young mon, and I'll trudge off to
Frances."

"Your daughter is not at home?"

"What words wu'l ye have me bear to her, lad?" he asked.

That was too much for a youth in a peevish state of convalescence. What
lover could send his heart's eloquence by word of mouth with a peppery,
prosaic father?

"Tell Mistress Sutherland I must see her at once," I quickly responded
with a flash of temper that was ever wont to flare up when put to the
test.

"Aye," he answered, with an amused look in the cold, steel eyes. "I'll
deleever y'r message when--when"--and he hesitated in a way suggestive
of eternity--"I'll deleever y'r message when I see her."

At that I turned my face to the wall in the bitterness of spirit which
only the invalid, with all the strength of a man in his whims and the
weakness of an infant in his body, knows. I spent a feverish, restless
night, with the hard-faced Scotchman watching from his armchair at my
bedside. Once, when I suddenly awakened from sleep, or delirium, his
eyes were fastened on my face with a gleam of grave kindliness.

"Mr. Sutherland," I cried, with all the impatience of a child, "please
tell me, where is your daughter?"

"I sent her to a neighbor, sin' ye came to y'r senses, lad," said he.
"Ye hae kept her about ye night and day sin' ye gaed daft, and losh,
mon, ye hae gabbled wild talk enough to turn the head o' ony lassie
clean daft. An' ye claver sic' nonsense when ye're daft, what would ye
say when ye're sane? Hoots, mon, ye maun learn to haud y'r tongue----"

"Mr. Sutherland," I interrupted in a great heat, quite forgetful of his
hospitality, "I'm sorry to be the means of driving your daughter from
her home. I beg you to send me back to Fort Douglas----"

"Haud quiet," he ordered with a wave of his hand. "An' wa'd ye have me
expose the head of a mitherless bairn to a' the clack o' the auld geese
in the settlement? Temper y'r ardor wi' discretion, lad! 'Twas but the
day before yesterday she left and she was sair done wi' nursing you and
losing of sleep! Till ye're fair y'rsel' again and up, and she's weel
and rosy wi' full sleep, bide patient!"

That speech sent my face to the wall again; but this time not in anger.
And that dogged fashion Mr. Sutherland had of taking his own way did me
many a good turn. Often have I heard those bragging captains of the
Hudson's Bay mercenaries swagger into the little cottage sitting-room,
while I lay in bed on the other side of the thin boar