nstinctively she looked about her,
like some wild thing vainly seeking for a way to escape impending
peril. What would he be like? What would he think of her? Oh! She now
knew that it had all been a frightful mistake! Her limbs shook with a
sudden bitter coldness that had fallen upon her like one of the masses
that became displaced from the great trees, and she could not keep her
teeth from chattering. Then, in her ears, began to boom a strong
continuous sound that was ominous, threatening.

[Illustration: Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for
the first time the man she was to marry]

"What's that?" she stammered, trembling.

"Dat's de noise of dem big Falls of Roaring River," answered Stefan.

An instant later, Madge never knew why, the dogs were snarling in a
fight. In a moment Stefan was among them, wielding his short-handled
and long-lashed whip. A trace was broken. By the time the damage was
repaired and the dogs pacified some ten minutes or more had been
wasted. The man looked at his watch.

"I ain't got so much time left," he said. "I got to hurry back for
Mis' Carew. Lucky ve're most dere now."

A few seconds after they had started again they came to an opening,
towards which Stefan pointed, and the girl's heart sank within her.

She saw nothing of the distant falls surrounded by a growth in which
every twig scintillated with the frost lavished by the river's vapor.
She never noticed the great circular pool with its deep banks, or the
wonderful view, far across country, of mountains washed in pale blues
and lavenders, of the sun-flooded bright expanse of open ground,
partly fenced in with axe-hewn rails. She could only stare at a little
shack, the smallest she had seen in that country, and at the thread of
smoke coming from the length of stove-pipe protruding from the
ice-covered roof, and to her it looked like the home of misery.

A few yards farther on the team stopped. From here the hut could only
be faintly distinguished through a growth of birches and firs.

"You can get off de toboggan now, leddy," Stefan told her. "I puts off
your trunk too. Hugo he come and get it. I call to him."

She rose to her feet, speechless, amazed, with fear causing a terrible
throbbing in her throat. She would have protested but could not find
her voice. As soon as Stefan had unlashed the trunk and put it down on
the frozen ground he turned his team around.

"Oh! Hugo!" he bellowed. "Oh! Hugo! He