d you come from?" The
next instant she held one of the hunter's rough hands in both hers, half
laughing, half crying.

"Mam'selle Grace, it is of a truth the great 'appiness to see you," was
the old man's sincere greeting, his small black eyes shining with
feeling. "Jean has come far. Long way," he waved a comprehensive hand
toward the west. "I come because I hav' learn that you hav' the
trouble."

"But how long have you been in Oakdale and who told you about Tom?"
questioned Grace anxiously. "We have gone to your cabin in Upton Wood
several times, in the hope that you had returned. The first time we went
we saw the sign on the door."

"I put him there," nodded Jean, "because I go 'way for long time. Many
weeks I stay in Canada. Only to-day I come back. Then----"

"Did some one in Oakdale tell you Tom was missing?" interrogated Grace,
cutting almost impatiently into Jean's narrative.

"No, Mam'selle. Only I hav' speak the _bon jour_ to my frien's as I come
through the town. Some days have pass since firs' I see this." Jean
pulled a newspaper from a pocket of his weather-stained coat. Spreading
it open and laboriously perusing the first page, he tendered it to
Grace, pointing out a column in it.

Grace needed but to glance at it to recognize it as a copy of the
newspaper recording Tom Gray's disappearance, which Hippy had brought
her. "How did you ever happen to come across this, Jean?" Her query held
a note of positive awe.

"It is of a truth strange," admitted Jean. "W'en I stay long time in
Canada I come back to this country to Minnesota. I go to Duluth, w'ere I
hav' ol' frien'. I spen' two days by him an' talk about many t'ings
w'ich 'appen to us long ago w'en we hunt together. He tell me about a
young man who come up north an' get los'. Nobody can fin'. He show me
this paper an' say, 'W'en I read this I t'ink you, Jean, can fin' this
young man, because you great hunter.' Then I look an' see the young man
is M'sieu' Tom, an' the paper is ol' one. So I leave my pack skins wit'
my frien' and come here quick on the train, because I know Mam'selle
Grace will tell all. Then I go fin' M'sieu' Tom," ended Jean, wagging
his gray head with deep determination.

"Talk about miracles!" burst forth Elfreda Briggs. "It's the most
remarkable thing I ever knew to happen." Elfreda had lost no time in
overtaking Grace on the veranda. The Angerell children had not followed,
however. They had trotted on home, well satisfied wi