nnecessary tasks. She also knew what he knew, and she
held him in a new respect for his silence, understanding the reason
therefor, and presently when her leaping heart had steadied a little
she began to talk, on indifferent topics, desiring to break a silence
that was full of constraint.

"I saw you looking at the traps there, this morning. Are you thinking
of using them?"

"Yes," he answered, "I am going to start a trapping line. It will give
me something to do; and the walk will excercise my leg. If the owner of
the cabin returns we shall be able to pay him rent with the pelts I
take."

"Isn't it time he was here now, if he is coming?"

"Yes! But he may be delayed."

"Or he may not intend to return. He may have found a new locality for
his operations."

"When he went away he meant to return, or why did he leave his traps
here?"

"You think he will come back then?"

"I hope so!"

"And when he comes you will lure him to take us to Fort Malsun?"

"That is my idea," replied Stane, bending over the webbing.

"You are anxious to get away from here, then?"

"I am thinking of you," he answered quickly. "I know what a full winter
in the North means."

"And if I get to Fort Malsun, do you think I shall escape the winter?"

"No, but you will have company."

"I have company now," she retorted smilingly, "and believe me I do not
feel at all lonely."

"I was thinking you would have the factor's wife for----"

"Pooh!" was the challenging reply. "Do you think a woman cannot live
without women?"

He offered no answer to the question, feeling that they were in the
danger zone again; and after a moment deliberately turned the
conversation backward.

"If I have luck with the traps, you may be able to have a set of furs
for a memento of your sojourn here!"

"Oh!" she laughed back, "if that is the only memento I am to have----"

"Yes?" he asked.

For a moment she did not speak, and when she did there was provocation
in her voice. "Well, I shall be disappointed, that is all."

He did not ask why. He knew; and his very silence told Helen that he
knew, and for a moment both of them were conscious of the surging of
that elemental force which had made itself felt out in the forest.

Then the stillness was broken by a sound outside. Both of them heard
it, and listened carefully.

"Crunch! crunch! crunch!"

Some one on snow-shoes was walking round the cabin. Whoever it was had
halted by the door. Was he coming