ll think it over."

Old Maria, bent and shriveled, hobbled off, croaking, to hide the
expression of malignant triumph on her leathery face. Her words
had bitten deeper than Seguis cared to admit, even to himself. The
short summer months, the hunter's love- and play-time, had been a
season of misery for him, because of Jean Fitzpatrick's pure and
beautiful face. Subconsciously, he knew that in mind and spirit
he was her equal; the white strain in him, which now governed all
his thoughts and actions, felt the call of its own blood. Hence,
it had been with sad, rather than bitter, feelings that he witnessed
Donald's courtship of the girl. More fiercely than ever, he realized
the limitations of his kind. The bar sinister was a veritable
millstone around his neck which dragged him down to a level he
abhorred.

It was with a kind of gnawing hopelessness that he had gone away
from the fort in the fall, and endeavored to forget his misery in
the thousand activities of the free-traders' brotherhood. For
McTavish personally, he had always retained a strong feeling of
friendship, as was shown on the occasion of sending the Hudson Bay
man forth on the Death Trail. But, now, the old hunger returned
strong upon him at his mother's words, and he resolved to give
himself every opportunity for contemplation of the dangerous theme.

Night came without the appearance of the looked-for French
supply-trains, and, as usual, the camp retired early. As many of
the men as possible used the small rooms in the great log house,
which occupied two-thirds of its length. It was in one of these
that Donald had been confined during his stay among the free-traders.

A high wind was blowing, and it was intensely cold. Suddenly, during
the most terrible hours of the night, a frightened cry rang through
the camp. Men, with heads and faces buried under mountainous
blankets or in sleeping-bags, did not hear, and the shivering wretch
who had tried to give the alarm ran frantically from room to room,
rousing the sleepers. Those who were sheltered by shed-tents awoke
to see a rosy light spreading across the snow where they lay--a
light that was not the aurora. Then, upon the rushing wind sounded
an ominous roar and a mighty crackling. The great log house was
afire, and the wind exulted in the flames, tossing them back and
forth and upward with fiendish glee. Shouting hoarsely, the trappers
leaped, wet and steaming, out of their covers, and ran to the
conf