nately through the
sides of the lodge, leaving Antoine in possession. But
when they gathered themselves together outside, they were
confronted by Pepin, whom they took to be some terrible
monster from the ghost world, and the last state of them
was worse than the first Pepin enjoyed their discomfiture
for a brief space, and then explained who he was and why
he came to honour them with his presence. Calling Antoine
off, he left them in a still more dubious and confused
state of mind.

He had wandered almost half-a-mile from the camp on to
the broken edge of the great canyon, where, nearly a
thousand feet below, the ice-cold waters of the mighty
Saskatchewan showed like a blue ribbon shot with white.
Right in front of him was infinite space, and the earth
fell away as if from the roof of the world. It seemed to
Pepin that he had never before so fully realised the
majesty of Nature. Standing on the edge of the nightmarish
abyss, with the Indian girl near her, he saw Dorothy.
Neither of them observed him, and he stood still for a
minute to watch them.

As he gazed at the slim, graceful figure of the white
prisoner in her neat but faded black dress, it seemed to
him that he had never realised how beautiful and perfect
a thing was the human form. He had only in a crude way
imagined possibilities in the somewhat squat figures of
the Indian girls. There was a distinction in the poise
of Dorothy's proud shapely head that he had never seen
before in any woman. When she turned and saw him, her
face lighting up with welcome and her hands going out in
front of her, he experienced something that came in the
light of a revelation. He wondered how it was he could
have ever said, "she will not do."

CHAPTER XXV

A PROPOSAL FROM PEPIN

Dorothy approached Pepin as if to shake hands, but the
dwarf artfully pretended that there was something the
matter with Antoine's leading-rein, and ignored her. He
had never before realised how really dangerous a despised
female could he.

"Pepin Quesnelle," said Dorothy, "it was asking a great
deal when I sent for you, but I knew you would come. You
saved the life of Sergeant Pasmore when Riel was going
to shoot him, and I want to--"

"Bah, Mam'selle! But it is nonsense you talk like that,
so! The right--that is the thing. What is goodness after
all if one can only be good when there is nothing that
pulls the other way--no temptations, no dangers? It is
good to pray to God, but wh