nto the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's
duties during the past two weeks to rise and renew the fire when the
cold awakened his comrade soon after midnight. At present he was
outside the house, whipsawing birch-logs and splitting them into
billets, which was an occupation he cherished a profound dislike for.

Spring had, however, come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie,
a few days earlier, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant
sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck
athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell,
pleasantly warm, upon the man who lay in the deerhide chair. He was a
year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty,
a man of tranquil manner, with a rather lean and deeply bronzed face,
of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. He held a pipe in his
hand, and was then looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes.
They were, indeed, his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult
to say whether their colour was grey or hazel-brown, for they were
singularly clear, and there was something which suggested steadfastness
in their unwavering gaze. He wore long boots, trousers of old blue
duck, and a jacket of soft deerskin such as the Blackfeet dress; and
there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a man of varied
experience, and of some importance in that country.

Harry Wyllard was native-born, and had in his young days assisted his
father in the working of a little Manitoban farm, when that great grain
province was still, for the most part, a wilderness. Then a more
prosperous relative on the Pacific slope had sent him to Toronto
University, where after a session or two he had become involved in a
difference of opinion with the authorities. Though the matter was
never made quite clear, it was generally believed that Wyllard had
quietly borne the blame of a comrade's action, for there was a vein of
eccentric generosity in the lad. In any case, he left Toronto, and the
relative, who was largely interested in the fur business, next sent him
north to the Behring Sea, in one of his schooners. The business was
then a remarkably hazardous one, for the skin buyers and pelagic
sealers had trouble all round with the Alaskan representatives of
American trading companies, whose preserves they poached upon, as well
as with the commanders of the gunboats sent up there to protect the