to be earlier in the evening.

Where the river ferry was half drawn up on the shore, its stern frozen
in the ice, he paused and looked down at the girl in quiet surprise. She
nodded, smiling, and motioned across the river.

"I was over there once to-night," said Howland aloud. "Didn't see any
houses and heard nothing but wolves. Is that where we're going?"

Her white teeth gleamed at him and he was conscious of a warm pressure
against his arm as the girl signified that they were to cross. His
perplexity increased. On the farther shore the forest came down to the
river's edge in a black wall of spruce and balsam. Beyond that edge of
the wilderness he knew that no part of Prince Albert intruded. It was
possible that across from them was a squatter's cabin; and yet if this
were so, and the girl was going to it, why had she told him that she was
a stranger in the town? And why had she come to him for the assistance
she promised to request of him instead of seeking it of those whom
she knew?

He asked himself these questions without putting them in words, and not
until they were climbing up the frozen bank of the stream, with the
shadows of the forest growing deeper about them, did he speak again.

"You told me you were a stranger," he said, stopping his companion where
the light of the stars fell on the face which she turned up to him. She
smiled, and nodded affirmatively.

"You seem pretty well acquainted over here," he persisted. "Where are we
going?"

This time she responded with an emphatic negative shake of her head, at
the same time pointing with her free hand to the well-defined trail that
wound up from the ferry landing into the forest. Earlier in the day
Howland had been told that this was the Great North Trail that led into
the vast wildernesses beyond the Saskatchewan. Two days before, the
factor from Lac Bain, the Chippewayan and the Crees had co