Winnipeg to-morrow,
and you spend the rest of your life in jail. You have done me enough
injury already to land you in a dozen courts. I'll give you another
chance. Let me see that paper. And no funny business. I mean what
I say, and you know it. We're at the point now where you, or I,
win forever. Come now, dig up, and be quick!"

Perhaps, the flinty hardness, the indifferent crispness, of that
voice raised dim memories in the woman's mind, for her glance
wavered, for the first time.

"Come on, Maria," interposed Donald, as the old woman framed a
whining reply, "the paper is in that muskrat-skin bag around your
neck. I know, because I've seen it."

She turned upon him, bristling like an angry cat.

"Yes, and be quick, or you'll have help you don't want," added the
commissioner, coolly.

With a snarl, Maria thrust her hand into her meager bosom, and drew
forth a little bag with its draw-strings. Under the fascinated eyes
of the group, she opened it, and carefully extracted the worn paper.

"Please identify it, Fitzpatrick," ordered the commissioner, and
the factor of Fort Severn took the sheet in his hands.

"It's the same she showed me last summer," he said, after a careful
examination. "I would know the handwriting of Burns Riley, the
missionary, anywhere."

"Good heavens!" cried the commissioner. "Did Burns Riley write
and sign that?" He reached out an agitated hand, and Fitzpatrick
passed over the paper.

"Who was this Riley, father?" asked Donald.

"One of the first men to reach the Whale River districts," was the
agitated answer. "When Fitzpatrick and I were your age, he was one
of the most famous characters in the Northland, because he carried
Christianity in either fist when it was necessary. But he was the
squarest man that ever lived, was old Burns."

"Is he dead now?"

"Yes, these fifteen years. Wait a minute. Let me see this." He ran
his eyes slowly along the faded lines, and read:

This is to certify that on April 17, 1873, I united in marriage
Douglas McTavish, fur trader at Fort Miskati, son of Duncan
McTavish, pure Scotch, to Maria Seguis, Ojibway Indian. "Whom
God hath joined together let no man put asunder."

BURNS RILEY, Missionary.

That was all. McTavish saw his whole life go down in wreckage and
ruin under the weight of those five or six lines of writing. There
was no question as to the authorship--he himself recognized Riley's
handwriting, though it was many yea