leading into the rear room opened, and in the
frame stood the heavy figure of Angus Fitzpatrick, his eyes glittering
under the beetling white brows. For a silent moment, he took in
the scene before him.

"Jean," he said harshly, "what does this mean? You know my orders.
Do you disobey me?" The girl flushed painfully.

"Mr. McTavish is going now, father," she said, quietly. "I'm sending
him away."

"I'll look to that Indian woman," muttered Fitzpatrick. "She had
orders not to admit him." Then, aloud:

"Mr. McTavish, in the future, kindly do not confuse your business
at this factory with your personal desires. I do not wish it."

"Very well," replied the captain impersonally, without looking at
the factor.

His eyes were fixed hungrily upon the face of the girl, searching
for a sign of tender emotion. But there was none. Only confusion,
fear, and surprise struggled for mastery there. Hopelessly, he
bowed stiffly to her, and went out of the door.

Crossing the courtyard by a path that was a veritable canyon of
snow, he gained his quarters in the barracks. There, he found Peter
Rainy, gaunt and with a wrinkled, leathern face, starting to gather
the packs for the early start next morning. Donald filled and lit
his pipe solemnly, and then sat down to ponder.

Something intangible and ill-favored had been streaked across the
clean page of his life. Angus Fitzpatrick's increasing malice toward
him was not the sudden whim of an irascible old man. He knew that,
all other things being equal, the factor was really just, in a
rough and ungracious way. Any other man in the service would have
hesitated long before accusing him, with his father's and
grandfather's records, glorious as they were, and his own
unimpeachable, as far as he knew. Some event or circumstances over
which he had no control had raised itself, and defamed him to these
persons who held his honor and his happiness in their hands. This
much he sensed; else why had the factor taken such half-hidden,
but malicious, joy in sending him forth on these two Herculean
tasks; else, why had the rumor poisoned the mind of Jean against
him, and held her aloof and unapproachable?

That Jean should not love him under the circumstances did not
surprise him, but he groped in vain for an explanation of old
Fitzpatrick's evident hatred. The old factor and the elder McTavish,
now commissioner, had known each other for years, the latter's
incumbency of the York factory hav