d listened to their cruel words
unmoved. He saw Pritchen standing by, with Satanic delight stamped
upon his features, but it affected him not.

Base and sordid though they were, his companions could not fail to
recognize the dignified, lofty bearing of the man before them, and the
new light which illumined his face. Mickie O'Toole paused in the midst
of a jocular remark, reverently crossed himself, and forgot to finish
his sentence. Perdue remained silent, and even Pritchen failed to pour
forth his quota of filth and blasphemy. They all felt, though none
would have acknowledged it, that some mysterious power was in that
room, before which their guilty souls shrank and feared. Keith, alone,
knew that One who said, "Lo, I am with you alway," had not deserted him
in the hour of distress.

It was only after they had left the house and moved down the hill
through the gloomy night that the miners recovered from their temporary
fear. When at length they thrust Keith into the saloon among the
astonished waiting men, the vilest words in the English language were
none too strong with which to introduce the wretched man.

CHAPTER XVIII

YUKON JENNIE

On the afternoon preceding the miners' meeting, Yukon Jennie sat
silently in the corner of the old chief's lodge. Her busy little
fingers were arranging a number of small pictures, choosing out the
best and laying them carefully by themselves. Her face was full of
animation as she bent over her task, and her eyes sparkled with delight
as she gazed tenderly upon some favourite sketch.

"The pale-face woman will like that," she said to herself. "When she
sees the little stream running through the woods, playing with the
sunbeams, laughing at the trees, kissing the flowers, and singing,
singing all the time, she will be glad."

Since the night she had fled from the church, clutching the keen knife
in her hand, a transformation had come over this dusky, wayward maiden.
As long as her terrible resolve was pent up in her little heart it
possessed her whole being. But when she had given vent to feelings in
passionate words, the outcome was marvellous. It had proven a
veritable safety-valve to her surcharged soul, a relief, which in
others of a different disposition would have been effected by scalding
tears.

To acknowledge any change to her faithful teacher was foreign to her
proud nature. When once again, however, in the cold night air she
looked for a time tow