cked alarmingly.
The wearer, exulting in the consciousness that everybody was looking
at her, saw nothing of this strange land she was in.

As soon as the general hand-shaking was over, Big Jack addressed
himself to Sergeant Coulson. "I've got a prisoner for you, sergeant."

Coulson instantly stiffened into an arm of the law. "What charge?" he
asked.

"I don't know exactly the legal name of it. He carried off a girl
against her will. This girl!"--pointing to Bela. "Regularly tied her
up and carried her off in a canoe, and kept her prisoner on an island
in the lake."

The policeman was startled under his military air. "Is this true?" he
asked Bela.

Bela, without saying anything, allowed him to suppose that it was.

"We'll have a hearing at once," said Coulson. "Gagnon, can we use your
shack?"

Could he use it!

"Aristide! Michel! Maria!" shrieked Johnny. "Run, you turtles! Carry
ever't'ing outside. Tak' down the stove!"

Bishop Lajeunesse went to Bela with kind eyes.

"My poor girl!" he said in her own tongue. "Have you had a bad time?"

"Wait," murmured Bela deprecatingly. "I tell everything in there."

"Mercy! Abducted!" cried Miss Mackall with an inquisitive stare.
"She's bold enough about it. Not a trace of shame!"

"I'm afraid this will hardly be suitable for you to hear," murmured
the doctor, who had constituted himself one of Miss Mackall's
gallants. "Will you wait in the boat?"

"A trial! I wouldn't miss it for worlds," she retorted. "Which is the
criminal? One of her own sort, I suppose. Fancy! carrying her off!"

Within a few minutes the Gagnon household effects were heaped out of
doors, and the stage set for the "trial." It was strange how the
squatty little shack with its crooked windows and doors instantly took
on the look of a court.

All the seats were ranged across one end between the two doors for the
policemen and the guests of honour.

Both doors were left open to give light to the proceedings, and a
great bar of sunlight fell athwart the dusty floor.

Coulson sat in the middle with a table before him, and the other
policeman at his left with note-book and pencil to take down the
evidence. Both youngsters as the representatives of authority wore an
air of gravity beyond their years.

Miss Mackall sat at the other side of Coulson, ever making play with
the ostrich feathers. The doctor and the Indian agent were next her.

At the other end of the line sat Bishop Lajeunesse. He h