The _Bois-Brules_ fired on the
fort. Where _is_ Rufus Gillespie?"

"Bless you, lassie! Here--here--here he is!" The holy father thumped my
back at every word. "Here he is, crazy as a March hare for news of
Hamilton!"

"You--Rufus--Gillespie!" So she did not even know my name. Evidently, if
she troubled my thoughts, I did not trouble hers.

"He's told me so much about you," she went on, with a little pant of
astonishment. "How brave and good----"

"Pshaw!" I interrupted roughly. "What's the message?"

"Mr. Hamilton wishes to see you at once," she answered coldly.

"Then kill two birds with one stone! Take her home and see Hamilton--and
hurry!" urged the priest.

The half-breeds were now very near.

"Put it over your head!" and Father Holland clapped the shawl about
Frances Sutherland after the fashion of the half-breed women.

She stood demurely behind him while I ran up-stairs in the warehouse to
disguise myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in
the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the _Bois-Brules_, as if
pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be
inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence,
is not a sight to edify any man.

"What's this ye have, Father?" bawled one impudent fellow, and he
pointed sneeringly at the figure in the folds of the shawl.

"Let the wench be!" was the priest's reply, and the half-breed lounged
past with a laugh.

I was about to offer Frances Sutherland my arm to escort her from the
mob, when I felt Father Holland's hard knuckles dig viciously into my
ribs.

"Ye fool ye! Ye blundering idiot!" he whispered, "she's a half-breed.
Och! But's time y'r eastern greenness was tannin' a good western russet!
Let her follow with bowed head, or you'll have the whole pack on y'r
heels!"

With that admonition I strode boldly out, she behind, humble, with
downcast eyes like a half-breed girl.

We ran down the river path through the willows and jumping into a canoe
swiftly rounded the forks of the Assiniboine and Red. There we left the
canoe and fled along a trail beneath the cliff till the shouting of the
half-breeds could be no longer heard. At once I turned to offer her my
arm. She must have bruised her feet through the thin moccasins, for the
way was very rough. I saw that she was trembling from fatigue.

"Permit me," I said, offering my arm as formally as if she had been
some grand lady in an eastern drawing-