he laid her hand on his arm and said:

"If you do not know him he will not know you. Is it not so?"

"Yes."

"Then the rest is easy--"

But he only shook his head doubtfully and answered, "Perhaps--I am not
sure," and went inside, where he made up a light pack of bacon, flour
and tea, a pail or two, a coffee-pot and a frying-pan, which he rolled
inside a robe of rabbit-skin and bound about in turn with a light
tarpaulin. It did not weigh thirty pounds in all. Selecting a new pair
of water-boots, he stuffed dry grass inside them, oiled up his
six-shooter, then slipped out the back way, and in five minutes was
hidden in the thickets. Half an hour later, having completed a detour
of the town, he struck the trail to the interior, where he found Poleon
Doret, equipped in a similar manner, resting beside a stream, singing
the songs of his people.

When Burrell returned to his quarters he tried to mitigate the feeling
of lonesomeness that oppressed him by tackling his neglected
correspondence. Somehow, to-day, the sense of his isolation had come
over him stronger than ever. His rank forbade any intimacy with his
miserable handful of men, who had already fallen into the monotony of
routine, while every friendly overture he made towards the citizens of
Flambeau was met with distrust and coldness, his stripes of office
seeming to erect a barrier and induce an ostracism stronger and more
complete than if they had been emblems of the penitentiary. He began to
resent it keenly. Even Doret and the trader seemed to share the general
feeling, hence the thought of the long, lonesome winter approaching
reduced the Lieutenant to a state of black despondency, deepened by the
knowledge that he now had an open enemy in camp in the person of
Runnion. Then, too, he had taken a morbid dislike to the new man,
Stark. So that, all in all, the youth felt he had good reason to be in
the dumps this afternoon. There was nothing desirable in this
place--everything undesirable--except Necia. Her presence in Flambeau
went far towards making his humdrum existence bearable, but of late he
had found himself dwelling with growing seriousness on the unhappy
circumstances of her birth, and had almost made up his mind that it
would be wise not to see her any more. The tempting vision of her in
the ball-dress remained vividly in his imagination, causing him hours
of sweet torment. There was a sparkle, a fineness, a gentleness about
her that seemed to make