Rainy. The center of an admiring and curious
group, he narrated his adventures with many a flourish and
exaggeration. Reduced to a few words, the facts were these:

When McTavish had refused to take his old servant on the hunt for
Charley Seguis, Rainy had moped disconsolate for almost a week. It
was the first time they had ever been separated on a dog or canoe
journey. At the end of that period, when no runner had brought word
of his master, the Indian became restless and anxious.

Finally, having nothing himself, he had mended an old sleigh at
the fort, borrowed Buller's dog-team, and set out to locate McTavish,
against the desire and advice of Cardepie and Buller.

How he had followed the blind trail, how he had escaped capture at
Lake Sturgeon by a hair's breadth and a snowfall that obliterated
his tracks, and how he had, finally, in despair, started for Fort
Severn for help, took long in the telling.

But the same snowfall that saved him, saved McTavish, for, in taking
a cut through the woods, Rainy had come upon the erratic tracks of
the blind man, and followed them without the slightest suspicion
of whose they were, only knowing that someone was in distress.

The meeting between man and master, just barely in time to save
the latter's life, had been fervent, but reserved. McTavish gave
himself up to the ministrations of the other like a child, and
obediently rode almost all the way to the fort on the sledge, his
eyes covered. Food there had been in plenty, so that, by the time
the snowy masses of Fort Severn showed themselves, he had regained
nearly all his strength.

But, while Peter Rainy was satisfying curious ears outside, a far
different scene was taking place in the factor's private office.
Donald, the covering removed from his eyes in the darkened room,
faced Angus Fitzpatrick across the latter's desk, and briefly told
the story of his adventures.

When he had finished the account, there was silence in the room
for a minute. Fitzpatrick scowled. Something about this young man,
even his presence itself, seemed to irritate him.

"Where is the man you went out to get, McTavish?" asked the factor.

"At Sturgeon Lake."

"He ought to be here in jail."

"I know it, sir. I did the best I could."

"The Hudson Bay Company doesn't take that for an excuse. It wants
the man. This is a hard country and a hard rule, but no other rule
will keep a respect for law in our territories. A shot, a
dagger-thrust,