ell me who spread
them, and I'll run him to earth, if he leads me through the heart
of Labrador."

"I don't know," she returned earnestly, rising in her turn. "That's
the trouble with rumors. They're like a summer wind; they go
everywhere unseen, but everyone hears them, and none can say out
of which direction they first came or when they will cease blowing.
I don't know."

Baffled, shocked, embittered, Donald turned passionately upon her.

"You don't know what was in my heart when I came here to-day," he
cried. "You don't know what has been in it ever since the fall when
the _brigade_ went south. I need you. I want you. This winter,
everything has gone against me, but the thought of your sympathy
and affection made those troubles easy to bear. I stand now under
the shadow of such a despicable thievery as the lowest half-breed
rarely commits. They say I cache and dispose of furs for my own
profit--I, in whom honor and loyalty to the Company have been bred
for a hundred years. Tomorrow I start out on the almost hopeless
task of proving myself innocent. And not only that! A half-breed
in my district, Charley Seguis, has murdered an Indian, and I, as
captain of Fort Dickey, must run him to earth, and bring him back
here, if I can get the drop on him first. If I can't--but never
mind that part of it. My honor and even my life are at stake, but
those are little things, if I know you love me. I wanted to go away
to-morrow with the knowledge of your faith in me, and the promise
that, when I came back, we might be married. Oh, Jean, I need you,
I need you, and now--" He broke off abruptly.

The girl had paled beneath her tan. She stood looking at him, her
hands gripped tightly together in front of her, her eyes wide with
wonder and perplexity.

"I can't help it, Donald," she said, in a low voice. "I'm sorry,
truly I am sorry. I--I didn't know these things. And, perhaps,
you'll be shot, you say? No, that must not be. You must come back,
even if things aren't what they were."

"You do care for me!" cried McTavish eagerly, Stepping toward her.

"Yes, yes, I do; but not the way you mean," she stammered, a sudden
instinctive fear of his masculine domination rising in her. "I
can't marry you now, or when you come back, or--ever!"

The fire in the man's eyes died out; his frame relaxed hopelessly,
and he fumbled for his fur cap.

"I'm sorry I spoke, Jean," he said, stretching out his hand.
"Good-by."

Suddenly, the door