gentle, so unmoving from the way of tenderness.
Proving that came the picture of the tot on her shoulder, "dipping as
the ships at sea, ma cherie," and the look of her face transfigured. And
yet home for her was "the blue sky above, the wind in the pine-tops, the
sound of water lapping at the prow of a canoe." So she had said on that
last day they spoke together in happiness, passing in diffident joy to
the gate to meet De Courtenay's fateful messenger.

Of all women in the vast world she was the one woman. There was never
another face with that strange allurement, that baffling light of
strength and tenderness.

Sore, sore, indeed, was the heart of the young factor of Fort de Seviere
as he lay under the stars and listened to the death-wail in the darkened
camp.

Nowhere was there a fire.

Desolation sat upon the Nakonkirhirinons.

Along toward dawn, presaged by the westward wheeling of the big stars,
tom-toms began to beat throughout the maze of lodges. They beat oddly
into the air, cold with the chill of the coming day.

McElroy's thoughts had left the great country of the Hudson Bay and
travelled back along the winding waterways, across the lakes, and at
last out on that heaving sea which bore away from his homeland. Once
more he had been in the smoke of London town, had looked into the loving
eyes of his mother and gripped the hand of his tradesman father. Once
more he had wondered what the future held.

The sudden striking up of the tom-toms answered him.

This.

This was to be the end of his eager advance in the Company's favour,
the end of that good glass of life whose red draught he had drunk with
wholesome joy, the end of love that had but dawned for him to sink into
aching darkness.

He sighed wearily. So poignant was his sense of loss and the pain of it
that the end was a weariness rather than a new pain.

The thing that hurt was the fact that he himself had juggled the cards
of fate to this sorry dealing.

The sudden rage concerning De Courtenay had spent itself. There remained
only the deep anger of the man who has lost in the game of love. And
yet, what right had he to cherish even this wholesome anger against his
rival when the maid had chosen of her own free will? As well hold
grudge to the great Power whose wisdom had given the man such marvellous
beauty. As he lay in the darkness listening to the unearthly noises he
worked it all out with justice.

He alone was to blame for the sorry s