," he said.

"Do _you_ understand chemistry?" asked Lindsley. But the trapper did
not answer. He got out the retort, and in five minutes the oxygen was
bubbling furiously through the wash bottle into the India-rubber
receiver. Edwards stood at the window scanning the road toward Gager's
with his telescope until it grew dark, which in that latitude was at
about ten o'clock. Then the magic lantern was removed to the little
grass-roofed stable, in which dwelt a solitary pony, and by Edwards's
direction the focus was carefully set so that it would throw a picture
against the house. Edwards selected two pictures and adjusted them for
use in the two tubes.

The half-breeds were not in haste, and in all the long hour of suspense
Emilia, hidden in the barn with her father and young Edwards, was
positively happy. For here was human companionship, and a hungry soul
will gladly risk death if by that means companionship can be purchased.
It did not matter either that conversation was out of the question. It
is presence, and not talk, that makes companionship.

But hark! the _bois brules_ are on the bank of the river below. Emilia's
heart grew still as she heard them swear. Their _sacr-r-r-r-re_ rolled
like the rattle of a rattlesnake. They were coming up the hill,
quarreling drunkenly about the powder. Now they were between the house
and the stable, getting ready to dig a hole for the "_poudre a canon_"

"I'll give them fireworks!" said Edwards in a whisper.

A picture of Thorwaldsen's bas-relief of "Morning" having been
previously placed in the instrument, Edwards now removed the cap, and
the beautiful flying female figure, with the infant in her arms, shone
out upon the side of the house with marvelous vividness.

"By thunder!" said Whisky Jim, steadying himself, while every hair
stood on end.

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried the _bois brules_, who had never seen a picture in
their lives except in the cathedral of St. Boniface, at Fort Garry.
"_Mon Dieu! La Sainte Vierge!_" And they fell on their knees before
this apparition of the Blessed Virgin, and crossed themselves and
prayed lustily.

But "Whisky Jim" straightened himself up, and hiccoughed, and stammered
"By thunder!" and added some words which, being Saxon, I will not
print.

"The devil!" cried Jim, a minute later, starting down the hill at full
speed, for, by Edwards's direction, the light had been shifted to the
other tube in such a way as to dissolve the "Morning" into