and at his feet crouched one of his
wolfish sledge-dogs. Both were wide-awake and stared curiously at
Howland as he came in. In front of the two large windows sat half a
dozen men, as silent as the half-breed, clad in moccasins and thick
caribou skin coats. One of them was the factor from a Hudson Bay post at
Lac Bain who had not been down to the edge of civilization for three
years; the others, including two Crees and a Chippewayan, were hunters
and Post men who had driven in their furs from a hundred miles to
the north.

For a moment Howland paused in the middle of the room and looked about
him. Ordinarily he would have liked this quiet, and would have gone to
one of the two rude tables to write a letter or work out a problem of
some sort, for he always carried a pocketful of problems about with him.
His fifteen years of study and unceasing slavery to his ambition had
made him naturally as taciturn as these grim men of the North, who were
born to silence. But to-night there had come a change over him. He
wanted to talk. He wanted to ask questions. He longed for human
companionship, for some kind of mental exhilaration beyond that
furnished by his own thoughts. Feeling in his pocket for a cigar he
seated himself before one of the windows and proffered it to the factor
from Lac Bain.

"You smoke?" he asked companionably.

"I was born in a wigwam," said the factor slowly, taking the cigar.
"Thank you."

"Deuced polite for a man who hasn't seen civilization for three years,"
thought Howland, seating himself comfortably, with his feet on the
window-sill. Aloud he said, "The clerk tells me you are from Lac Bain.
That's a good distance north, isn't it?"

"Four hundred miles," replied the factor with quiet terseness. "We're on
the edge of the Barren Lands."

"Whew!" Howland shrugged his shoulders. Then he volunteered, "I'm going
north myself to-morrow."

"Post man?"

"No; engineer. I'm putting through the Hudson Bay Railroad."

He spoke the words quite clearly and as they fell from his lips the
half-breed, partly concealed in the gloom behind him, straightened with
the alert quickness of a cat. He leaned forward eagerly, his black eyes
gleaming, and then rose softly from his seat. His moccasined feet made
no sound as he came up behind Howland. It was the big huskie who first
gave a sign of his presence. For a moment the upturned eyes of the young
engineer met those of the half-breed. That look gave Howland a glim