dier stride. If she appeared at the drive under the convoy
of old Dick she was only a girl sent to whine a confession of fault and
to wheedle men to help her repair it. Would it not be well to take those
men fully into her confidence? She was resolved to tell them that she
loved Ward Latisan; she was admitting this truth to herself and she was
in a mood to tell all the truth to honest men who would be able to
understand. She was going north to inspire faith and courage and
loyalty. Would not the known granddaughter of Echford Flagg be able to
exert that compelling moral influence over the crew? Those men were
primitive enough to understand the urge of honest love of woman for a
man; and there was the spirit of chivalrous romance in the north
country. She knew it.

Her heart was bolder as she walked on, but her feet ached and the rough
road wearied her. She met no human being; she sat for a time on a
wayside bowlder, hoping that some straggling tote team would come up
from the south and overtake her.

The road snaked along in the Noda Valley, and from time to time she was
close to the turbid flood which swept down ice cakes and flotsam. From
her bowlder she could see a broad and calm stretch--a deadwater of which
she did not know the name.

Then, close to the shore where she waited, came a canoe headed upriver.
Two men were in it, paddling sturdily, taking advantage of eddies and
backwash. Fresh from the city as she was, she felt a thrill of sudden
terror; the men were Indians and wore the full regalia of tribal dress.

As a child she had seen and remembered well the Tarratines of the
region; they had been dressed like other woodsmen. These Indians with
feathers and beads put a strange fear into her in that solitude. She
slid from the rock and crouched behind it. She grasped the staff of the
cant dog more firmly; it was her only weapon of defense. But when her
fingers felt the depressions of the totem mark she turned from terror to
hope. Latisan, at their first meeting, had referred to the status of
Echford Flagg among the Tarratines. Courage was back in her again, along
with her new hope. She leaped to her feet and called to the Indians and
flourished a salute. They hesitated a moment, then drove their craft to
the shore a pebble toss away from her.

She did not speak to them--she held the staff so that the emblem was
shown to them. They disembarked, approached slowly, peered at the totem,
and saluted with upraised