ho COURAGE 
 
 'DOONE 
 
 JAMES 
 OLIVER 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/courageofmargeodOOcurwrich 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
BOOES BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The CouaAGE or Captain Plum ^ 
 The Honob or the Big Snows 
 The Gk)iiD Hunters 
 The Wolf Huntees 
 The Danger Tbail 
 PhttiTp Steele 
 The Great Laebb 
 Flowbb of the North 
 
 ISOBEL 
 
 Kazan 
 
 God'b Countby— and thb Womaw; .. 
 
 The Hutnted Woman 
 
 The Grizzly King 
 
 Baree» Son of Kazan 
 
# 
 
 # 
 
 ^, ^ 
 
 Against that savage background or mountain and 
 gorge she stood out clear-cut as a cameo, slender as a 
 reed; wild, palpitating, beautiful. She was more than 
 a picture. She was Life. 
 
THE COURAGE OF 
 MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 BY 
 JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 KAZAN, THE WOLF HUNTERS, 
 THE GRIZZLY KING. Etc. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1918, by 
 DOUBLEDAT, PaGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that qf 
 
 translation into foreign langtutges^ 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES . 
 
 . ' . • ' , ' ,AT~ ' " - ■ " '• 
 
 r^j^,ci>x:jX!TiYWK rsEds, bAnxJEP* city, h. t. 
 
 CXWYRIGUr, 1916, BY EVERY WEEK CORFORATICVI, UNDBR THB TITLB 
 **1HE GIRL BEYOND THE TRAIL" 
 
THE CX)UBAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 
 
 9i2'/yi 
 
THE COURAGE OF 
 MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IF YOU had stood there in the edge of the bleak 
 spruce forest, with the wind moaning dismally 
 through the twisting trees — ^midnight of deep 
 Decembei^the Transcontinental would have looked 
 like a thing of fire; dull fire, glowing with a smouldering 
 warmth, but of strange ghostliness and out of place. It 
 was a weird shadow, helpless and without motion, and 
 black as the half-Arctic night save for the band of il- 
 lumination that cut it in twain from the first coach to 
 the last, with a space like an inky hyphen where the 
 baggage car lay. Out of the North came armies of snow- 
 laden clouds that scudded just above the earth, and with 
 these clouds came now and then a shrieking mockery of 
 wind to taunt this stricken creation of man and the crear 
 tures it sheltered— men and women who had begun to 
 shiver, and whose tense white faces stared with increasing 
 anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that 
 himg like a sable curtain ten feet from the car windows. 
 
 For three hours those faces had peered out into the 
 night. Many of the prisouCTS in the snowbound coaches 
 bad enjoyed the experience somewhat at first, for there is 
 
 3 
 
4 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 pleasing anci iDrdefipahle tliri?! to unexpected adventure, 
 and this;r f or a bviisf spell, had been adventure de luxe. 
 There had beeiii wairmth and light, men's laughter, wo- 
 men's voices, and children's play. But the loudest jester 
 among the men was now silent, huddled deep in his great 
 coat; and the young woman who had clapped her hands in 
 silly ecstasy when it was announced that the train was 
 snowbound was weeping and shivering by timis. It was 
 cold — so cold that the snow which came sweeping and 
 swirUng with the wind was Hke granite-dust; it clicked, 
 clicked, clicked against the glass — a bombardment of untold 
 biUions of infinitesimal projectiles fighting to break in. 
 In the edge of the forest it was probably forty degrees 
 below zero. Within the coaches there still remained some 
 little warmth. The burning lamps radiated it and the 
 presence of many people added to it. But it was cold, 
 and growing colder. A gray coating of congealed breath 
 covered the car windows. A few men had given their 
 outer coats to women and children. These men looked 
 most frequently at their watches. The adventure de 
 luxe was becoming serious. 
 
 For the twentieth time a passing train-man was asked 
 the same question. 
 
 "The good Lord only knows," he growled down into 
 the face of the yoimg woman whose prettiness would have 
 «nticed the most chivalrous attention from him earlier 
 in the evening. "Engine and tender been gone three 
 hours and the divisional point only twenty miles up the 
 line. Should have been back with help long ago. Hell, 
 ain't it.?" 
 
 The young woman did not reply, but her round mouth 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 5 
 
 formed a quick and silent approbation of his final re- 
 mark. 
 
 "Three hours!" the train-man continued his growling 
 as he went on with his lantern. "That's the hell o' rail- 
 roading it along the edge of the Arctic. When you git 
 snowed in you're snowed in, an' there ain't no two ways 
 about it!" 
 
 He paused at the smoking compartment, thrust in his 
 head for a moment, passed on and slammed the door of 
 the car after him as he went into the next coach. 
 
 In that smoking compartment there were two men, 
 facing each other across the narrow space between the 
 two seats. They had not looked up when the trainman 
 thrust in his head. They seemed, as one leaned over 
 toward the other, wholly oblivious of the storm. 
 
 It was the older man who bent forward. He was about 
 fifty. The hand that rested for a moment on David 
 Raine's knee was red and knotted. It was the hand of a 
 man who had lived his life in strugghng with the wilder- 
 ness. And the face, too, was of such a man; a face 
 coloured and toughened by the tannin of wind and bliz- 
 zard and hot northern sun, with eyes cobwebbed about 
 by a myriad of fine lines that spoke of years spent under 
 the strain of those things. He was not a large man. He 
 was shorter than David Raine. There was a slight 
 droop to his shoulders. Yet about him there was a 
 strength, a suppressed energy ready to act, a zestful eager- 
 ness for life and its daily mysteries which the other and 
 yoimger man did not possess. Throughout many thou- 
 sands of square miles of the great northern wilderness this 
 older man was known as Father Roland, the Missioner. 
 
6 THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 His companion was iK)t more than tMrty-eiglit. Per- 
 haps he was a year or two yomiger. It may be that the 
 waning of tJhe wind outside, the strange voices that were 
 in it and the chilling gloom of their little compartment 
 made of him a more striking contrast to Father Roland 
 than he would have been under other conditions. His 
 eyes were a clear and steady gray as they met Father 
 Roland's. They were eyes that one could not easaly 
 forget. Except for his eyes he was like a man who had 
 been sick, and was still sick. The Missioner had made 
 his own guess. And now, with his hand on the other's 
 knee, he said: 
 
 "And you say — that you are afraid — ^for this friend 
 of yours?" 
 
 David Raine nodded his head. Lines deepened a Httle 
 about his mouth. 
 
 "Yes, I am afraid." For a moment he turned to the 
 night. A fiercer voUey of the Uttle snow demons beat 
 against the^ window, as though his pale face just beyond 
 their reach stirred them to greater fury. "I have a most 
 disturbing inclination to worry about him," he added, and 
 shrugged his shoulders sUghtly. 
 
 He faced Father Roland again, 
 
 "Did you ever hear of a man losing himself?" he asked. 
 " I don't mean in the woods, or in a desert, or by going mad. 
 I mean in the other way — ^heart, body, soul; losing one's 
 grip, you might call it, imtil there was no earth to stand 
 on. Did you?" 
 
 "Yes — mauy years ago — I knew of a man who lost 
 himself in that way," repUed the Missioner, straightening 
 in his seat. "But he found himself again. And this 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 7 
 
 friend of yours? I am interested. This is the first time 
 in three years that I have been down to the edge of civili- 
 zation, and what yon have to tefl will be different — ^vastly 
 different from what I know. If you are betraying nothing 
 would you mind telling me his story?" 
 
 "It is not a pleasant story," warned the younger man, 
 **and on such a night as this " 
 
 "It may be that one can see more clearly into the 
 depths of misfortune and tragedy," interrupted the Mi»- 
 aioner quietly. 
 
 A faint flush rose into David Raine's pale face. There 
 was something of nervous eagerness in the clasp of his 
 fingers upon his knees. 
 
 "Of course, there is the woman," he said. 
 
 ** Yes — of com^e — ^the woman." 
 
 "Sometimes I havpn't been quite sure whether this man 
 worshipped the woman or the woman's beauty," David 
 went on, with a strange glow in his eyes. "He loved 
 beauty. And this woman was beautiful, almost too beau- 
 tiful for the good of one's soul, I guess. And he must 
 have loved her, for when she went out of his life it was as if 
 he had sunk into a black pit out of which he could never 
 rise. I have asked myself often if he would have loved 
 her if she had been less beautiful— even quite plain, and 
 I have answered myself as he answered that question, in 
 the aflSrmative. It was bom in him to worship wherever 
 he loved at all. Her beauty made a certain sort of com- 
 pleteness for him. He treasured that. He was proud 
 of it. He counted himself the richest man in the world 
 because he possessed it. But deep under his worship 
 of her beauty he loved her, I am more and more sure of 
 
8 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 that, and I am equally sure that time will prove it — ^that 
 he will never rise again with his old hope and faith out of 
 that black pit into which he sank when he came face to 
 face with the realization that there were forces in life — 
 in nature perhaps, more potent than his love and his own 
 strong will." 
 
 Father Roland nodded. 
 
 "I understand," he said, and he sank back farth^ in 
 his comer by the window, so that his face was shrouded 
 a Httle in shadow. "This other man loved a woman, too. 
 And she was beautiful. He thought she was the most 
 beautiful thing in the world. It is great love that makes 
 beauty." 
 
 "But this woman — my friend's wife — ^was so beautiful 
 that even the eyes of other women were fascinated by her 
 I have seen her when it seemed she must have come fresh 
 from the hands of angels; and at first, when my friend was 
 the happiest man in the world, he was fond of telhng her 
 that it must have been the angels who put the colour in 
 her face and the wonderful golden fires in her shining hair. 
 It wasn't his love for her that made her beautiful. She 
 was beautiful." 
 
 "And her soul?" softly questioned the shadowed lips of 
 the Missioner. 
 
 The other's hand tightened slowly. 
 
 "In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess," he said. 
 
 "Then your friend did not k)ve her." The Little 
 Missioner's voice was quick and decisive. "There can 
 be no love where there is no soul." 
 
 "That is impossible. He did love her. I know it." 
 
 ^I still disagree with you. Without knowing your 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 9 
 
 friend, I say that he worshipped her beauty. There 
 were others who worshipped that same loveHness — others 
 who did not possess her, and who would have bartered 
 their souls for her had they possessed souls to barter. 
 Is that not true?" 
 
 "Yes, there were others. But to understand you must 
 have known my friend before he sank down into the pit 
 — ^when he was still a man. He was a great student. 
 His fortune was suflScient to give him both time and means 
 for the pursuits he loved. He had his great library, and 
 adjoining it a laboratory. He wrote books which few 
 people read because they were filled with facts and odd 
 theories. He beheved that the world was very old, and 
 that there was less profit for men in discovering new 
 luxuries for an artificial civilization than in re-discovering 
 a few of the great laws and miracles buried in the dust of 
 the past. He believed that the nearer we get to the 
 beginning of things, and not the farther we drift, the 
 clearer comprehension can we have of earth and sky and 
 God, and the meaning of it all. He did not consider it 
 an argument for progress that Christ and His disciples 
 knew nothing of the telephone, of giant engines run by 
 steam, of electricity, or of instruments by which man 
 could send messages for thousands of miles through space. 
 His theory was that the patriarchs of old held a closer 
 touch on the pulse of Life than progress in its present 
 forms will ever bring to us. He was not a fanatic. He 
 was not a crank. He was young, and filled with enthu- 
 siasm. He loved children. He wanted to fill his home 
 with them. But his wife knew that she was too beau^ 
 tiful for that — and they had none." 
 
10 THE COURAGE OF MAUGE O'DOONE 
 
 He had leaned a little forward, and liad pulled his hat 
 a trifle over his eyes. There was a moment's lull in the 
 storm, and it was so quiet that each could hear the tick- 
 ing of Father Eoland's big silver watch. 
 
 Then he said: 
 
 " I don't know why I tell you all this. Father, imless it 
 is to relieve my own mind. There can be no hope that it 
 will benefit my friend. And yet it cannot harm him. It 
 seems very near to sacrilege to put into words what I 
 am going to say about — ^his wife. Perhaps there were 
 extenuating conditions for her. I have tried to convince 
 myself of that, just as he tried to beheve it. It may be 
 that a man who is bom into this age must consider him^ 
 self a misfit unless he can tune himself in sympathy with 
 its manner of life. He cannot be too critical, I guess. 
 If he is to exist in a certain social order of our civiUzation 
 Unburdened by great doubts and deep glooms he must 
 not shiver when his wife tinkles her champagne glasa 
 against another. He must learn to appreciate the sinu- 
 ous beauties of the cabaret dancer, and must train him- 
 self to take no offence when he sees shimmering wines 
 tilted down white throats. He must train himself to 
 many things, just as he trains himself to classical music 
 and grand opera. To do these things he must forget, 
 as much as he can, the sweet melodies and the sweeter 
 women who are sinking into obUvion together. He must 
 accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort of 
 Tuning Master, and unless he can dance to its music he is 
 a misfit. That is what my friend said to extenuate her. 
 She fitted into this land of life splendidly. He was in 
 the other groove. She loved fight, laughter, wine, song, 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 11 
 
 and excitemeat. He, the misfit, loved his books, his 
 work, and his home. His greatest joy would have been 
 to go with her, hand in hand, through some wonderful 
 cathedral, pointing out its ancient glories and mysteries 
 to her. He wanted aloneness — just they two. Such 
 was his idea of love. And she — ^wanted other things. 
 You understand. Father? . . . The thing grew, and 
 at last he saw that she was getting away from him. Her 
 passion for admiration and excitement became a madness. 
 I know, because I saw it. My friend said that it was 
 madness, even as he was going mad. And yet he did not 
 suspect her. If another had told him that she was un- 
 clean I am sure he would have killed him. Slowly he 
 came to experience the agony of knowing that the woman 
 wiiom he worshippeil did not love him. But this did not 
 lead him to believe that she could love another — or others. 
 Then, one day, he left the city. She went with him to 
 the train — ^his wife. She saw him go. She waved her 
 handkerchief at him. And as she stood there she was — 
 glorious." 
 
 Through partly closed eyes the Little Missioner saw 
 his shoulders tighten, and a hardness settle about his 
 mouth. The voice, too, was changed when it went on. 
 It was almost emotionless. 
 
 **It's sometimes curious how the Chief Arbiter of things 
 plays His tricks on men — and women, isn't it. Father? 
 There was trouble on the line ahead, and my friend came 
 back. It was unexpected. It was late when he reached 
 kome, and with his night key he went in quietly, because 
 he did not want to awaken her. It was very still in the 
 house — until he came to the door of her room. There 
 
12 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 was a light. He heard voices — very low. He listened. 
 He went in." 
 
 There was a terrible silence. The ticking of Father 
 Roland's big silver watch seemed like the beating of a 
 tiny drum. 
 
 "And what happened then, David?" 
 
 "My friend went in," repeated David- His eyes sought 
 Father Roland's squarely, and he saw the question there. 
 "No, he did not kill them," he said. "He doesn't know 
 what kept him from killing — the man. He was a coward, 
 that man. He crawled away like a worm. Perhaps that 
 was why my friend spared him. The wonderful part of 
 it was that the woman — ^his wife — was not afraid. She 
 stood up in her ravishing dishevelment, with that mantle 
 of gold he had worshipped streaming about her to her 
 knees, and she laughed ? Yes, she laughed — a mad sort 
 of laugh; a laughter of fear, perhaps — ^but — laughter. 
 So he did not kill them. Her laughter — the man's cow- 
 ardice — saved them. He turned. He closed the door. 
 He left them. He went out into the night." 
 
 He paused, as though his story was finished. 
 
 "And that is — the end.^" asked Father Roland softly. 
 
 "Of his dreams, his hopes, his joy in life — ^yes, that 
 was the end." 
 
 "But of your friend's story? What happened after 
 that?" 
 
 "A miracle, I think," repKed David hesitatingly, as 
 though he could not quite understand what had happened 
 after that. "You see, this friend of mine was not of the 
 vacillating and irresolute sort. I had always given him 
 credit for that — credit for being a man who would measure 
 
TBDE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE IS 
 
 tip to a situation. He was quite an athlete, and enjoyed 
 boxing and fwicing and swimming. If at any time in his 
 life he could have conceived of a situation such as he 
 encountered in his wife's room, he would have lived in a 
 moral certainty of killing the man. And when the situa- 
 tion did come was it not a miracle that he should walk 
 out into the night leaving them not only unharmed, 
 but together? I ask you. Father — ^was it not a miracle? " 
 
 Father Roland's eyes were gleaming strangely under 
 the ^adow of his broad-brimmed black hat. He merely 
 nodded. 
 
 "Of course,'* resumed David, "it may be that he was 
 too stunned to act. I believe that the laughter — her 
 laughter — acted upon him like a powerful drug. In- 
 stead of plunging him into the passion of a murderous 
 desire for vengeance it curiously enough anesthetized his 
 emotions. For hours he heard that laughter. I be- 
 lieve he will never forget it. He wandered the streets all 
 that night. It was in New York, and of course he passed 
 many people. But he did not see them. When morning 
 came he was on Fifth Avenue many miles from his home. 
 He wandered downtown in a constantly growing human 
 stream whose noise and bustle and many-keyed voice 
 acted on him as a tonic. For the first time he asked him- 
 self what he would do. Stronger and stronger grew the 
 desire in him to return, to face again that situation in his 
 home. I beheve that he would have done this — I be- 
 lieve that the red blood in him would have meted out its 
 own punishment had he not turned just in time, and at 
 the right place. He found himself in front of The Little 
 Church Around the Comer, nestling in its hiding-place 
 
14 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 just off the Avenue. He remembered its restful quiet, 
 the coolness of its aisles and alcoves. He was exhausted, 
 and he went in. He sat down facing the chancel, and 
 as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw that 
 the broad, low dais in front of the organ was banked with 
 great masses of hydrangeas. There had been a wedding, 
 probably the evening before. My friend told me of the 
 thickening that came in his throat, of the strange, terrible 
 throb in his heart as he sat there alone — the only soul in 
 the church — and stared at those hydrangeas. Hydrangeas 
 had been their own wedding flower. Father. Ani 
 then " 
 
 For the first time there was something like a break m 
 the younger man's voice. 
 
 "My friend thought he was alone," he went on. "But 
 some one had come out hke a shadow beyond the chancel 
 raihng, and of a sudden, beginning wonderfully low and 
 sweet, the great organ began to fill the church with its 
 melody. The organist, too, thought he was alone. He 
 wa« a httle, old man, his shoulders thin and drooped, his 
 hair white. But in his soul there must have been a great 
 love and a great peace. He played something low and 
 sweet. When he had finished he rose and went away as 
 quietly as he had come, and for a long time after that my 
 friend sat there — alone. Something new was born in 
 him, something which I hope will grow and comfort him 
 in the years to come. When he went out into the city 
 again the sun was shining. He did not go home- He 
 did not see the woman — his wife — again. He has never 
 seen her since that night when she stood up in her dis- 
 hevelled beauty and laughed at him. Even the divorce 
 
THE COURAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 15 
 
 proceedings did not bring them together. I believe that 
 he treated her fairly. Through his attorneys he turned 
 over to her a half of what he possessed. Then he went 
 away. That was a year ago. In that year I know that 
 he has fought desperately to bring himself back into his 
 old health of mind and body, and I am quite sure that he 
 has failed." 
 
 He paused, his story finished. He drew the brim of his 
 hat lower over his eyes, and then he rose to his feet. His 
 build was slim and clean-cut. He was perhaps five feet 
 ten inches in height, which was four inches taller than 
 the Little Missioner. His shoulders were of good breadth, 
 his waist and hips of an athletic slimness. But his clothes 
 hung with a certain looseness. His hands were unnat- 
 urally thin, and in his face still hovered the shadows of 
 sickness and of mental suffering. 
 
 Father Roland stood beside him now with eyes that 
 shone with a deep understanding. Under the sputteb 
 of the lamp above their heads the two men clasped hands, 
 and the Little Missioner's grip was like the grip of iron. 
 
 "David, I've preached a strange code through the 
 wilderness for many a long year," he said, and his voice 
 was vibrant with a strong emotion. "I*m not Catholic 
 and I'm not Church of England. I've got no religion 
 that wears a name. I'm simply Father Roland, and all 
 these years I've helped to bury the dead in the forest, an' 
 nurse the sick, an' marry the living, an' it may be that 
 I've learned one thing better than most of you who live 
 down in civilization. And that's how to find yourself 
 when you're down an' out. Boy, will you come with 
 me?" 
 
16 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Their eyes met. A fiercer gust of the storm beat 
 against the windows. They could hear the wind waiKng 
 in the trees outside. 
 
 "It was your story that you told me," said Father 
 Roland, his voice barely above a whisp«*. "She was 
 your wife, David?" 
 
 It was very still for a few moments. Then came the 
 reply: "Yes, she was my wife. . . ." 
 
 Suddenly David freed his hand from the Little Mis- 
 sioner's clasp. He had stopped something that was 
 almost like a cry on his lips. He pulled his hat still 
 lower over his eyes and went through the door out into 
 the main part of the coach. 
 
 Father Roland did not foUow. Some of the ruddiness 
 had gone from his cheeks, and as he stood facing the door 
 through wh^ch David had disappeared a smouldering fire 
 began to burn far back in his eyes. After a few moments 
 this fire died out, and his face was gray and haggard as 
 he sat down again in his comer. His hands unclenched. 
 With a great sigh his head drooped forward on his chest, 
 and for a long time he sat thus, his eyes and face lost in 
 shadow. One would not have known that he was breath- 
 ing. 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 HALF a dozen times that night David had walked 
 from end to end of the five snow-bound coaches 
 that made up the Transcontinental. He believed 
 that for him it was an act of Providence that had delayed 
 the train. Otherwise a sleeping car would have been 
 picked up at the next divisional point, and he would not 
 have unburdened himscH to Father Roland. They 
 would not have sat up until that late hour in the smoking 
 compartment, and this strange little man of the forest 
 would not have told him the story of a lonely cabin up 
 on the edge of the Barrens — a story of strange pathos and 
 human tragedy that had, in some mysterious way, unsealed 
 his own lips. David had kept to himself the shame and 
 heartbreak of his own affliction since the day he had 
 been compelled to tell it, coldly and without visible 
 emotion, to gain his own freedom. He had meant to 
 keep it to himself always. And of a sudden it had all 
 come out. He was not sorry. He was glad. He was 
 amazed at the change in himself. That day had been a 
 terrible day for him. He could not get her out of his 
 mind. Now a depressing hand seemed to have lifted 
 itself from his heart. He was quick to understand. His 
 story had not fallen upon ears eager with sensual curiosity. 
 He had met a man^ and from the soul of that man there 
 had reached out to him the spirit of a deep and comfort- 
 
 17 
 
18 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 ing strength. He would have revolted at compassion, 
 and words of pity would have shamed him. Father 
 Roland had given voice to neither of these. But the 
 grip of his hand had been like the grip of an iron man. 
 
 In the third coach David sat down in an empty seat. 
 For the first time in many months there was a thrill of 
 something in his blood which he could not analyze. What 
 had the Little Missioner meant when, with that wonderful 
 grip of his knotted hand, he had said, "IVe learned how 
 a man can find himself when he's down and out"? And 
 what had he meant when he added, "WiU you come with 
 me"? Go with him? Where? 
 
 There came a sudden crash of the storm against the 
 window, a shrieking blast of wind and snow, and David 
 stared into the night. He could see nothing. It was a 
 black chaos outside. But he could hear. He could hear 
 the wailing and the moaning of the wind in the trees, and 
 he almost fancied that it was not darkness alone that shut 
 out his vision, but the thick walls of the forest. 
 
 Was that what Father Roland had meant? Had he 
 asked him to go with him into that ? 
 
 His face touched the cold glass. He stared harden 
 That morning Father Roland had boarded the train at a 
 wilderness station and had taken a seat beside him. 
 They had become acquainted. And later the Little 
 Missioner had told him how those vast forests reached 
 without a break for hundreds of miles into the mysterious 
 North. He loved them, even as they lay cold and white 
 outside the windows. There was gladness in his voice 
 when he had said that he was going back into them. 
 They were a part of his world — a. world of "mystery and 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 19 
 
 savage glory" he had called it, stretching for a thousand 
 miles to the edge of the Arctic, and fifteen hundred miles 
 from Hudson's Bay to the western mountains. And 
 to-night he had said, "Will you come with me?" 
 
 David's pulse quickened. A thousand little snow 
 demons beat in his face to challenge his courage. The 
 wind swept down, as if enraged at the thought in his 
 mind, and scooped up volley after volley of drifting snow 
 and hurled them at him. There was only the thin glass 
 between. It was like the defiance of a living thing. It 
 threatened him. It dared him. It invited him out like 
 a great bully, with a brawling show of fists. He had 
 always been more or less pusillanimous in the face of 
 winter. He dishked cold. He hated snow. But this 
 that beat and shrieked at him outside the window had 
 set something stirring strangely within him. It was a 
 desire, whimsical and undecided at first, to thrust his 
 face out into that darkness and feel the sting of the wind 
 and snow. It was Father Roland's world. And Father 
 Roland had invited him to enter it. That was the curious 
 part of the situation, as it was impressed upon him as he 
 sat with his face flattened against the window. The 
 Little Missioner had invited him, and the night was daring 
 him. For a single moment the incongruity of it all made 
 him forget himself, and he laughed — a chuckling, half- 
 broken, and out-of-tune sort of laugh. It was the first 
 time in a year that he had forgotten himself anywhere 
 near to a point resembling laughter, and in the sudden 
 and inexplicable spontaneity of it he was startled. He 
 turned quickly, as though some one at his side had laughed 
 and he was about to demand an explanation. He looked 
 
20 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 across the aisle and his eyes met squarely the eyes dP a 
 woman. 
 
 He saw nothing but the eyes at first. They were big, 
 dark, questing eyes — eyes that had in them a hunting 
 look, as though they hoped to find in his face the answer 
 to a great question. Never in his life had he seen eyes that 
 were so haunted by a great unrest, or that held in their 
 lustrous depths the smouldering glow of a deej>er grief. 
 Then the face added itself to the eyes. It was not a 
 young face. The woman was past forty. But this age 
 did not impress itself over a strange and appealing beauty 
 in her countenance which was Uke the beauty of a flower 
 whose petals are falling. Before David had seen more 
 than this she turned her eyes from him slowly and doubt- 
 fully, as if not quite convinced that she had found what 
 she sought, and faced the darkness beyond her own side 
 of the car. 
 
 David was puzzled, and he looked at her with still 
 deeper interest. Her seat was turned so that it was 
 facing him across the aisle, three seats ahead, and he 
 could look at her without conspicuous effort or rudeness. 
 Her hood had slipped down and hung by its long scarf 
 about her shoulders. She leaned toward the window, 
 and as she stared out, her chin rested in the cup of her 
 hand. He noticed that her hand was thin, and that 
 there was a shadowy hollow in the white pallor of her 
 cheek. Her hair was heavy and done in thick coils that 
 glowed dully in the lamplight. It was a deep brown, almost 
 black, shot through with little silvery threads of gray. 
 
 For a few moments David withdrew his gaze, sub- 
 consciously ashamed of the directness of his scrutiny. 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MAEGE 0'D(X)^nS 21 
 
 But after a little his eyes drifted back to her. Her head 
 was sunk forward a little, he caught now a pathetic 
 droop of her shoulders, and he fancied that he saw a httle 
 shiver run through her. Just as before he had felt the 
 desire to thrust his face out into the night, he felt now an 
 equally unaccountable impulse to speak to her and ask 
 her if he could in any way be of service to her. But he 
 could see no excuse for this presumptuousness in himself. 
 If she was in distress it was not of a physical sort for 
 which he might have suggested his services as a remedy. 
 She was neither hungry nor cold, for there was a basket 
 at her side in which he had a gUmpse of broken bits of 
 food; and at her back, draped over the seat, was a heavy 
 beaver-skin coat. 
 
 He rose to his feet with the intention of returning to 
 the smoking compartment in which he had left Father 
 Roland. His movement seemed to rouse the woman. 
 Again her dark eyes met his own. They looked straight 
 up at him as he stood in the aisle, and he stopped. Her 
 lips trembled. 
 
 "Are you . . . acquainted . . . between here 
 and Lac Seul?" she asked. 
 
 Her voice had in it the same haunting mystery that he 
 had seen in her eyes, the same apprehension, the same 
 hope, as though some curious and indefinable instinct 
 was telling her that in this stranger she was v^y near 
 to the thing which she was seeking. 
 
 "I am a stranger,'* he said. "This is the first time I 
 have ever been in this country." 
 
 She sank back, the look of hope in her face djing out 
 like a passing fiash. 
 
gg THE COUKAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "I thank you," she murmured. "I thought perhaps 
 you might know of a man whom I am seeking — a man by 
 the name of Michael O'Doone." 
 
 She did not expect him to speak again. She drew her 
 heavy coat about her and turned her face toward the 
 window. There was nothing that he could say, nothing 
 that he could do, and he went back to Father Roland. 
 
 He was in the last coach when a sound came to him 
 faintly. It was too sharp for the wailing of the storm. 
 Others heard it and grew suddenly erect, with tense and 
 listening faces. The young woman with the round mouth 
 gave a little gasp. A man pacing back and forth in the 
 aisle stopped as if at the point of a bayonet. 
 
 It came again. 
 
 The heavy-jowled man who had taken the adventure 
 as a jest at first, and who had rolled himself in his great 
 coat like a hibernating woodchuck, unloosed his voice in a 
 rumble of joy. 
 
 "It's the whistle!" he announced. "The damned 
 thing's coming at last!" 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 DAVID came up quietly to the door of the smoking 
 compartment where he had left Father Roland. 
 The Little Missioner was huddled in his corner 
 near the window. His head hung heavily forward and 
 the shadows of his black Stetson concealed his face. 
 He was apparently asleep. His hands, with their strangely 
 developed joints and fingers, lay loosely upon his knees. 
 For fully half a minute David looked at him without 
 moving or making a sound, and as he looked, something 
 warm and living seemed to reach out from the lonely 
 figure of the wilderness preacher that filled him with a 
 strangely new feeling of companionship. Again he made 
 no effort to analyze the change in himself; he accepted it 
 as one of the two or three inexplicable phenomena this 
 night and the storm had produced for him, and was 
 chiefly concerned in the fact that he was no longer op- 
 pressed by that torment of aloneness which had been 
 a part of his nights and days for so many months. He 
 was about to speak when he made up his mind not to 
 disturb the other. So certain was he that Father Roland 
 was asleep that he drew away from the door on the tips 
 of his toes and reentered the coach. 
 
 He did not stop in the first or second car, though there 
 were plenty of empty seats and people were rousing them- 
 selves into more cheerful activity. He passed through 
 
 23 
 
«4 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 erne and then the other to the third coach, and sat down 
 when he came to the seat he had formerly occupied. He 
 did nc* immediately look at the woman across the aisle. 
 He did not want her to suspect that he had come back 
 for that purpose. When his eyes did seek her in a casual 
 sort of way he was disappointed. 
 
 She was almost covered in her coat. He caught only 
 the gleam of her thick, dark hair, and the shape of one 
 slim hand, white as paper in the lampglow. He knew 
 that she was not asleep, for he saw her shoulders move, 
 and the hand shifted its i>osition to hold the coat closer 
 about her. The whistling of the approaching engine, 
 which could be heard distinctly now, had no apparent 
 effect on her. For ten minutes he sat staring at all he 
 could see of her — ^the dark glow of her hair and the one 
 ghostly white hand. He moved, he shuffled his feet, he 
 coughed; he made sure she knew he was there, but she 
 did not look up. He was sorry that he had not brought 
 Father Roland with him in the first place, for he was 
 certain that if the Little Missioner had seen the grief and 
 the despair in her eyes — the hope almost burned out — 
 he would have gone to her and said things which he had 
 found it impossible to say when the opportunity had come 
 to him. He rose again from his seat as the powerful snow- 
 engine and its consort coupled on to the train. The shock 
 almost flung him off his feet. Even then she did not raise 
 her head. 
 
 A second time he returned to the smoking compartment. 
 
 Father Roland was no longer huddled down in his 
 corner. He was on his feet, his hands thrust deep down 
 into his trousers pockets, and he was whistling softly as 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 25 
 
 David came in. His hat lay on the seat. It was the 
 first time David had seen his round, rugged, weather- 
 reddened face without the big Stetson. He looked younger 
 and yet older; his face, as David saw it there in the lamp- 
 glow, had something in the ruddy glow and deeply lined 
 strength of it that was almost youthful. But his thick, 
 shaggy hair was very gray. The train had begun to move. 
 He tiu*ned to the window for a moment, and then looked 
 at David. 
 
 "We are under way,'* he said. "Very soon I will be 
 getting off." 
 
 David sat down. 
 
 "It is some distance beyond the divisional point aliead 
 —this cabin where you get off?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, twenty or twenty-five miles. There is nothing 
 but a cabin and two or three log outbuildings there — 
 where Thoreau, the Frenchman, has his fox pens, as I 
 told you. It is not a regular stop, but the train will slow 
 down to throw off my dunnage and give me an easy jump. 
 My dogs and Indian are with Thoreau." 
 
 "And from there — ^from Thoreau's — ^it is a long distance 
 to the place you call home?" 
 
 The Little Missioner rubbed his hands in a queer rasping 
 way. The movement of those rugged hands and the 
 curious, chuckling laugh that accompanied it, radiated a 
 sort of cheer. They were expressions of more than satis- 
 faction. "It's a great many miles to my own cabin, but 
 it's home — aE home — after I get into the forests. My 
 cabin is at the lower end of Grod's Lake, three hundred 
 miles by dogs and sledge from Thoreau's — three hundred 
 miles as straight north as a niskuk flies." 
 
26 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "A nishuJc f " said David. 
 
 " Yes — ^a gray goose." 
 
 "Don't you have crows?" 
 
 "A few; but they're as crooked in flight as they are in 
 morals. They're scavengers, and they hang down pretty 
 close to the line of rail — close to civilization, where there's 
 a lot of scavenging to be done, you know." 
 
 For the second time that night David found a laugh on 
 his lips. 
 
 "Then — ^you don't like civiKzation?" 
 
 "My heart is in the Northland," replied Father Roland, 
 and David saw a sudden change in the other's face, a 
 dying out of the light in his eyes, a tenseness that came 
 and went like a flash at the corners of his mouth. In 
 that same moment he saw the Missioner's hand tighten, 
 and the fingers knot themselves curiously and then slowly 
 relax. 
 
 One of these hands dropped on David's shoulder, and 
 Father Roland became the questioner. 
 
 "You have been thinking, since you left me a little 
 while ago?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes. I came back. But you were asleep." 
 
 "I haven't been asleep. I have been awake every 
 minute. I thought once that I heard a movement at 
 the door but when I looked up there was no one there. 
 You told me to-day that you were going west — ^to the 
 British Columbia mountains?" 
 
 David nodded. Father Roland sat down beside him. 
 
 "Of course you didn't tell me why you were going," 
 he went on. "I have made my own guess since you told 
 me about the woman, David. Probably you will never 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 2? 
 
 know just why your story has struck so deeply home with 
 me and why it seemed to make you more a son to me 
 than a stranger. I have guessed that in going west 
 you are simply wandering. You are fighting in a vain 
 and foolish sort of way to run away from something. 
 Isn't that it? You are running away — trying to escape 
 the one thing in the whole wide world that you cannot 
 lose by flight — ^and that's memory. You can think just 
 as hard in Japan or the South Sea Islands as you can on 
 Fifth Avenue in New York, and sometimes the farther 
 away you get the more maddening your thoughts be- 
 come. It isn't travel you want, David. It's blood — red 
 blood. And for putting blood into you, and courage, and 
 joy of just living and breathing, there's nothing on the 
 face of the earth like — that I " 
 
 He reached an arm past David and pointed to the night 
 beyond the car window. 
 
 "You mean the storm, and the snow " 
 
 "Yes; storm, and snow, and sunshine, and forests— 
 the tens of thousands of miles of our Northland that 
 you've seen only the edges of. That's what I mean* 
 But, first of all" — and again the Little Missioner rubbed 
 his hands — "first of all, I'm thinking of the supper that's 
 waiting for us at Thoreau's. Will you get off and hav^ 
 supper with me at the Frenchman's, David? After that, 
 if you decide not to go up to God's Lake with me, Thoreau 
 can bring you and your luggage back to the station with 
 his dog team. Such a supper — or breakfast — it will bet 
 I can smell it now, for I know Thoreau — ^his fish, his 
 birds, the tenderest steaks in the forests! I can hear 
 Thoreau cursing because the train hasn't come, and I'M 
 
«8 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 wager ke's got fish and caribou tenderloin and partridges 
 just ready for a final turn in the roaster. What do you 
 say? Will you get o!ff with me?" 
 
 "It is a tempting offer to a hungry man. Father." 
 
 The Little Missioner chuckled elatedly. 
 
 "Hunger! — that's the real medicine of the gods, David, 
 when the belt isn't drawn too tight. K I want to know 
 the nature and quahty of a man I ask about his stomach. 
 Did you ever know a man who loved to eat who wasn't 
 of a pretty decent sort? Did you ever know of a man 
 who loved pie — ^who'd go out of his way to get pie — ^that 
 didn't have a heart in him bigger than a pumpkin? I 
 guess you didn't. If a man's got a good stomach he isn't 
 a grouch, and he won't stick a knife into your back; but 
 if he eats from habit — or necessity — ^he isn't a beautiful 
 character in the eyes of nature, and there's pretty sure 
 to be a cog loose somewhere in his makeup. I'm a grub- 
 scientist, David. I warn you of that before we get off 
 at Thoreau's. I love to eat, and the Frenchman knows it. 
 That's why I can smell things in that cabin, forty miles 
 away." 
 
 He was,.rubbing his hands briskly and his face radiated 
 such joyous anticipation as he talked that David uncon- 
 sciously felt the spirit of his enthusiasm. He had gripped 
 one of Father Roland's hands and was pumping it up and 
 down almost before he realized what he was doing. 
 
 "I'll get off with you at Thoreau's," he exclaimed, 
 "and later, if I feel as I do now, and you still want my 
 company, I'll go on with you into the north country!" 
 
 A slight flush rose into his thin cheeks and his eyes 
 shone with a freshly lighted enthusiasm. As Father 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 29 
 
 Roland saw the change in him his hands Closed over 
 Oavid's. 
 
 "I knew you had a splendid stomach in you from the 
 moment you finished telling me about the woman," he 
 cried exultantly. "I knew it, David. And I do want 
 your company — I want it as I never wanted the company 
 of another man!" 
 
 "That is the strange part of it," replied David, a slight 
 quiver in his voice. He drew away his hands suddenly 
 and with a jerk brought himself to his feet. "Good God! 
 look at me!" he cried. "I am a wreck, physically. It 
 would be a he if you told me I am not. See these hands — 
 these arms! I'm down and out. I'm weak as a dog, 
 and the stomach yo» speak of is a myth. I haven't 
 eaten a square meal in a year. Why do you want me as 
 a comjmnion.? Why do you think it would be a pleasure 
 for you to drag a decrepit misfit Uke myself up into a 
 country like yours.'* Is it because of your — ^your code 
 of faith? Is it because you think you may save a 
 soul?" 
 
 He was breathing deeply. As he excoriated himself 
 and bared his weakness the hot blood crept slowly into 
 his face. 
 
 "Why do you want me to go?" he demanded. "Why 
 don't you ask some man with red blood in his veins and 
 a heart that hasn't been burned out? Why have you 
 asked me?" 
 
 Father Roland made as if to speak, and then caught 
 himself. Again for a passing flash there came that mys- 
 terious change in him, a sudden dying out of the enthu- 
 siasm in his eyes, and a grayness in his face that came 
 
 ^ 
 
30 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 and went like a shadow of pain. In another moment he 
 was saying: 
 
 "I'm not playing the part of the good Samaritan, David. 
 I've got a personal and a selfish reason for wanting you 
 with me. It may be possible — ^just possible, I say — 
 that I need you even more than you will need me." He 
 held out his hand. "Let me have your checks and I'll 
 go ahead to the baggage car and arrange to have your 
 dunnage thrown off with mine at the Frenchman's." 
 
 David gave him the checks, and sat down after he had 
 gone. He began to realize that, forsthe first time in many 
 months, he was taking a deep and growing interest in 
 matters outside his own life. The night and its happen- 
 ings had kindled a strange fire within him, and the warmth 
 of this fire ran through his veins and set his body and his 
 brain tingling curiously. New forces were beginning to 
 fight his own malady. As he sat alone after Father 
 Roland had gone, his mind had dragged itself away fron^ 
 the East; he thought of a woman, but it was the womaij 
 in the third coach back. Her wonderful eyes haunted hinj 
 — their questing despair, the strange pain that seemed to 
 bum like glowing coals in their depths. He had seen not 
 only misery and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy; 
 and they troubled him. He made up his mind to tell 
 Father Roland about her when he returned from the 
 baggage car, and take him to her. 
 
 And who was Father Roland.? For the first time he 
 asked himself the question. There was something of 
 mystery about the Little Missioner that he found as 
 strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in 
 the eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 31 
 
 Roland had not been asleep when he looked in and saw 
 him hunched down in his corner near the window, just as 
 a httle later he had seen the woman crumpled down in 
 hers. It was as if the same oppressing hand had been 
 upon them in those moments. And why had Father 
 Roland asked him of all men to go with him as a comrade 
 into the North.'* Following this he asked himself the still 
 more puzzUng question; Why had he accepted the in- 
 vitation? 
 
 He stared out into the night, as if that night held an 
 answer for him. He had not noticed imtil now that the 
 storm had ceased its beating against the window. It was 
 not so black outside. With his face close to the glass he 
 could make out the dark wall of the forest. From the 
 rumble of the trucks under him he knew that the two 
 engines were making good time. He looked at his watch. 
 It was a quarter of twelve. They had been travelHng 
 for half an hour and he figured that the divisional point 
 ahead would be reached by midnight. It seemed a very 
 short time after that when he heard the tiny bell in 
 his watch tinkle off the hour of twelve. The last strokes 
 were drowned in a shrill blast of the engine whistle, and a 
 moment later he caught the dull glow of lights in the 
 hollow of a wide curve the train was making. 
 
 Father Roland had told him the train would wait at 
 this point fifteen minutes, and even now he heard the 
 clanging of handbells announcing the fact that hot coffee, 
 sandwiches, and ready-prepared suppers were awaiting 
 the half-starved passengers. The trucks grated harshly, 
 the whirring groan of the air-brakes ran under him like 
 a great sigh, and suddenly he was looking down into the 
 
82 THE COUBAGE OF MARGE CDOONE 
 
 face of a pop-eyed man who was clanging a bell, with all 
 the strength of his right arm, under his window, and who, 
 with this labour, was emitting a husky din of "Supper 
 — ^supper 'ot an* ready at the Royal " in his vain effort to 
 drown the competition of a still more raucous voice that 
 was bellowing: " 'Ot steaks an' liver'n onions at the Queen 
 Alexandry!" As David made no mov«»ent the man 
 under his window stretched up his neck and yelled a 
 personal invitation. "W'y don't you come out and eat, 
 old chap? You've got fifteen minutes an' mebby 'arf 
 an 'our; supper — supper 'ot an' ready at the Royal!" 
 Up and down the length of the dimly Hghted platform 
 David heard that clangor of bells, and as if determined to 
 capture his stomach or die, the pop-eyed nmn never 
 moved an indi from his window, while behind him there 
 jostled and hurried an eager and steadily growing crowd 
 of hungry people. 
 
 David thought again of the woman in the third coach 
 back. Was she getting off h«-e, he woiidered? He went 
 to the door of the smoking compartment and waited 
 another half minute for Father Roland. It was quite 
 €vi<fent that his delay was occasioned by some difficulty 
 in the baggage car, a difficulty which perhaps his own 
 presence might hdp to straighten out. He hesitated 
 between the thought of joining the Missioner and the 
 stronger impulse to go back into the third ooach. He 
 was conscious of a certain feeling of embarrassment as 
 he returned for the third t me to look at her. He was not 
 anxious for her to see him again unless Father Roland was 
 with him. His hesitancy, if it was not altogether em- 
 barrassment, was caused by the fear that she might quite 
 
THE CX)URAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 33 
 
 naturally regard Ids interest in a wrong light. He was 
 especially sensitive upon that point, and had always 
 been. The fact that she was not a young woman, and 
 that he had seen her dark hair finely threaded with gray, 
 made no difference with him in his peculiarly chivalrio 
 conception of man's attitude toward woman. He did 
 not mean to impress himself upon her; this time he merdiy 
 wanted to see whether she had roused herself, or had left 
 the car. At least this was the trend of his mental argu* 
 ment as he entered the third coach. 
 
 The car was empty. The woman was gone. Even 
 the old man who had hobbled in on crutches at the last 
 station had hobbled out again in response to the clanging 
 bells. When he came to the seat where the woman had 
 been, David paused, and would have turned back had 
 he not chanced to look out through the window. He 
 was just in time to catch the quick upturn of a passing 
 face. It was her face. She saw him and recognized 
 him; she seemed for a moment to hesitate; her eyes were 
 filled again with that haunting fire; h^ lips trembled 
 as if about to speak; and then, like a mysterious shadow, 
 she drifted out of his vision into darkness. 
 
 For a space he r«nained in his bent and staring atti- 
 tude, trying to pierce the gloom into which she had dis- 
 appeared. As he drew back from the window, wondering 
 what she must think of him, his eyes feU to the seat 
 where she had beem sitting, and he saw that she had 
 left something behind. 
 
 It was a very thin package, done up in a bit of news- 
 paper and tied with a red string. He picked it up and 
 turned it over in his hands. It was five or six inches in 
 
34 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 width and perhaps eight in length, and was not more than 
 half an inch in thickness. The newspaper in which the 
 object was wrapped was worn until the print was almost 
 obliterated. 
 
 Again he looked out through the window. Was it a 
 trick of his eyes, he wondered, or did he see once more 
 that pale and haunting face in the gloom just beyond the 
 lampglow? His fingers closed a little tighter upon the 
 thin packet in his hand. At least he had found an ex- 
 cuse; if she was still there — ^if he could find her — he had 
 an adequate apology for going to her. She had forgotten 
 something; it was simply a matter of courtesy on his part 
 to return it. As he aHghted into the half foot of snow on 
 the platform he could have given no other reason for his 
 action. His mind could not clarify itself; it had no co- 
 hesiveness of purpose or of emotion at this particular 
 juncture. It was as if a strange and magnetic undertow 
 were drawing him after her. And he obeyed the impulse. 
 He began seeking for her, with the thin packet in his hand. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DAVID followed where he fancied he had last seen 
 the woman's face and caught himself just in time 
 to keep from pitching over the edge of the plat- 
 form. Beyond that there was a pit of blackness. Surely 
 she had not gone there. 
 
 Two or three of the bells were still clanging, but with 
 abated enthusiasm; from the dimly lighted platform, 
 grayish-white in the ghostly flicker of the oil lamps, the 
 crowd of hungry passengers was ebbing swiftly in its 
 quest of food and drink; a Jast haK-hearted bawUng of 
 the virtue to be found in the "hot steak arC Hver'n onions 
 at the Royal Alexandry" gave way to a comforting silence 
 — a silence broken only by a growing clatter of dishes, 
 the subdued wheezing of the engines, and the raucous 
 voice of a train-man telling the baggage-man that the 
 hump between his shoulders was not a head but a knot 
 kindly tied there by his Creator to keep him from un- 
 ravelling. Even the promise of a fight — at least of a 
 blow or two deUvered in the gray gloom of the baggage- 
 man's door — did not turn David from his quest. When 
 he returned, a few minutes later, two or three sympathetic 
 friends were nursing the baggage-man back into conscious- 
 ness. He was about to pass the group when some one 
 gripped his arm, and a familiar and joyous chuckle 
 sounded in his ear. Father Roland stood beside him. 
 
36 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Dear Father in Heaven, but it was a terrible blow, 
 David!" cried the Little Missioner, his fiice drtncing in 
 the flare of the baggage-room lamps. "It was a tTeinen- 
 dous blow — straight out from his shoulders hke a battering 
 ram, and hard as rock ! It put him to sleep like a baby. 
 Did you see it?" 
 
 "I didn't," said David, staring at the other in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "He deserved it," explained Father Roland. "I love 
 CO see a good, clean blow when it's delivered in the right, 
 David. I've seen the time when a hard fist was worth 
 more than a preacher and his prayers." He was chuckling 
 delightedly as they turned back to the train. "The 
 baggage is arranged for," he added. "They'll put us off 
 together at the Frenchman's." 
 
 David had slipped the thin packet into his pocket. 
 He no longer felt so keenly the desire to tell Father Roland 
 about the woman — at least not at the present time. His 
 quest had been futile. The woman had disappeared as 
 completely as though she had actually floated away into 
 that pit of darkness beyond the far end of the platform. 
 He had drawn but one conclusion. This place — Graham 
 — was her home; undoubtedly friends had been at the 
 station to meet her; even now she might be telling them, 
 or a husband, or a grown-up son, of the strange fellow 
 who bad stared at her in such a curious fashion. Disap'^ 
 pointment in not finding her had brought a reaction. He 
 had an inward and uncomfortable feeling of having been 
 very siUy, and of having allowed his imagination to get 
 the better of his common sense. He had persuaded 
 himself to believe that she had been in very great dis- 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 37 
 
 tress. He had acted honestly and with chivalric intentions. 
 And yet, after what had passed between him and Father 
 Roland in the smoking compartment — and in view of his 
 failure to establish a proof of his own convictions — ^he was 
 determined to keep this particular event of the night to 
 himself. 
 
 A loud voice began to announce that the moment of 
 departure had arrived, and fts the passengers began 
 scrambling back into their coaches. Father Roland led the 
 way to the baggage oar. 
 
 "They're going to let us ride with the dunnage so there 
 won't be any mistake or time lost when we get to Tho- 
 reau's," he said. 
 
 They climbed up into the warm and lighted car, and 
 after the baggage-man in charge had given them a sour 
 nod of recognition the first thing that David noticed was 
 his own and Faliier Roland's property stacked up near 
 the door. His own belongings were a steamer trunk and 
 two black morocco bags, while Father Roland's share of 
 the pile consisted mostly of boxes and bulging gunny sacks 
 that must have weighed close to half a ton. Near the pile 
 was a pwur of scales, shoved back against the wall of the 
 car. David laughed queerly as he nodded toward them. 
 They gave him a rather satisfying inspiration. With 
 them he could prove the incongruity of the partnership 
 that had already begun to exist between him and the 
 Missioner. He weighed himself, with Father Roland 
 looking on. The scales balanced at 132. 
 
 "And I'm five feet nine in height," he said, disgustedly; 
 "it should be 160. You see where I'm at ! " 
 
 "I knew a 200-pound pig once that worried himself 
 
S8 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 down to ninety because the man who kept him also kept 
 skunks," repHed Father Roland, with his odd chuckle. 
 "Next to small-pox and a bullet through your heart, worry 
 is about the blackest, man-killingest thing on earth, David. 
 See that bag? " 
 
 He pointed to one of the bulging gunny sacks. 
 
 "That's the antidote," he said. "It's the best medicine 
 I know of in the grub line for a man who's lost his grip. 
 There's the making of three men in that sack." 
 
 "What is it?" asked David, cm-iously. 
 
 The Missioner bent over to examine a card attached to 
 the neck of the bag. 
 
 "To be perfectly accurate it contains 110 pounds of 
 beans," he answered. 
 
 "Beans! Great Heavens! I loathe them!" 
 
 "So do most down-and-outs," affirmed Father Roland, 
 cheerfully. "That's one reason for the peculiar psycho- 
 logical value of beans. They begin to tell you when you're 
 getting weaned away from a lobster palate and a stuffed- 
 crab stomach, and when you get to the point where you 
 want 'em on your regular bill of fare you'll find more fun 
 in chopping down a tree than in going to a grand opera. 
 But the beans must be cooked right, David — browned like 
 a nut, juicy to the heart of 'em, and seasoned alongside a 
 broihng duck or partridge, or a tender rabbit. Ah!" 
 
 The Little Missioner rubbed his hands ecstatically. 
 
 David's rejoinder, if one was on his lips, was interrupted 
 by a violent cursing. The train was well under way, and 
 the baggage-man had sat down to a small table with his 
 back toward them. He had leaped to his feet now, his 
 face furious, and with another demoniac curse he gave the 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 39 
 
 coal skuttle a kick that sent it with a bang to the far end 
 of the car. The table was littered with playing cards. 
 
 "Damn 'em — they beat me this time in ten plays!" 
 he yelled. "They've got the devil in 'em! If they was 
 aUve I'd jump on 'em! I've played this game of soUtaire 
 for nineteen years — I've played a million games — an' 
 damned if I ever got beat in my life as it's beat me since 
 we left Halifax!" 
 
 "Dear Heaven!" gasped Father Roland. "Have you 
 .been playing all the way from Halifax.^* " 
 
 The solitaire fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming his 
 seat with a low and ominous muttering, he dealt himself 
 another hand. In less than a minute he was on his feet 
 again, shaking the cards angrily under the little Mis- 
 sicmer's nose as though that individual were entirely ac- 
 countable for his bad luck. 
 
 "Look at that accursed trey of hearts!" he demanded. 
 "First card, ain't it? First card! — an' if it had been the 
 third, 'r the sixth, 'r the ninth, 'r anything except that 
 confounded Number One, I'd have slipped the game up 
 my sleeve. Am't it enough to wreck any honest man's 
 soul? I ask you — ^ain't it?'* 
 
 "Why don't you change the trey of hearts to the place 
 that suits you?" asked David, innocently. "It seems to 
 me it would be very easy to move it to third place in the 
 deck if you want it th«*e." 
 
 The baggage-meui's bulging eyes seemed ready to pop 
 as he stared at David, and when he saw that David really 
 meant what he had said a look of xmutterable disgust 
 spread over his countenance. Then he grinned — a sickly 
 and malicious sort of grin. 
 
40 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Say, mister, youVe never played solitaire, have you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Never," confessed David. 
 
 Without another word the baggage-man hmiched him- 
 self over his table, dealt himself another hand, and not 
 until the train began lowing up for Thoreau's pkce did 
 he rise from his seat or cease his low mutterings and 
 grumblings. In respoi^e to the engineer's whistle he 
 jumj>ed to his feet and rc^ed back the car door. 
 
 "Now step lively!*' he demanded. "We've got no 
 orders to stop here and we'll have to dump this stuff out 
 on the move!" 
 
 As he spoke he gave the hundred and ten pounds of 
 beans a heave out into the night. Father Roland jmnped 
 to his assistance, and David saw his steamer trunk and his 
 hand-bags follow the beans. 
 
 "The snow is soft and deep, an' there won't be any 
 harm done," Father Roland assured him as he tossed out 
 a 50-pound box of prunes. 
 
 David heard sounds now: a man's shout, a fiendish 
 tonguing of dogs, and above that a steady chorus of yap- 
 ping which he guessed came from the foxes. Suddenly a 
 lantern gleamed, then a second and a third, and a dark, 
 bearded face — ^a fierce and piratical-looking face — began 
 running along outside the door. The last box and the 
 last bag went off, and with a sudden movement the train- 
 man hauled David to the door. 
 
 "Jump!" he cried. 
 
 The face and the lantern had fallen behind, aad it was 
 as black as an abyss outside. With a mute prayer David 
 launched himself much as he had seen the bags and boxes 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 41 
 
 sent out. He fell with a thud in a soft blanket of snow. 
 He looked up in time to see the Little Missioner flying out 
 like a carious gargoyle through the door; the baggage- 
 man's lantern waved, the engineer's whistle gave a re- 
 sponding screech, and the train whirred past. Not until 
 the tail4ight of the last coach was receding like a great 
 red firefly in the gloom did David get up. Father Roland 
 was on his feet, and down the track came two of the three 
 lanterns on the run. 
 
 It was afl unusually weird and strangely interesting to 
 David. He was breathing deeply. There was a warmth 
 in his body which was new to him. It struck him all at 
 once, as he heard Father Roland crunching through the 
 snow, that he was exp^-iencing an entirely new phase of 
 life — a Gfe he had read about at times and dreamed of at 
 other times, but which he had never come jAysically in 
 contact with. The yappwng of the foxes, the crying of the 
 dogs, those lanterns hurrying down the track, the blackness 
 of the night, and the strong perfume of balsam in the cold 
 air — an odour that he breathed deep into his lungs like the 
 fumes oi an exhilarating drink — quickened sharply a pulse 
 that a few hours before he thought was almost lifeless. 
 He had no time to ask himself whether he was enjoying 
 these new sensations; he felt only the thrill of them as 
 Thoreau and the Indian came up out of the night with 
 their lanterns. In Thoreau himself, as he stood a moment 
 later in the glow of the lanterns, was embodied the hving, 
 breathing spirit of this new world into which David's 
 leap out of the baggage car had plunged him. He was 
 pictm-esquely of the wild; his face was darkly bearded; his 
 ivory-white teeth shining as he smiled a welcome; his tri- 
 
42 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 coloured, Hudson's Bay coat of wool, with its frivolous 
 red fringes, thrown open at the throat; the bushy tail of his 
 fisher-skin cap hanging over a shoulder — and with these 
 things his voice rattling forth, in French and half Indian, 
 his joy that Father Roland was not dead but had arrived 
 at last. Behind him stood the Indian — ^his face without 
 expression, dark, shrouded — a bronze sphinx of mystery. 
 But his eyes shone as the Little Missioner greeted him — 
 shone so darkly and so full of fire that for a moment David 
 was fascinated by them. Then David was introduced. 
 
 "I am happy to meet you, m'sieu," said the Frenchman. 
 His race was softly polite, even in the forests, and Thoreau's 
 voice, now mildly subdued, came strangely from the 
 bearded wUdness of his face. The grip of his hand was 
 like Father Roland's — something David had never felt 
 among his friends back in the city. He winced in the 
 darkness, and for a long time afterward his fingers tingled. 
 
 It was then that David made his first break in the 
 etiquette of the forests; a fortunate one, as time proved. 
 He did not know that shaking hands with an Indian was a 
 matter of some formality, and so when Father Roland 
 said, "This is Mukoki, who has been with me for many 
 years," David thrust out his hand. Mukoki looked him 
 straight in the eye for a moment, and then his blanket- 
 coat parted and his slim, dark hand reached out. Having 
 received his lesson from both the Missioner and the 
 Frenchman, David put into his grip all the strength that 
 was in him — ^the warmest hand-shake Mukoki had ever 
 received in his life from a white man, with the exception 
 of his master, the Missioner. 
 
 The next thing David heard was Father Roland's voice 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 43 
 
 inquiring eagerly about supper. Thoreau's reply was in 
 French. 
 
 "He says the cabin is Hke the inside of a great, roast 
 duck," chuckled the Missioner. "Come, David. We'll 
 leave Mukoki to gather up our freight." 
 
 A short walk up the track and David saw the cabin. 
 It was back in the shelter of the black spruce and balsam, 
 its two windows that faced the railroad warmly illumined 
 by the hght inside. The foxes had ceased their yapping, 
 but the snarling and howUng of dogs became more blood- 
 thirsty as they drew nearer, and David could hear an 
 ominous chnking of chains and snapping of teeth. A few 
 steps more and they were at the door. Thoreau himself 
 opened it, and stood back. 
 
 ^^Apres vous, m^sieu" he said, his white teeth shining 
 at David. "It would give me bad luck and possibly all 
 my foxes would die, if I went into my house ahead of a 
 stranger." 
 
 David went in. An Indian woman stood with her back 
 to him, bending over a table. She was as slim as a reed, 
 and had the longest and sleekest black hair he had ever 
 seen, done in two heavy braids that hung down her back. 
 In another moment she had turned her round, brown face, 
 and her teeth and eyes were shining, but she spoke no word. 
 Thoreau did not introduce his wild-flower wife. He had 
 opened his cabin door, and had let David enter before him, 
 which was accepting him as a friend in his home, and 
 therefore, in his understanding of things, an introduction 
 was unnecessary and out of place. Father Roland chuckled, 
 rubbed his hands briskly, and said something to the 
 woman in he** own language that made her giggle shyb'^. 
 
44 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 It was contagious. David smiled. Father Roland's 
 face was crinkled with little lines of joy. The French- 
 man's teeth gleanied. In the big cook-stove the fire 
 snapped and crackled and popped. Marie opened the stove 
 door to put in more wood and her face shone rosy and her 
 teeth were like milk in the fire-flash. Thoreau went to 
 her and laid his big, heavy hand fondly on her sleek head, 
 and said something in soft Cree that brought another giggle 
 into Marie's throat, hke the curious note of a bird. 
 
 In David there was a slow and wonderful awakening. 
 Every fibre of him was stirred by the cheer of this cabin 
 builded from logs rough-hewn out of the forest; his body, 
 weakened by the months of mental and physical anguish 
 which had been his burden, seemed filled with a new 
 strength. Unconsciously he was smiling and his soul was 
 rising out of its dark prison as he saw Thoreau's big hand 
 stroking Marie's shining hair. He was watching Thoreau 
 when, at a word from Marie, the Frenchman suddenly 
 swung open the oven door and pulled forth a huge roasting 
 pan. 
 
 At sight of the pan Father Roland gave a joyous cry, 
 and he rubbed his hands raspingly together. The rich 
 aroma of that pan ! A delicious whiflF of it had struck their 
 nostrils even before the cabin door had opened — ^that and 
 a perfume of coffee; but not until now did the fragrance of 
 the oven and the pan smite them with all its potency. 
 
 "Mallards fattened on wild rice, and a rabbit — my 
 favourite — a rabbit roasted with an onion where his heart 
 was, and well peppered," gloated the Little Missioner. 
 "Dear Heaven! was there ever such a mess to put strength 
 into a man's gizzard, David? And coffee — this coffee of 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 45 
 
 Marie's ! It is more than ambrosia. It is an elixir which 
 transforms a cup into a fountain of youth. Take off 
 your coat, David; take off your coat and make yourself at 
 home!" 
 
 As David stripped off his coat, and followed that with 
 his collar and tie, he thought of his steamer trunk with its 
 Tuxedo and dress-coat, its piqu6 shirts and poke collars, 
 its suede gloves and kid-topped patent leathers, and he felt 
 the tips of his ears beginning to burn. He was sorry now 
 that he had given the Missioner the check to that trimk. 
 
 A minute later he was sousing his face in a big tin wash- 
 basin, and then drying it on a towel that had once been a 
 burlap bag. But he had noticed that it was clean — as 
 clean as the pink-flushed face of Marie. And the French- 
 man himself, with all his hair, and his beard, and his 
 rough-worn clothing, was as clean as the burlap towelling. 
 Being a stranger, suddenly plunged into a life entirely 
 new to him, these things impressed David. 
 
 When they sat down to the table — ^Thoreau Mtting for 
 company, and Marie standing behind them — ^he was at a 
 loss at first to know how to begin. His plate was of tin 
 and a foot in diameter, and on it was a three-pound mallard 
 duck, dripping with juice and as brown as a ripe hazel-nut. 
 He made a business of arranging his sleeves and drinking a 
 glass of water while he watched the famished Little IVIis- 
 sioner. With a chuckle of delight Father Roland plunged 
 the tines of his fork hilt deep into the breast oi the duck, 
 seized a leg in his fingers, and dismembered the luscious 
 anatomy of his plate with a deft twist and a sudden pull. 
 With his teeth buried in the leg he looked across at David. 
 iDavid had eaten duck before; that is, he had eaten of the 
 
46 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 family anas hoschas disguised in thick gravies and highbrow 
 sauces, but this duck that he ate at Thoreau's table was 
 IS^e no other duck that he had ever tasted in all his life. 
 He began with misgivings at the three-pound carcass, and 
 he ended with an entirely new feeling of stuffed satisfac- 
 tion. He explored at will into its structure, and he found 
 succulent morsels which he had never dreamed of as exist- 
 ing in this particular bird, for his experience had never 
 before gone beyond a leg of duck and thinly carved slices 
 of breast of duck, at from eighty cents to a dollar and a 
 quarter an order. He would have been ashamed of him- 
 self when he had finished had it not been that Father 
 Roland seemed only at the beginning, and was turning the 
 vigour of his attack from duck to rabbit and onion. From 
 then on David kept him company by drinking a third cup 
 of coffee. 
 
 When he had finished Father Roland settled back with 
 a sigh of content, and drew a worn buckskin pouch from 
 one of the voluminous pockets of his trousers. Out of 
 this he produced a black pipe and tobacco. At the same 
 time Thoreau was filling and lighting his own. In his 
 studies and late-hour work at home David himself had 
 been a pipe smoker, but of late his pipe had been distaste- 
 ful to him, and it had been many weeks since he had 
 indulged in anything but cigars and an occasional cigarette. 
 He looked at the placid satisfaction in the little Mis- 
 sioner's face, and saw Thoreau*s head wreathed in smoke, 
 and he felt for the first time in those weeks the return of his 
 old desire. While they were eating, Mukoki and another 
 Indian had brought in his trunk and bags, and he went now 
 to one of the bags, opened it, and got his own pipe and 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MABGE O^DOONE 47 
 
 tobacco. As he stujffed the bowl of his English briar, and 
 lighted the tobacco. Father Eoland's glowing face beamed 
 at him through the fragrant fumes of his Hudson's Bay 
 Mixture. 
 
 Against the waU, a little in shadow, so that she would 
 not be a part oi their company or whatever conversation 
 they might have, Marie had seated herself, her round chin 
 in the cup of her brown hand, her dark eyes shining at this 
 comfort and satisfaction of men. Such scenes as this 
 amply repaid her for all her toil in life. She was happy. 
 There was content in this cabin. David felt it. It 
 impinged itself upon him, and through him, in a strange 
 and mysterious way. Within these log walls he felt the 
 presence of that spirit — ^the joy of companionship and of 
 life — ^which had so terribly eluded and escaped him in his 
 own home of wealth and luxury. He heard Marie speak 
 only once that night — once, in a low, soft voice to Thoreau, 
 She was silent with the silence of the Cree wife in the 
 presence of a stranger, but he knew that her heart was 
 throbbing with the soft pulse of happiness, and for some 
 reason he was glad when Thoreau nodded proudly toward 
 a closed door and let him know that she was a mother. 
 Marie heard him, and in that moment David caught in 
 her face a look that made his heart ache — ^a look that should 
 have been a part of his own Hfe, and which he had missed. 
 
 A Uttle later Thoreau led the way into the room which 
 David was to occupy for the night. It was a small room, 
 with a sapling partition between it and the one in which 
 the Missioner was to sleep. The fox breeder placed a 
 lamp on the table near the bed, and bade David good- 
 night. 
 
48 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 It was past two o'clock, and yet David felt at the present 
 moment no desire for sleep. After he had taken off his 
 shoes and partially undressed, he sat on the edge of his 
 bed and allowed his mind to sweep back over the events 
 of the last few hours. Again he thought of the woman 
 in the coach — the woman with those wonderful, dark 
 eyes and haunting face — and he drew forth from his coat 
 pocket the package which she had forgotten. He handled 
 it curiously. He looked at the red string, noted how 
 tightly the knot was tied, and turned it over and over in 
 his hands before he snapped the string. He was a little 
 ashamed at his eagerness to know what was within its 
 worn newspaper wrapping. He felt the disgrace of his 
 curiosity, even though he assured himself there was no 
 reason why he should not investigate the package now 
 when aU ownership was lost. He knew that he would never 
 see the woman again, and that she would always remain 
 a mystery to him unless what he held in his hands revealed 
 the secret of her identity. 
 
 A half minute more and he was leaning over in the full 
 light of the lamp, his two hands clutching the thing which 
 the paper had disclosed when it dropped to the floor, his 
 eyes staring, his Ups parted, and his heart seeming to stand 
 still in the utter aaaazement of the moment! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DAVID held in his hands a photograph — ^the picture 
 of a girl. He had half guessed what he would find 
 when he began to unfold the newspaper wrapping 
 and saw the edge of gray cardboard. In the same breath 
 had come his astonishment — a surprise that was almost a 
 shock. The night had been filled with changes for him; 
 forces which he had not yet begun to comprehend had 
 drawn him into the beginning of a strange adventure; 
 they had purged his thoughts of himself; they had forced 
 upon him other things, other people, and a glimpse or two 
 of another sort of life; he had seen tragedy, and happiness 
 — a bit of something to laugh at; and he had felt the thrill 
 of it all. A few hours had made him the bewildered and 
 yet passive object of the unexj>ected. And now, as he sat 
 alone on the edge of his bed, had come the climax of the 
 unexpected. 
 
 The girl in the picture was not dead — ^not merely a life- 
 less shadow put there by the art of a camera. She was 
 aUve! That was his first thought — ^his first impression. 
 It was as if he had come upon her suddenly, and by his 
 presence had startled her — ^had made her face him squarely, 
 tensely, a httle frightened, and yet defiant, and ready for 
 flight. In that first moment he would not have disbe- 
 lieved his eyes if she had moved, if she had drawn away 
 from him and disappeared out of the picture with the 
 
50 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 s\nftness of a bird. For he — some one — ^had startled her; 
 some one had frightened her; some one had made her afraid, 
 and yet defiant; some one had roused in her that bird-Uke 
 impulse of flight even as the camera had chcked. 
 
 He bent closer into the lampglow, and stared. The 
 girl was stancHng on a flat slab of rock close to the edge of 
 a pool. Behind her was a carpet of white sand, and be- 
 yond that a rock-cluttered gorge and the side of a mountain. 
 She was barefooted. Her feet were white against the dark 
 rock. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and shone with 
 that same whiteness. He took these things in one by one, 
 as if it were impossible for the picture to impress itself upon 
 him all at once. She stood leaning a Uttle forward on the 
 rock slab, her dress only a Uttle below her knees, and as she 
 leaned thus, her eyes flashing and her hps parted, the wind 
 had flung a wonderful disarray of curls over her shoulder 
 and breast. He saw the sunlight in them; in the lamp- 
 giow they seemed to move; the throb of her breast seemed 
 to give them life; one hand seemed about to fling them 
 back from her face; her Hps quivered as if about to 
 speak to him. Against the savage background of 
 mountain and gorge she stood out clear-cut as a cameo, 
 slender as a reed, wUd, palpitating, beautiful. She was 
 more than a picture. She was life. She was there — 
 with David in his room — as surely as the woma^ had been 
 with him in the coach. 
 
 He drew a deep breath and sat back on the edge of his 
 bed. He heard Father Roland getting into his creaky bed 
 in the adjoining room. Then came the Missioner's voice. 
 
 "Good-night, David." 
 
 "Good-night, Father." 
 
 X 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 51 
 
 For a space after that he sat staring blankly at the log 
 wall of his room. Then he leaned over again and held the 
 photograph a second time in the lampglow. The first 
 strange spell of the pictiu^ was broken, and he looked at it 
 more coolly, more critically, a little disgusted with him- 
 self for having allowed his imagination to play a trick on 
 him. He turned it over in his hands, and on the back of 
 the cardboard mount he saw there had been writing. He 
 examined it closely, and made out faintly the words, 
 "Firepan Creek, Stikine Riv^, August ..." and 
 the date was gone. That was all. There was no name, no 
 word that might give him a clue as to the identity of the 
 mysterious woman in the coach, or her relationship to the 
 strange picture she had left in hea* seat when she disap- 
 peared at Graham. 
 
 Once more his puzzled eyes tried to find some solution to 
 the mystery of this night in the picture of the girl herself, 
 and as he looked, question aftw question pounded through 
 his head. What had startled her? Who had frightened 
 her? What had brought that hunted look — that half- 
 defiance — into her poise and eyes, just as he had seen the 
 strange questing and suppressed fear in the eyes and face 
 of the woman in the coach? He made no effort to answer, 
 but accepted the visual facts as they came to him. She 
 was young, the girl in the picttu-e; almost a child as he re- 
 garded childhood. Perhaps seventeen, or a month or two 
 older; he was cmdously precise in adding that month or 
 two. Something in the woman of her as she stood on the 
 rock made it occur to him as necessary. He saw, now, 
 that she had been wading in the pool, for she had dropped 
 a stocking on the white sand, and near it lay an object that 
 
52 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 was a shoe or a moccasin, he could not make out which. 
 It was while she had been wading — ^alone — that the in- 
 terruption had come; she had turned; she had sprung to 
 the flat rock, her hands a Kttle clenched, her eyes flashing, 
 her breast panting under the smother of her hair; and it 
 was in this moment, as she stood ready to fight — or fly — 
 that the camera had caught her. 
 
 Now, as he scanned this picture, as it lived before his 
 eyes, a faint smile played over his lips, a smile in which 
 there was a little humour and much irony. He had been 
 a fool that day, twice a fool, perhaps three times a fool. 
 Nothing but folly, a diseased conception of things, could 
 have made him see tragedy in the face of the woman in the 
 coach, or have induced him to follow her. Sleeplessness — 
 a mental exhaustion to which his body had not responded 
 m two days and two nights — ^had dulled his senses and his 
 reason. He felt an unpleasant desire to laugh at himself. 
 Tragedy! A woman in distress ! He shrugged his shoulders, 
 and his teeth gleamed in a cold smile at the girl in the pic- 
 ture. Surely there was no tragedy or mystery in her poise 
 on that rock ! She had been bathing, alone, hidden away as 
 she thought; some one had crept up, had disturbed her, and 
 the camera had clicked at the psychological moment of her 
 bird-like poise when she was not yet decided whether to 
 turn in flight or remain and punish the intruder with her 
 anger. It was quite dear to him. Any girl caught in the 
 same way might have betrayed the same emotions. But 
 — ^Firepan Creek — Stikine River . . . And she w^as 
 wild. She was a creature of those mountains and that 
 wild gorge, wherever they were — ^and beautiful — slender 
 as a flower — ^lovelier than . . . 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 53 
 
 David set his lips tight. They shut off a quick breath, 
 a gasp, the sharp surge of a sudden pain. Swift as his 
 thoughts there had come a transformation in the picture 
 before his eyes — a drawing of a curtain over it, like a 
 golden veil; and then she was standing there, and the gold 
 had gathered about her in the wonderful mantle of her 
 hair — shining, dishevelled hair — a. bare, white arm thrust 
 upward through its sheen, and her face — ^taunting, un- 
 afraid — laughing at him! Good God! could he never kill 
 that memory? Was it upon him again to-night, clutching 
 at his throat, stifling his heart, grinding him into the agony 
 he could not fight — ^that vision of her — his wife? That 
 girl on her rock, so like a slender flower! That woman in 
 her room, so like a golden goddess! Both caught — unex- 
 pectedly! What devil-spirit had made him pick up this 
 picture from the woman's seat.? What . . . 
 
 His fingers tightened upon the photograph, ready to 
 tear it into bits. The cardboard ripped an inch — and he 
 stopped suddenly his impulse to destroy. The girl was 
 looking at him again from out of the picture — ^looking at 
 him with clear, wide eyes, surprised at his weakness, 
 startled by the fierceness of his assault upon her, wondering, 
 amazed, questioning him! For the first time he saw 
 what he had missed before — that questioning in her eyes. 
 It was as if she were on the point of asking him something 
 — as if her voice had just come from between her parted 
 lips, or were about to come. And for him; that was it — 
 for him! 
 
 HLs fingers relaxed. He smoothed down the torn edge 
 of the cardboard, as if it had been a wound in his own 
 flesh. After all, this inanimate thing was very much like 
 
54 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 himself. It was lost, a thing out of place, and out of home; 
 a wanderer from now on depending largely, like himself, on 
 the charity of fate. Almost gently he returned it to its 
 newspaper wrapping. Deep within him there was a senti- 
 ment which made him cherish Httle things which had 
 belonged to the past — a baby's shoe, a faded ribbon, a 
 withered flower that she had worn on the night they were 
 married; and memories — memories that he might better 
 have let droop and die. Something of this spirit was in the 
 touch of his fingers as he placed the photograj^ on the 
 table. 
 
 He finished undressing quietly. Before he turned in he 
 placed a hand on his head. It was hot, feverish. This waa 
 not unusual, and it did not alarm hiuL Quite often of late 
 these hot and feverish spells had come upon him, nearly 
 always at night. Usually they were followed the next day 
 by a terrific headache. More and more frequently they 
 had been warning him how nearly down and out he was, 
 and he knew what to expect. He put out his light and 
 stretched himself between the warm blankets of his bed, 
 knowing that he was about to begin again the fight he 
 dreaded — ^the struggle that always came at night with the 
 demon that lived within him, the demon that was feeding 
 on his life as a leech feeds on blood, the demon that was 
 killing him inch by iuch. Nerves altogether unstrung 1 
 Nerves frayed and broken until they were bleeding! 
 Worry — emptiness of heart and soul — a world turned 
 black! And all because of her — ^the golden goddess who 
 had laughed at him in her room, whose laughter would 
 never die out of his ears. He gritted his teeth; his hands 
 clenched under his blankets; a surge of anger swept 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 55 
 
 through him — ^for an instant it was almost hatred. Was 
 rt possible that she — that woman who had been his wife — ' 
 could chain him now, enslave his thoughts, fill his mind, 
 his brain, his body, after what had happened? Why was 
 it that he could not rise up and laugh and shrug his shoul- 
 ders, and thank God that, after aU, there had been no 
 chfldren? Why couldn't he do that? Whyf Why? 
 
 A long time afterward he seemed to be asking that ques- 
 tion. He seemed to be crying it out aloud, over and over 
 agaan, in a strange and mysterious wilderness; and at last 
 he seemed to be very near to a girl who was standing on a 
 rock waiting for him; a girl who bent toward him like a 
 wonderful flower, her arms reaching out, her lips parted, 
 her eyes shining through the glory of her windsw^t hair 
 as she Hstened to his cry of " Why? Why?'* 
 
 He slept. It was a deep, cool sleep; a slumber beside 
 a shadowed pool, with the wind whisp^ing gently in 
 strange tree tops, and water rippling softly in a strange 
 stream. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SUNSHINE followed storm. The winter sun was 
 cresting the tree tops when Thoreau got out of his 
 bed to build a fire in the big stove. It was nine 
 o'clock, and bitterly cold. The frost lay thick upon the 
 windows, with the sun staining it like the silver and gold 
 of old cathedral glass, and as the fox breeder opened the 
 cabin door to look at his thermometer he heard the snap 
 and crack of that cold in the trees outside, and in the tim- 
 bers of the log walls. He always looked at the thermome- 
 ter before he built his fire — a fixed habit in him; he wanted 
 to know, first of all, whether it had been a good night for 
 his foxes, and whether it had been too cold for the furred 
 creatiu'es of the forest to travel. Fifty degrees below zero 
 was bad for fisher and marten and lynx; on such nights 
 they preferred the warmth of snug holes and deep wind- 
 falls to full stomachs, and his traps were usually empty. 
 This morning it was forty-seven degrees below zero. 
 Cold enough! He turned, closed tJie door, shivered. 
 Then he stopped halfway to the stove, and stared. 
 
 Last night, or rather in that black jmrt erf the early day 
 when they had gone to bed. Father Roland had warned 
 him to make no noise in the morning; that they would let 
 David sleep until noon; that he was sick, worn out, and 
 needed rest. And there he stood now in the doorway of 
 his room, even before the fire was started — ^looking five 
 
 66 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 57 
 
 years younger than he looked last night, nodding cheer- 
 fuUy. 
 
 Thoreau grinned. 
 
 "Boo-joUf m^sieuy* he said in his Cree-French. "My 
 order was to make no noise and to let you sleep," and he 
 nodded toward the Missioner*s room. 
 
 "The sun woke me," said David. "Come here. I 
 want you to see it!" 
 
 Thoreau went and stood beside him, and David pointed 
 to the one window of his room, which faced the rising sun. 
 The window was covered with frost, and the frost as they 
 looked at it was like a golden jfire. 
 
 "I think that was what woke me," he said. "At least 
 my eyes were on it when I opened them. It is wonderful ! " 
 
 "It is very told, and the frost is thick," said Thoreau. 
 "It win go quickly after I have built a fire, m'sieu. And 
 then you will see the sun — ^the real sun." 
 
 David watched him as he built the fire. The first 
 crackling of it sent a comfort through him. He had slept 
 well, so soundly that not once had he roused himself during 
 his six hours in bed. It was the first time he had slept 
 like that in months. His blood tingled with a new warmth. 
 He had no headache. There was not that dull pain be- 
 hind his eyes. He breathed more easily — ^the air p>assed 
 like a tonic into his limgs. It was as if those wonderful 
 hours of sleep had wrested some deadly obstruction out 
 of his veins. The fire crackled. It roared up the big 
 chimney. The jack-pine knots, heavy with pitch, gave 
 to the top of the stove a rosy glow. Thoreau stuffed more 
 fuel into the blazing firepot, and the glow spread cheer- 
 fully, and with the warmth that was filling the cabin there 
 
58 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 mingled the sweet scent of the pine-pitch and burning 
 balsam. David rubbed his hands. He was rubbing them 
 when Marie came into the room, plaiting the second of her 
 two great ropes of shining black hair. He nodded. Marie 
 smiled, showing her white teeth, her dark eyes clear as a 
 fawn's. He felt within him a strange rejoicing — ^for Tho- 
 reau. Thoreau was a lucky man. He could see proof of it 
 in the Cree woman's face. Both were lucky. They were 
 happy — a man and woman together, as things should be. 
 
 Thoreau had broken the ice in a pail and now he £lled 
 the wash-basin for him. Ice water for his morning 
 ablution was a new thing for David. But he plunged his 
 face into it recklessly. Little particles of ice pricked his 
 skin, and the chill of the water seemed to sink into his 
 vitals. It was a sudden change from water as hot as he 
 could stand — ^to this. His teeth clicked as he wiped him- 
 self on the bm-lap towelling. Marie used the basin next, 
 and then Thoreau. When Marie had dried her face he 
 noted the old-rose flush in her cheeks, the fire of rich, red 
 blood glowing under her dark skin. Thoreau himself 
 blubbered and spouted in his ice-water bath like a joyous 
 porpoise, and he rubbed himself on the burlap until the 
 two apple-red spots above his beard shone like the glow 
 that had spread over the top of the stove. David found 
 himself noticing these things — ^very small things though 
 they were; he discovered himself taking a sudden and 
 ciuious interest in events and things of no importance at 
 aU, even in the quick, deft slash of the Frenchman's long 
 knife as he cut up the huge whitefish that was to be their 
 breakfast. He watched Marie as she wallowed the thick 
 slices in yellow corn-meal, and listened to the first hissiBg 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 59 
 
 sjjutter of them as they were dropped into the hot grease 
 of the skillet. And the odour of the fish, taken only 
 yesterday from the net which Thoreau kept in the frozea 
 lake, made him hungry. This was unusual. It was unex- 
 pected as other things that had happened. It puzzled him. 
 
 He returned to his room, with a suspicion in his minci 
 that he should put on a collar and tie, and his coat. He 
 changed his mind when he saw the photograph in its 
 newspaper wrapping on the table. In another moment it 
 was in his hands. Now, with day in the room, the sun 
 shining, he expected to see a change. But there was no 
 change in her; she was there, as he had left her last night; 
 the question was in her eyes, unsj>oken words still on her 
 lips. Then, suddenly, it swept upon him where he had 
 been in those first hours of peaceful slumber that had come 
 to him — beside a quiet, dark pool — ^gently whispering 
 forests about him — an angel standing close to him, on a 
 rock, shrouded in her hair — ^watching over him. A 
 thrill passed through him. Was it possible? ... He 
 did not finish the question. He could not bring himself 
 to ask whether this picture — some strange spirit it might 
 possess — had reached out to him, quieted him, made h^n\ 
 sleep, brought him dreams that were like a healing medi- 
 cine. And yet . . . 
 
 He remembered that in one of his leather bags there was 
 a magnifying glass, and he assured himself that he was 
 merely curious — most casually curious — ^as he hunted it 
 out from among his belongings and scanned the almost 
 illegible writing on the back of the cardboard motimt. He 
 made out the date quite easily now, impressed in the card- 
 board by tlie point of a pencil It was only a little more 
 
60 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 than a year old. It was unaccountable why this discovery 
 should affect him as it did. He made no effOTt to measure 
 or sound the satisfaction it gave him — this knowledge that 
 the girl had stood so recently on that rock beside the pool. 
 He was b^inning to personalize her unconsciously, be- 
 ginning to think of her mentally as the Girl. She was a 
 bit friendly. With her looking at him hke that he did not 
 feel quite so alone with himself. And there could not be 
 much of a change in her since that yesterday of a year ago, 
 when some one had startled her there. 
 
 It was Father Roland's voice that made him wrap up 
 the picture again, this time not in its old covering, but in 
 a silk handkerchief which he had pawed out of his bag, 
 and which he dropped back again, and locked in. Thoreau 
 was telling the Missioner about David's early rising when 
 the latter reappeared. They shook hands, and the Mis- 
 sioner, looking David keenly in the eyes, saw the change in 
 him. 
 
 "No need to tell me you had a good night! "he exclaimed. 
 
 "Splendid," affirmed David. 
 
 The window was blazing with the golden sun now; it shot 
 through where the frost was giving way, and a ray of it 
 fell like a fiery shaft on Marie's glossy head as she bent 
 over the table. Father Roland pointed to the window 
 with one hand on David's arm. 
 
 "Wait until you get out into thcd'^ he said. "This is 
 just a beginning, David — ^just a beginning!" 
 
 They sat down to breakfast, fish and coffee, bread and 
 potatoes — ^and beans. It was almost finished when David 
 split open his third piece of fish, white as snow under its 
 carisp brown, and asked quite casually: 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 61 
 
 "Did you ever hear of the Stikine River, Father?" 
 
 Father Roland sat up, stopped his eating, and looked at 
 David for a moment as though the question struck an 
 unusual personal interest in him. 
 
 "I know a man who lived for a great many years along 
 the Stikine," he replied then. "He knows every mile of it 
 from where it empties into the sea at Point Rothshay to 
 the Lost Country between Mount Finlay and the Sheep 
 Mountains. It's in the northern part of British Columbia, 
 with its upper waters reaching into the Yukon. A wild 
 country. A country less known than it was sixty years 
 ago, when there was a gold rush up over the old telegraph 
 trail. Tavish has told me a lot about it. A queer man — 
 this Tavish. We hit his cabin on our way to God's 
 Lake." 
 
 "Did he ever tell you," said David, with an odd quiver 
 in his throat — "Did he ever tell you of a stream, a tribu- 
 tary stream, called Firepan Creek?" 
 
 "Firepan Creek — ^Firepan Creek," mumbled the Little 
 MissiouCT. "He has told me a great many things, this 
 Tavish, but I can't remember that. Firepan Creek J 
 Yes, he did! I remember, now. He had a cabin on it one 
 year, the year he had small-pox. He almost died there. 
 I want you to meet Tavish, David. We will stay ovct- 
 night at his cabin. He is a strange character — a gre^t 
 object lesson." Suddenly he came back to David's 
 question. "What do you want to know about Stikine 
 River and Firepan Creek?" he asked. 
 
 "I was reading something about them that interested 
 me," replied David. "A very wild country, I take it, from 
 what Tavish has told you. Probably no white people." 
 
62 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Always, everywhere, there are a few white people,** 
 said Father Roland. "Tavish is white, and he was there. 
 Sixty years ago, in the gold rush, there must have been 
 many. But I fancy there are very few now. Tavish can 
 tell us. He came from there only a year ago this last 
 September." 
 
 David asked no more questions. He turned his atten- 
 tion entirely to his fish. In that same moment there came 
 an outbiu-st from the foxes that made Thoreau grin. 
 Their yapping rose until it was a clamorous demand. 
 Then the dogs joined in. To David it seemed as though 
 there must be a thousand foxes out in the Frenchman's 
 pens, and at least a hundred dogs just beyond the cabin 
 walls. The sound was blood-curdling in a way. He had 
 heard nothing like it before in all his life; it almost made 
 one shiver to think of going outside. The chorus kept up 
 for fuUy a minute. Then it began to die out, and David 
 could hear the chill clink of chains. Through it all 
 Thoreau was grinning. 
 
 "It's two hours over feeding time for the foxes, and they 
 know it, m'sieur," he explained to David. "Their outcry 
 excites the huskies, and when the two go together — Mon 
 Dieu ! it is enough to raise the dead." He pushed himself 
 back from the table and rose to his feet. "I am going to 
 feed them now. Would you like to see it, m'sieu.'* " 
 
 Father Roland answered for him. 
 
 "Give us ten minutes and we shall be ready," he said, 
 seizing David by the arm, and speaking to Thoreau. 
 " Come with me, David. I have something waiting for you." 
 
 They went into the Little Missioner's room, and pointing 
 to his tumbled bed. Father Roland said: 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 63 
 
 "Now, David, strip!" 
 
 David had noticed with some concern the garments 
 worn that morning by Father Roland and the Frenchman 
 — ^their thick woollen shirts, their strange-looking, heavy- 
 trousers that were met just below the knees by the tops 
 of bulky German socks, turned over as he had worn his 
 more fashionable hosiery in the college days when golf 
 suits, bulldog pipes, and white terriers were the rage. He 
 had stared furtively at Thoreau's great feet in their 
 moose-hide moccasins, thinking of his own vici kids, the 
 heaviest footwear he had brought with him. The problem 
 of outfitting was solved for him now, as he looked at the 
 bed, and as Father Roland withdrew, rubbing his hands 
 until they cracked, David began undressing. In less than 
 a quarter of an hour he was ready for the big outdoors. 
 When the Missioner returned to give him a first lesson in 
 properly "stringing up " his moccasins, he brought with hin? 
 a fur cap very similar to that worn by Thoreau. He was 
 amazed to find how perfectly it fitted. 
 
 "You see," said Father Roland, pleased at David's 
 wonder, "I always take back a bale of this stuff with me, 
 of different sizes* it comes in handy, you know. And the 
 cap . . ." 
 
 He chuckled as David surveyed as much as he could 
 see of himself in a small mirror. 
 
 "The cap is Marie's work," he finished. "She got the 
 size from your hat and made it while we were asleep. 
 A fine fisher-coat that — ^Thoreau's best. And a good fit, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Marie . . . did this ... for me?" de- 
 manded David. 
 
64 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 The Missioner nodded. 
 
 "And the pay. Father ..." 
 
 "Among friends of the forests, David, never speak of pay." 
 
 "But this skin! It is beautiful — ^valuable. . . ." 
 
 "And it is yoiu-s," said Father Roland. "I am glad 
 you mentioned payment to me, and not to Thoreau or 
 Marie. They might not have understood, and it would 
 have hurt them. K there had been anything to pay, they 
 would have mentioned it in the giving; I would have men- 
 tioned it. That is a fine point of etiquette, isn't it?" 
 
 Slowly there came a look into David's face which the 
 other did not at first understand. After a moment he 
 said, without looking at the Missioner, and in a voice 
 that had a ciu'ious hard note in it: 
 
 "But for this . . . Marie will let me give her some- 
 thing in return — a, httle something I have no use for now? 
 A Httle gift — ^my thanks — my friendship . . .' 
 
 He did not wait for the Missioner to reply, but went 
 to one of his two leather bags. He unlocked the one in 
 which he had placed the photograph of the girl. Out of it 
 he took a smaU plush box. It was so small that it lay 
 in the palm of his hand as he held it out to Father Roland. 
 
 Deeper lines had gathered about his mouth. 
 
 "Give this to Marie — ^for me." 
 
 Father Roknd took the box. He did not look at it* 
 Steadily he gazed into David's eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. 
 
 "A locket," repHed David. "It belonged to her. In 
 It is a picture — ^her picture — ^the only one I have. Will 
 you — ^pkase — destroy the picture before you give the 
 locket to Marie?" 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 65 
 
 Father Roland saw the quick, sudden throb in David's 
 throat. He gripped the httle box in his hand until it 
 seemed as though he would crush it, and his heart was 
 beating with the triumph of a drum. He spoke but one 
 word, his eyes meeting David's eyes, but that one word 
 was a whisper from straight out of his soul, and the word 
 was: 
 
 "Vidaryr 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 FATHER ROLAND slipped the Kttle plush box into 
 his pocket as he and David went out to join Tho- 
 reau. They left the cabin together, Marie Ufting 
 her eyes from her work in a furtive glance to see if the 
 stranger was wearing her cap, 
 
 A wild outcry from the dogs greeted the three men as 
 they appeared outside the door, and for the first time 
 David saw with his eyes what he had only heard last night. 
 Among the balsams and spruce close to the cabin there were 
 fully a score of the wildest and most savage-looking dogs 
 he had ever beheld. As he stood for a moment, gazing 
 about him, three things impressed themselves upon him 
 in a flash: it was a glorious day, it was so cold that he felt 
 a curious sting in the air, and not one of those long-haired, 
 white-fanged beasts straining at their leashes possessed a 
 kennel, or even a brush shelter. It was this last fact 
 that struck him most forcefully. Inherently he was a 
 lover of animals, and he believed these four-footed creatures 
 of Thoreau's must have suffered terribly during the night. 
 He noticed that at the foot of each tree to which a dog 
 was attached there was a round, smooth depression in the 
 snow, where the animal had slept. The next few minutes 
 added to his conviction that the Frenchman and the Mis- 
 sioner were heartless masters, though open-handed hosts. 
 Mukoki and another Indian had come up with two gunny 
 
 66 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 67 
 
 sacks, and from one of these a bushel of fish was emptied 
 out upon the snow. They were frozen stiff, so that Mu- 
 koki had to separate them with his belt-axe; David fancied 
 they must be hard as rock. Thoreau proceeded to toss 
 these fish to the dogs, one at a time, and one to each dog. 
 The watchful and apparently famished beasts caught 
 the fish in mid-air, and there followed a snarUng and grind- 
 ing of teeth and smashing of bones and frozen flesh that 
 made David shiver. He was half disgusted. Thoreau 
 might at least have boiled the fish, or thawed them out. 
 A fish weighing from one and a half to two pounds was each 
 dog's allotment, and the work — if this feeding process 
 could be called work — ^was done. Father Roland watched 
 the dogs, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Thoreau 
 was showing his big, white teeth, as if proud of something. 
 
 "Not a bad tooth among them, mon Pbre,'* he said, 
 "Not one!" 
 
 "Fine — ^fine — but a little too fat, Thoreau. You're 
 feeding them too well for dogs out of the traces," replied 
 Father Roland. 
 
 David gasped. 
 
 " Too well I " he exclaimed. " They're half starved, and 
 almost frozen ! Look at the poor devils swallow those fish, 
 ice and all! Why don't you cook the fish? Why don't 
 you give them some sort of shelter to sleep in? " 
 
 Father Roland and the Frenchman stared at him as if 
 they did not quite catch his meaning. Then a look of 
 comprehension swept over the Missioner's face. He 
 chuckled, the chuckle grew, it shook his body, and he 
 laughed — ^laughed until the forest flung back the echoes of 
 his merriment, and even the leatheiy faces of the Indians 
 
es THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 crinkled in sympathy. David could see no reason for his 
 levity. He looked at Thoreau. His host was grinning 
 broadly. 
 
 "God bless my soul!" said the Little Missioner at last. 
 "Starved? Cold? Bml their fish? Give 'em beds T 
 He stopped himself as he saw a flush rising in David s 
 face. "Forgive me, David," he begged, laying a hand on 
 the other's arm. "You can't understand how funny 
 that was — ^what you said. K you gave those fellows the 
 warmest kennels in New York City, lined with bear skins, 
 they wouldn't sleep in them, but would come outside and 
 burrow those little round holes in the snow. That's 
 their nature. I've felt sorry for them, like you — when the 
 thermometer was down to sixty. But it's no use. As 
 for the fish — ^they want 'em fresh or frozen. I suppose you 
 might -educate them to eat cooked meat, but it would be 
 like making over a lynx or a fox or a wolf. They're mighty 
 comfortal)le, those dogs, David. That bunch of eight 
 over there is mine. They'll take us north. And I want 
 to warn you, don't put yourself in reach of them until 
 they get acquainted with you. They're not pets, you 
 know; I guess they'd appreciate petting just about as 
 touch as they would bodied fish, or poison. There's 
 nothing on earth Uke a husky or an Eskimo dog when it 
 comes to lookin' you in the eye with a friendly and lovable 
 look and snapping your hand off at the same time. But 
 you'll Uke 'em, David. You can't help feeling they're 
 pretty good comrades when you see what they do in the 
 traces." 
 
 Thoreau had shouldered the second gunny sack and now 
 led the way into the thicker spruce and balsam behind the 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 69 
 
 "abin. David and Father RolaHd followed, the latter ex- 
 plaining more fully why it was necessary to keep the 
 sledge dogs "hard as rocks," and how the trick was done. 
 He was still talking, with the fingers of one hand closed 
 about the little plush box in his pocket, when they came to 
 the first of the fox pens. He was watching David closely, 
 a little anxiously — ^thrilled by the touch of that box. He 
 read men as he read books, seeing much that was not in 
 print, and feeling by a wonderful intuitive power emotions 
 not visible in a face, and he believed that in David there 
 were strange and conflicting forces struggling now for 
 mastery. It was not in the surrender of the box that he 
 had felt David's triumph, but in the voluntary sacrifice 
 of what that box contained. He wanted to rid himself 
 of the picture, and quickly. He was filled with apprehen- 
 sion lest David should weaken again, and ask for its return. 
 The locket meant nothing. It was a bauble — cold, emo- 
 tionless, easily forgotten; but the other — the picture of 
 the woman who had almost destroyed him — was a deadly 
 menace, a poison to David's soul and body as long as it 
 remained in his possession, and the Little Missioner's 
 fingers itched to tear it from the velvet casket and destroy 
 it. 
 
 He watched his opportimity. As Thoreau tossed three 
 fish over the high wire netting of the first pen the French- 
 man was explaining to David why there were two female 
 foxes and one male in each of his nine pens, and why warm 
 houses partly covered with earth were necessary for their 
 comfort and health, while the sledge dogs required nothing 
 more than a bed of snow. Father Roland seized this op- 
 r Drtunity to drop back toward the cabin, calling in Cree 
 
70 THE COURAGE OF jVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 to Mukoki. Five seconds after the cabin concealed him 
 from David he had the plush box out of his pocket; 
 another five and he had opened it and the locket itself was 
 in his hand. And then, his breath coming in a sudden, 
 hissing spurt between his teeth, he was looking upon the 
 face of the woman. Again in Cree he spoke to Mukoki, 
 asking him for his knife. The Indian drew it from his 
 sheath and watched in silence whUe Father Roland ac- 
 complished his work of destruction. The Missioner's 
 teeth were set tight. There was a strange gleam of fire in 
 his eyes. An unspoken malediction rose out of his soul. 
 The work was done ! He wanted to hi^l the yellow trinket, 
 shaped so sacrilegiously in the image of a heart, as far as 
 he could fling it into the forest. It seemed to bum his 
 fingers, and he held for it a personal hatred. But it was 
 for Marie ! Marie would prize it, and Marie would purify 
 it. Against her breast, where beat a heart of his beloved 
 Northland, it would cease to be a polluted thing. This 
 was his thought as he replaced it in the casket and retraced 
 his steps to the fox pens. 
 
 Thoreau was tossing fish into the last pen when Father 
 Roland came up. David was not with him. In answer to 
 the Missioner's inquiry he nodded toward the thicker 
 growth of the forest where as yet his axe had not scarred 
 the trees. 
 
 "He said that he would walk a little distance into the 
 timber." 
 
 Father Roland muttered something that Thoreau did 
 not catch, and then, a sudden brightness lighting up his 
 eyes: 
 
 **I am going to leave you to-day." 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 71 
 
 "To-day, mon Pere!*' Thoreau made a muffled ex- 
 clamation of astonishment. "To-day? And it is fairly 
 well along toward noon!" 
 
 "He cannot travel far." The Missioner nodded in the 
 direction of the mithinned timber. "It will give us four 
 hours, between noon and dark. He is soft. You under- 
 stand? We will make as far as the old trapping sback you 
 abandoned two winters ago over on Moose Creek. It is 
 only eight miles, but it will be a bit of hardening for him. 
 And, besides . . ." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, as if turning a matter over 
 again in his own mind. 
 
 "I want to get him away." 
 
 He turned a searching, quietly analytic gaze upon Tho- 
 reau to see whether the Frenchman would understand 
 without further explanation. 
 
 The fox breeder picked up the empty gunny sack. 
 
 "We will begin to pack the sledge, mon Phre. There 
 must be a good hundred pounds to the dog." 
 
 As they turned back to the cabin Father Roland cast a 
 look over his shoulder to see whether David was returning. 
 
 Three or four himdred yards in the forest David stood 
 in a mute and increasing wonder. He was in a tiny open, 
 and about him the spruce and balsam hung still as death 
 under their heavy cloaks of freshly fallen snow. It was 
 as if he had entered unexpectedly into a wonderland of 
 amazing beauty, and that from its dark and hidden bowers, 
 trusted with their glittering mantles of white, snow naiads 
 must be peeping forth at him, holding their breath for 
 fear of betraying themselves to his eyes. There was not 
 the chirp of a bird nor the flutter of a wing — ^not the 
 
72 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 breath of a sound to disturb the wonderful silence. He 
 was encompassed in a white, soft world that seemed 
 tremendously unreal — that for some strange reason made 
 him breathe very softly, that made him stand without a 
 movement, and made him listen, as though he had come 
 to the edge of the universe and that there were mysterious 
 things to hear, and possibly to see, if he remained very 
 quiet. It was the first sensation of its kind he had ever 
 experienced; it was disquieting, and yet soothing; it 
 filled him with an indefinable uneasiness, and yet with a 
 strange yearning. He stood, in these moments, at the 
 inscrutable threshold of the great North ; he felt the enigmat- 
 ical, voiceless spirit of it; it passed into his blood; it made 
 his heart beat a little faster; it made him afraid, and yet 
 daring. In his breast the spirit of adventure was waking — 
 had awakened; he felt the call of the Northland, and it 
 alarmed even as it thrilled him. He knew, now, that this 
 was the beginning — ^the door opening to him — of a world 
 that reached for hundreds of miles up there. Yes, there 
 were thousands of miles of it, many thousands; white, as 
 he saw it here; beautiful, terrible, and deathly still. And 
 mto this world Father Roland had asked him to go, and 
 he had as good as pledged himself! 
 
 Before he could think, or stop himself, he iiad laughed. 
 For an instant it struck him like mirth in a tomb, an 
 impleasant, soulless sort of mirth, for his laugh had in it a 
 jarring incredulity, a mocking lack of faith in himself. 
 What right had he to enter into a world like that? Why, 
 even now, his legs ached because of his exertion in furrow- 
 ing through a few hundred steps of foot-and-a-half snow! 
 
 But the laugh succeeded in bringing him back into the 
 
THE COURAGE OF I^IABGE O'DOONE 73 
 
 reality of things. He started at right aiig^les, pushed into 
 the maze of white-robed spruce and balsam, and turned 
 back in the direction of the cabin over a new trail. He 
 was not in a good humour. There possessed him an in- 
 growing and acute feeUng of animosity toward himself. 
 Since the day — or night — fate had drawn that great, 
 black curtain over his life, shutting out his sun, he had 
 been drifting; he had been floating along on currents of the 
 least resistance, making no fight, and, in the completeness 
 of his grief and despair, allowing himself to disintegrate 
 physically as well as mentally. He had sorrowed with 
 himself; he had told himself that everything worth having 
 was gone; but now, for the first time, he cursed himself. 
 To-day — ^these few hundred yards out in the snow — had 
 come as a test. They had proved his weakness. He had 
 degenerated into less than a man! He was . . . 
 
 He clenched his hands inside his thick mittens, and a 
 rage burned within him like a fire. Go with Father 
 Roland? Go up into that world where he knew that the 
 one great law of life was the survival of the fittest? Yes, 
 he would go I This body and brain of his needed their 
 punishment — and they should have it! He would go. 
 And his body would fight for it, or die. The thought gave 
 him an atrocious satisfaction. He was filled with a sudden 
 ccoitempt for himself. If Father Roland had known, he 
 would have uttered a paean of joy. 
 
 Out of the darkness of the humour into which he had 
 fallen, David was suddenly flung by a low and ferocious 
 growl. He had stepped around a young balsam that stood 
 like a seven-foot ghost in his path, and found himself face to 
 face with a beast that was cringing at the butt of a thick 
 
74 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 spruce. It was a dog. The animal was not more than 
 fom* or five short paces from him, and was chained to the 
 tree. David surveyed him with sudden interest, won- 
 dering first of all why he was larger than the other dogs. 
 As he lay crouched there against his tree, his ivory fangs 
 gleaming between half-uplifted lips, he looked like a 
 great wolf. In the other dogs David had witnessed an 
 avaricious excitement at the approach of men, a hungry 
 demand for food, a straining at leash ends, a whining and 
 snarling comradeship. Here he saw none of those things. 
 The big, wolf -like beast made no sound after that first 
 growl, and made no movement. And yet every muscle 
 in his body seemed gathered in a tense readiness to spring, 
 and his gleaming fangs threatened. He was ferocious, 
 and yet shrinking; ready to leap, and yet afraid. He was 
 like a thing at bay — a. hunted creature that had been 
 prisoned. And then David noticed that he had but one 
 good eye. It was bloodshot, balefully alert, and fixed on 
 him like a round ball of fire. The lids had closed over his 
 other eye; they were swollen; there was a big lump just 
 over where the eye should have been. Then he saw that 
 the beast's lips were cut and bleeding. There was blood 
 on the snow; and suddenly the big brute covered his fangs 
 to give a racldng cough, as though he had swallowed a 
 sharp fish-bone, and fresh blood dripped out of his 
 mouth on the snow between his forepaws. One of these 
 forepaws was twisted; it had been broken. 
 
 "You poor devil!" said David aloud. 
 
 He sat down on a birch log within six feet of the end of 
 the chain, and looked steadily into the big husky's one 
 bloodshot eye as he said again: 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 75 
 
 "You poor devil!" 
 
 Baree, the dog, did not understand. It puzzled him 
 that this man did not carry a club. He was used to clubs. 
 So far back as he could remember the club had been the 
 one dominant thing in his life. It was a club that had 
 closed his eye. It was a club that had broken one of his 
 teeth and cut his Ups, and it was a club that had beat 
 against his ribs until — now — the blood came up into his 
 throat and choked him, and dripped out of his mouth. 
 But this man had no club, and he looked friendly. 
 
 "You poor devil!" said David for the third time. 
 
 Then he added, dark indignation in his voice : 
 
 "What, in God's name, has Thoreau been doing to 
 you.?" 
 
 There was something sickening in the spectacle — that 
 battered, bleeding, broken creature huddling there against 
 the tree, coughing up the red stuff that discolom^d the 
 snow. Loving dogs, he was not afraid of them, and 
 forgetting Father Roland's warning he rose from the log 
 and went nearer. From where he stood, looking down, 
 Baree could have reached his throat. But he made no 
 movement, unless it was that his thickly haired body was 
 trembling a little. His one red eye looked steadily up at 
 David. 
 
 For the fourth time David spoke; 
 
 "You poor, God-forsaken brute!" 
 
 There was friendliness, compassion, wonderment in his 
 voice, and he held down a hand that he had drawn from 
 one of the thick mittens. Another moment and he would 
 have bent over, but a cry stopped him so sharply and sud- 
 denly that he jumped back. 
 
76 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Tboreau stood within ten feet of him, horrified. He 
 clutched a rifle in one hand. 
 
 "Back — ^back, m*sieu]" he cried sharply. "For the 
 love of God, jump back.'* 
 
 He swung his rifle into the crook of his arm. David did 
 not move, and from Thoreau he looked down coolly at the 
 dog. Baree was a changed beast. His one eye was 
 fastened upon the fox breeder. His bared, bleeding hps 
 revealed inch-long fangs between which there came now a 
 low and menacing snarl. The tawny crest along his spine 
 was like a brush; from a puzzled toleration of David his 
 posture and look had changed into deadly hatred for 
 Thoreau, and fear of him. For a moment after his first 
 warning the Frenchman's voice seemed to stick in his 
 throat as he saw what he beHeved to be David's fatal dis- 
 regard of his peril. He did not speak to him again. His 
 eyes were on the dog. Slowly he raised his rifle; David 
 heard the cUck of the hammer — and Baree heard it. 
 There was something in the sharp, metallic thrill of it that 
 stirred his brute instinct. His lips fell over his fangs, he 
 whined, and then, on his belly, he dragged himself slowly 
 toward David! 
 
 It was a miracle that Thoreau the Frenchman looked 
 upon then. He would have staked his very soul — ^wag- 
 ered his hopes of paradise against a bahicke thread — that 
 what he saw could never have happened between Baree 
 a»d man. In utter amazement he lowered his gun. 
 David, looking down, was smiling into that one, wide-open, 
 bloodshot eye of Baree's, his hand reaching out. Foot by 
 foot Baree slunk to him on his belly, and when at last he 
 was at David's feet ne faced Thoreau again, his terrible 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 77 
 
 teeth snarling, a low, rumbling growl in his throat. David 
 reached down and touched him, even as he heard the fox 
 breeder make an incoherent sound in his beard. At the 
 caress of his hand a great shudder passed through Baree's 
 body, as if he had been stung. That touch was the con- 
 necting link through which passed the electrifying thrill of 
 a man's soul reaching out to a brute instinct. 
 
 Baree had found a man friend ! 
 
 When David stepped away from him to Thoreau's side 
 as much of the Frenchman's face as was not hidden under 
 his beard was of a curious ashen pallor. He seemed to 
 make a struggle before he could get his voice. 
 
 And then: "M'sieu, I tell you it is incredible! I cannot 
 believe what I have seen. It was a miracle ! " 
 
 He shuddered* David was looking at him, a bit puzzled 
 He could not quite comprehend the fear that had pos- 
 sessed him. Thoreau saw this, and pointing to Baree— 
 a gesture that brought a snarl from the beast — he said: 
 
 "He is bad, m'sieu, badl He is the worst dog in all this 
 country. He was bom an outcast — among the wolves — > 
 and his heart is filled with murder. He is a quarter wolf, 
 and you can't club it out of him. Half a dozen masters 
 have owned him, and none of them has been able to club 
 it out of him. I, myself, have beaten him until he lay as 
 if dead, but it did no good. He has killed two of my dogs. 
 He has leaped at my throat. I am afraid of him. I 
 chained him to that tree a month ago to keep him away 
 from the other dogs, and since then I have not been able 
 to unleash him. He would tear me into pieces. Yester- 
 day I beat him until he was almost dead, and still he was 
 ready to go at my throat. So I am determined to kill him. 
 
78 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 He is no good. Step a little aside, m'sieu, while I put a 
 bullet through his head!" 
 
 He raised his rifle again. David put a hand on it. 
 
 "I can unleash him," he said. 
 
 Before the other could speak, he had walked boldly to 
 the tree. Baree did not turn his head — did not for an 
 instant take his eye from Thoreau. There came the click 
 of the snap that fastened the chain around the body of the 
 spruce, and David stood with the loose end of the chain in 
 his hand. 
 
 "There!" 
 
 He laughed a little proudly. 
 
 "And I didn't use a club," he added. 
 
 Thoreau gasped "Mon Dieu!'* and sat down on the 
 birch log as though the strength had gone from his legs. 
 
 David rattled the chain and then re-fastened it about 
 the spruce. Baree was still watching Thoreau, who sat 
 staring at "him as if the beast had suddenly changed his 
 shape and species. 
 
 In David's breast there was the thrill of a new triumph. 
 He had done it unconsciously, without fear, and without 
 feeling that there had been any great danger. In those 
 few minutes something of his old self had returned into 
 him; he felt a new excitement pumping the blood through 
 his heart, and he felt the warm glow of it in his body. 
 Baree had awakened something within him — ^Baree and 
 the club. He went to Thoreau, who had risen from the 
 log. He laughed again, a bit exultantly. 
 
 " I am going north with Father Roland," he said. ** Will 
 you let me have the dog, Thoreau? It will save you the 
 trouble of killing him." 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 79 
 
 Thoreau stared at him blankly for a moment before he 
 answered. 
 
 "That dog? You? Into the North? " He shot a look 
 full of hatred and disgust at Baree. "Would you risk it, 
 msieur 
 
 "Yes. It is an adventure I would very much like to 
 try. You may think it strange, Thoreau, but that dog — 
 ugly and fierce as he is — ^has found a place with me. I like 
 him. And I fancy he has begun to like me." 
 
 "But look at his eye, m'sieu '* 
 
 "Which eye?" demanded David. "The one you have 
 shut with a dub?" 
 
 "He deserved it," muttered Thoreau. "He snapped at 
 my hand. But I mean the other eye, m'sieu — ^the one that 
 is glaring at us now like a red bloodstone with the heart of 
 a devil in it ! I tell you he is a quarter wolf . . . " 
 
 "And the broken paw. I suppose that was done by a 
 club, too?" interrupted Da-vid. 
 
 "It was broken like that when I traded for him a year 
 ago, m*sieu. I have not maimed him. And . . . 
 yes, you may have the beast! May the saints preserve 
 you!" 
 
 "And his name?" 
 
 "The Indian who owned him as a puppy five years ago 
 called him Baree, which among the Dog Ribs means W;ld 
 Blood. He should have been caKed The Devil." 
 
 Thoreau shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter 
 and its consequences were now oflP his hands, and turned 
 in the direction of the cabin. As he followed the French- 
 man, David looked back at Baree. The big husky had 
 risen from the snow. He was standing at the full length 
 
80 THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 ^ his chain, and as David disappeared among the spruce 
 a low whine that was filled with a strange yearning fol- 
 lowed him. He did not hear the whine, but there came to 
 him distinctly a moment later the dog's racking cough, 
 and he shivered, and his eyes burned into Thoreau's 
 broad back as he thought of the fresh blood-clots that were 
 staining the white snow. 
 
CHAPTER Vm 
 
 MUCH to Thoreau's amazement Fatl^r Roland 
 made no objection to David's ownership of 
 Baree, and when the Frenchman described with 
 many gesticulations of wonder what had happened between 
 that devil-dog and the man, he was still more puzzled by 
 the look of satisfaction in the Little Missioner's face. In 
 David there had come the sudden awakening of something 
 which had for a long time been dormant within him, and 
 Father Roland saw this change, and felt it, even before 
 David said, when Thoreau had turned away with a darkly 
 suggestive shrug <rf his shoulders : 
 
 "That poor devil of a beast is down and out, mon Pere. 
 I have never been so bad as that; never. Kill him? Bah! 
 If this magical north country of yours will make a man 
 out of a human dereHct it will surely work some sort of a 
 transformation in a dog that has been clubbed into iin- 
 beciHty. Will it not?" 
 
 It was not the David of yesterday or the day before that 
 was speaking. There was a passion in his voice, a deep 
 contempt, a half taimt, a tremble of anger. There wai> a 
 flush in his cheeks, too, and a spark of fire in his eyes. In 
 his heart Father Roland whispered to himself that this 
 change in David was like a conflagration, and he rejoiced 
 without speaking, fearing that words might quench the 
 pflFect of it. 
 
 81 
 
82 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 David was looking at him as if he expected an answer, 
 
 "What an accursed fool a man is to waste his soul and 
 voice in lamentation — especially his voice," he went on 
 harshly, his teeth gleaming for an instant in a bitter smile. 
 "One ought to act and not whine. That beast back there 
 is ready to act. He would tear Thoreau's jugular out if 
 he had half a chance. And I . . . why, I sneaked o£F 
 like a whipped cur. That's why Baree is better than I 
 am, even though he is nothing more than a four-footed 
 brute. In that room I should have had the moral courage 
 that Baree has; I should have killed — Skilled them both!" 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "I am quite convinced that 
 it would have been justice, mon Pere, What do you 
 think.?" 
 
 The Missioner smiled enigmatically. 
 
 "The soul of many a man has gone from behind steel 
 bars to heaven or I vastly miss my guess," he said. "But 
 — ^we don't Uke the thought of steel bars, do we, David? 
 Man-made laws and justice don't always run tandem. 
 But God evens things up in the final balance. You'll 
 live to see that. He's back there now, meting out your 
 vengeance to them. Your vengeance. Do you under- 
 stand? And you won't be called to take a hand in the 
 business." Suddenly he pointed toward the cabin, where 
 Thoreau and Mukoki were already at work packing a 
 sledge. "It's a glorious day. We start right after dinner. 
 Let us get your things in a bimdle." 
 
 David made no answer, but three minutes later he was 
 on his knees unlocking his trimk, with Father Roland 
 standing close beside him. Something of the humour of 
 the situation possessed him as he flung out, one by one. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 83 
 
 the various articles of his worthless apparel, and when he 
 had all but finished he looked up into the Missioner's face. 
 Father Roland was staring into the trunk, an expression 
 of great surprise in his countenance which slowly changed 
 to one of eager joy. He made a sudden dive, and stood 
 back with a pair of boxing gloves in his hands. From the 
 gloves he looked at David, and then back at the gloves, 
 fondhng them as if they had been ahve, his hands almost 
 trembling at the smooth touch of them, his eyes glowing 
 like the eyes of a child that had come into possession of a 
 wonderful toy. David reached into the trunk and pro- 
 duced a second pair. The Missioner seized upon them. 
 
 "Dear Heaven, what a gift from the gods!" he chortled. 
 "David, you will teach me to use them?" There was 
 almost anxiety in his manner as he added, "You know how 
 to use them well, David?" 
 
 "My chief pastime at home was boxing," assured 
 David. There was a touch of pride in his voice. "It is a 
 scientific recreation. I loved it — that, and swimming. 
 Yes, I will teach you." 
 
 Father Roland went out of the room a moment later, 
 chuclding mysteriously, with the four gloves hugged 
 against the pit of his stomach. 
 
 David followed a little later, all his belongings in one of 
 the leather bags. For some time he had hesitated over 
 the portrait of the Girl; twice he had shut the lock on it; 
 the third time he placed it in the big, breast pocket inside 
 the coat Father Roland had provided for him, making a 
 mental apology for that act by assuring himself that sooner 
 or later he would show the picture to the Missioner, so 
 would want it near at hand. Father Roland had disposed 
 
84 THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 
 
 of the gloves, and introduced David to the rest of his 
 equipment when he came from the cabin. It was very 
 business-like, this accoutrement that was to be the final 
 physical touch to his transition; it did not allow of skep- 
 ticism; about it there was also a quiet and cold touch of 
 romance. The rifle chilled David's bare fingers when he 
 touched it. It was short-barrelled, but heavy in the 
 breech, with an tf^pearance of indubitable efficiency about 
 it. It looked like an honest weapon to David, who was 
 unaccustomed to firearms — ^and this was more than he 
 could say for the heavy, 38-caUbre automatic pistol which 
 Father Roland thrust into his hand, and which looked and 
 felt murderously mysterious. He frankly confessed his 
 ignorance of these things, and the Missioner chuckled good- 
 humouredly as he buckled the belt and holster about his 
 waist and told him on which hip to keep the pistol, and 
 where to carry the leather sheath that held a long and 
 keen-edged hunting knife. Then he turned to the snow 
 shoes. They were the long, narrow, bush-country shoe. 
 He placed them side by side on the snow and showed 
 David how to fasten his moccasined feet in them without 
 using his hands. For three quarters of an hoiur after that, 
 out in the soft, deep snow in the edge of the spruce, he 
 gave him his first lesson in that slow, swinging, m^i-stepping 
 stride of the north-man on the trail. At first it was em- 
 barrassing for David, with Thoreau and the Indians 
 grinning openly, and Marie's face peering cautiously and 
 joyously from the cabin door. Three times he entangled 
 his feet hopelessly and floundered Hke a great fish in the 
 snow; then he caught the "swing" of it and at the end of 
 half an hour began to find a pleasurable exhilaration, even 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 85 
 
 excitement, in his ability to skim over the feathery surface 
 of this great white sea without so much as sinking to his 
 ankle bones. When he slipped the shoes ojff and stood 
 them up beside his rifle against the cabin, he was panting. 
 His heart was pounding. His lungs drank in the cold, 
 balsam-scented air Hke a suction pump and expelled each 
 breath with the sibilancy of steam escaping from a valve. 
 
 "Winded!" he gasped. And then, gulping for breath 
 as he looked at Father Roland, he demanded: "How the 
 devil am I going to keep up with you fellows on the trail? 
 m go bust inside of a mile!" 
 
 "And every time you go bust we'll load you on the 
 sledge," comforted the Mlssioner, his round face glowing 
 with enthusiastic approval. "You've done finely, David. 
 Within a fortnight you'll be travelling twenty miles a day 
 on snow shoes." 
 
 He suddenly seemed to think of something that he had 
 f orgotteji and fidgeted with his mittens in his hesitation, as 
 if theate lay an ui[pleasant duty ahead of him. Then he 
 said: 
 
 "K there are any letters to write, David . . . any 
 business matters ..." 
 
 "There are no letters," cut in David quickly. "I 
 attended to my affairs some weeks ago. I am ready." 
 
 With a frozen whitefish he returned to Baree. The dog 
 scented him before the crunch of his footsteps could be 
 heard in the snow, and when he came out from the thick 
 spruce and balsam into the Uttle open, Baree was stretched 
 out flat on his belly, his gaunt gray muzzle resting on the 
 snow between his forepaws. He made no movement as 
 David drew near, except that curious shivers ran through 
 
86 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 his body, and his throat twitched. Thoreau would have 
 analyzed that impassive posture as one of waiting and 
 watchful treachery; David saw in it a strange yearning, a 
 deep fear, a hope. Baree, outlawed by man, battered and 
 bleeding as he lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in 
 his life the thriUing presence of a friend — a man friend. 
 David approached boldly, and stood over him. He had 
 forgotten the Frenchman's warning. He was not afraid. 
 He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched 
 Baree's neck. A tremor shot through thp dog that was 
 like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke 
 down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead under 
 ihe weight of David's hand. Not imtil David had ceased 
 talking to him, and had disappeared once more in the di- 
 rection of the cabin, did Baree begin devouring the frozen 
 whitefish. 
 
 Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when it 
 came to the final question of Baree. 
 
 "We can't put him in with the team," he protested. 
 **A11 my dogs would be dead before we reached God's 
 Lake." 
 
 David had been thinking of that. 
 
 "He will foUow me," he said confidently. "We'll 
 simply turn him loose when w^e're ready to start." 
 
 The Missioner nodded indulgently. Thoreau, who had 
 overheard, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. He 
 hated Baree, the beast that would not yield to a club, and 
 he muttered gruffly: 
 
 "And to-night he will join the wolves, m'sieu, and prey 
 like the very devil on my traps. There will be only one 
 cure for that — a fox-bait! — ^poison!'* 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 87 
 
 And the last hour seemed to prove that what Thoreau 
 had said was true. After dinner the three of them went 
 to Baree, and David unfastened the chain from the big 
 husky's collar. For a few moments the dog did not seem 
 to sense his freedom; then, like a shot — so unexpectedly 
 that he almost took David off his feet — ^he leaped over the 
 birch log and disappeared in the forest. The Frenchman 
 was amused. 
 
 "The wolves," he reminded softly. "He will be with 
 them to-night, m*sieu — ^that outlaw!" 
 
 Not until the crack of Mukoki's long, caribou-gut whip 
 had set the Missioner's eight dogs tense and alert in their 
 traces did Father Roland return for a moment into the 
 cabin to give Marie the locket. He came back quickly, 
 and at a signal from him Mukoki wound up the 9-foot lash 
 of his whip and set out ahead of the dogs. They followed 
 him slowly and steadily, keeping the broad runners of the 
 sledge in the trail he made. The Missioner dropped in 
 immediately behind the sledge, and David behind him. 
 Thoreau spoke a last word to David, in a voice intended for 
 his ears alone. 
 
 "It is a long way to God's Lake, m'sijeu, and you are 
 going with a strange man — a strange man. Some day, if 
 you have not forgotten Pierre Thoreau, you may tell me 
 what it has been a long time in my heart to know. The 
 saints be with you, m'sieu!" 
 
 He dropped back. His voice rolled after them in a last 
 farewell, in French, and in Cree, and as David followed 
 close behind the Missioner he wondered what Thoreau's 
 mysterious words had meant, and why he had not spoken 
 them until that final moment of their departure. "A 
 
8S THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 strange man! The saints be with you!" That last had 
 seemed to him almost a warning. He looked at Father 
 Roland's broad back; for the first time he noticed how 
 heavy and powerful his shoulders were for his height. 
 Then the forest swallowed them — a vast, white, engulfing 
 world of silence and mystery. What did it hold for him? 
 "What did it portend? His blood was stirred by an un- 
 famihar and subdued excitement. An almost unconscious 
 movement carried one of his mittened hands to his breast 
 pocket. Through the thickness of his coat he could feel 
 it — the picture. It did not seem like a dead thing. It 
 beat with life. It made him strangely unafraid of what 
 might be ahead of him. 
 
 Back at the door of the cabin Thoreau stood with one 
 of his big arms encircling Marie's sHm shoulders. 
 
 "I tell you it is hke taking the life of a puppy, ma 
 cheriey^ he was saying. "It is inconceivable. It is 
 bloodthirsty. And yet . . ." 
 
 He opened the door behind them. 
 
 "They are gone," he finished. "Xa Sakhet — ^they are 
 gone — ^and they will not come back!" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN SPITE of the portentous significance of this day 
 in his life David could not help seeing and feeUng in 
 his suddenly changed environment, as he puffed 
 along behind Father Roland, something that was neither 
 adventure nor romance, but humour. A whimsical hum- 
 -^ur at first, but growing grimmer as his thoughts sped. 
 All his life he had lived in a great dty, he had been a part 
 of its life — a discordant note in it, and yet a part of it for 
 all that. He had been a fixture in a certain lap of luxury. 
 That luxury had refined him. It had manicured him down 
 to a fine point of civiHzation. A fine point! He wanted 
 to laugh, but he had need cA all his breath as he clijhdip' 
 clipped on his snow shoes behind the Missic«ier. This 
 was the last thing in the world he had dreamed of, all this 
 snow, all this emptiness that loomed up ahead of him, a 
 great world filled only with trees and winter. He dis- 
 liked winter; he had always p)ossessed a physical antipathy 
 for snow; romance, for him, was environed in warm climes 
 and sunny seas. He had made a mistake in telUng Father 
 Roland that he was going to British Columbia — a. ^eat 
 mistake. Undoubtedly he would have kept on. Japan 
 had been in his mind. And now here he was headed 
 straight for the north pole — the Arctic Ocean. It was 
 enough to make him want to laugh. Enough to make any 
 sane person laugh. Even now, only half a mile from 
 
90 THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Thoreau's cabin, his knees were beginning to ache and hia 
 ankles were growing heavy. It was ridiculous. Incon- 
 ceivable, as the Frenchman had said to Marie. He was 
 soft. He was only half a man. How long would he last? 
 How long before he would have to cry quits, Hke a whipped 
 boy? How long before his legs would crumple up under 
 him, and his lungs give out? How long before Father 
 Roland, hiding his contempt, would have to send him 
 back? 
 
 A sense of shame — shame and anger — swept through 
 him, heating his brain, setting his teeth hard, fiUing him 
 again with a grim determination. For the second time 
 that day his fighting blood rose. It surged through his 
 veins in a flood, beating down the old barriers, clearing 
 away the obstructions of his doubts and his fears, and 
 fiUing him with the desire to go on — the desire to fight it 
 out, to punish himself as he deserved to be punished, and 
 to win in the end. Father Roland, glancing back in 
 benignant solicitude, saw the new glow in David's eyes. 
 He saw, also, his parted Hps and the quickness of his 
 breath. With a sharp command he stopped Mukoki and 
 the dogs. 
 
 "Half a mile at a time is enough for a beginner,** he 
 s^d to David. "Kick off your shoes and ride the next 
 half mile.*' 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
 "Go on,*' he said, tersely, saving his wind. "I'm just 
 finding myself." 
 
 Father Roland loaded and lighted his pipe. The aroma 
 of the tobacco filled David's nostrils as they went on. 
 Clouds of smoke wreathed the Little Missioner's shoulders 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 91 
 
 as he followed the trail ahead of him. It was comforting, 
 that smoke. It warmed David with a fresh desire. His 
 exertion was clearing out his lungs. He was inhaling 
 balsam and spruce, a mighty tonic of dry forest air, and 
 he felt also the craving to smoke. But he knew that he 
 could not afford the waste of breath. His snow shoes 
 were growing heavier and heavier, and back of his knees 
 the tendons seemed preparing to snap. He kept on, at 
 last counting his steps. He was determined to make a 
 mile. He was ready to groan when a sudden twist in the 
 trail brought them out of the forest to the edge of a lake 
 whose frozen surface stretched ahead of them for miles» 
 Mukoki stopped the dogs. With a gasp David floundered 
 to the sledge and sat down. 
 
 "Finding myself," he managed to say. "Just — finding 
 myself!" 
 
 It was a triumph for him — the last half of that mile. 
 He knew it. He felt it. Through the white haze of his 
 breath he looked out over the lake. It was wonderfully 
 clear, and the sun was shining. The surface of the lake 
 was like an untracked carpet of white sprinkled thickly 
 with tiny diamonds where the sunlight fell on its countless 
 billions of snow crystals. Three or four miles away he 
 could see the dark edge of the forest on the other side. 
 Up and down the lake the distance was greater. He had 
 pever seen anything like it. It was marvellous — like a 
 tlream picture. And he was not cold as he looked at it. 
 He was warm, even uncomfortably warm. The air he 
 breathed was like a new kind of fuel. It gave him the 
 peculiar sensation of feeling larger inside; he seemed to 
 drink it in; it expanded his lungs; he could feel his heart 
 
92 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 pumping with an audible sound. There was nothing in 
 the majesty and wonder of the scene about him to make 
 him laugh, but he laughed. It was exultation, an involun- 
 tary outburst of the change that was working within him. 
 He felt, suddenly, that a dark and purposeless world had 
 alipped behind him. It was gone. It was as if he had 
 come out of a dark and gloomy cavern, in which the air 
 had been vitiated and in which he had been cramped for 
 breath — a cavern which fluttered with the uneasy ghosts 
 of things, fK>isonous things. Here was the sun. A sky 
 blue as sapphire. A great expanse. A wonder-world. 
 Into this he had escap)ed! 
 
 That was the thought in his mind as he looked at Fathet 
 Roland. The Little Missioner was looking at him with an 
 effulgent satisfaction in his face, a satisfaction that was 
 half pride, as though he had achieved something that was 
 to his own personal glory. 
 
 "You've beat me, David," he exulted. "The first time 
 I had snow shoes on I didn't make one half that distance 
 before I was tangled up like a fish in a net!" He timied 
 to Mukoki. ^*Meyoo iss e chikao /" he cried. "Remem- 
 ber? " and the Indian nodded, his leathery face breaking 
 into a grin. 
 
 David felt a new pleasure at their approbation. He had 
 evidently done well, exceedingly well. And he had been 
 afraid of himself! Apprehension gave way to confidence. 
 He was beginning to experience the exquisite thrill oi 
 fighting against odds. 
 
 He made no objection this time when Father Roland 
 made a place for him on the sledge. 
 
 "We'll have four miles of this lake/' the Missioner ex- 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 93 
 
 plained to him, "and the dogs will make it in an hour. 
 Mukoki and I will both break trail." 
 
 As they set off David found his first opportmiity to see 
 the real Northland in action — the clean, sinuous movement 
 of the men ahead of him, the splendid eagerness with 
 which the long, wdfish line of beasts stretched forth in 
 their traces and followed in the snow-shoe trail. There 
 was something imposing about it all, something that 
 struck deep within him and roused strange thoughts. 
 This that he saw was not the mere labour of man and 
 beast; it was not the humdrum toil of life, not the daily 
 slaving of Uving creatures for existence — ^for food, and 
 drink, and a sleeping place. It had risen above that. He 
 had seen ships and castles rise up from heaps of steel and 
 stone; achievements of science and the handiwork of 
 genius had interested and sometimes amazed him, but 
 never had he looked upon physical effort that thrilled him 
 as did this that he was looking upon now. There was 
 jdmost the spirit of the epic about it. They were the 
 survival of the fittest — these men and dogs. They had 
 gone through the great test of life in the raw, as the 
 pyramids and the sphinx had outlived the ordeals of the 
 centuries; they were different; they were proven; they were 
 of another kind of flesh and blood than he had known — and 
 they fascinated him. They stood for more than romance 
 and adventure, for more than tragedy or possible joy; 
 they were making no fight for riches — ^no fight for power, 
 or fame, or great personal achievement. Their strug^e 
 in this great, white world — terrible in its emptiness, its 
 vastness, and its mercilessness for the weak — ^was simply 
 a struggle that they might live. 
 
94 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 The thought staggered him. Could there be joy in 
 that — ^in a mere existence without the thousand pleasures 
 and luxuries and excitements that he had known? He 
 drank deeply of the keen air as he asked himself the ques- 
 tion. His eyes rested on the shaggy, undulating backs of 
 the big huskies; he noted their half-ojjen jaws, the sharp 
 alertness of their pointed ears, the almost joyous unction 
 with which they entered into their task, their eagerness 
 to keep their load close upon the heels of their masters. 
 He heard Mukoki's short, sharp, and unnecessary com- 
 mands, his hi-yi*s and his ki-yi's, as though he were crying 
 out for no other reason than from sheer physical exuber- 
 ance. He saw Father Roland's face timied backward for a 
 moment, and it was smiling. They were happy — ^nowl 
 Men and beasts were happy. And he could see no reason 
 for their happiness except that their blood was pounding 
 through their veins, even as it was pounding through his 
 own. That was it — ^the blood. The heart. The lungs. Th« 
 brain. All were clear — clear and unfettered in that marvel- 
 lous air and sunlight, washed clean by the swift pulse of hfe. 
 It was a wonderful world! A glorious world! He was 
 almost on the point of crying aloud his discovery. 
 
 The thrill grew in him as he found time now to look 
 about. Under him the broad, steel runners of the 
 sledge made a cold, creaking sound ss they slipped 
 over the snow that lay on the ice of the lake; he 
 heard the swift tap, tap, tap of the dogs' feet, their 
 panting breath that was almost like laughter, low throat 
 whines, and the steady swish of the snow shoes ahead. 
 Beyond those sounds a vast silence encompassed him. 
 He looked out into it, east and west to the dark rims of 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 95 
 
 forest, north and south over the distance of that diamond- 
 sprinkled tundra of unbroken white. He drew out his 
 pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke. The 
 bitterness of the weed was gone. It was dehcious. He 
 puffed luxuriously. And then, suddenly, as he looked at 
 the purplish bulwarks of the forest, his mind swept back. 
 For the first time since that night many months ago he 
 thought of the Woman — the Golden Goddess — ^without a 
 red-Jiot fire in his brain. He thought of her coolly. This 
 new world was already giving back to him a power of 
 analysis, a p)erspective, a healthier conception of truths 
 and measurements. What a horrible blot they had made 
 in his life — that man and that woman! What a foul trick 
 they had played him! What filth they had wallowed in! 
 And he — he had thought her the most beautiful creature 
 in the world, an angel, a thing to be worshipped. He 
 laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting hard on 
 the stem of his pipe. And the world he was looking upon 
 laughed; the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; 
 there was laughter in the sun, the warmth of chuckling 
 humour in those glowing walls of forest, laughter in the 
 blue sky above. 
 
 His hands gripped hard. 
 
 In this world he knew there could not be another woman 
 such as she. Here, in all this emptiness and glory, her 
 shallow soul would have shrieked in agony; she would 
 have shrivelled up and died. It was too clean. Too 
 white. Too pure. It would have frightened her, tor- 
 tured her. She could not have found the poison she re- 
 quired to give her life. Her unclean desires would have 
 driven her mad. So he arraigned her, terribly, without 
 
96 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 malice, and without pity. And then, Hke the quieting 
 touch of a gentle hand in his brain, came the thought of 
 the other woman — the Girl — ^whose picture he carried in 
 his pocket. This was her world that he was entering. 
 She was up there — ^somewhere — and he looked over the 
 barriers of the fwest to the northwest. Hundreds of 
 miles away. A thousand. It was a big world, so vast 
 that he still could not comprehend it. But she was there, 
 living, breathing, alive! A sudden impulse made him 
 draw the picture from his pocket. He held it down be- 
 hind a bale, so that Father Roland would not chance to 
 see it if he looked back. He unwrapped the picture, and 
 ceased to puff at his pipe. The Girl was wonderful to-day, 
 imder the simhght and the blue halo of the skies, and she 
 wanted to speak to him. That thought always came to 
 him first of all when he looked at her. She wanted to 
 speak. Her lips were trembling, her eyes were looking 
 straight into his, the sun above him seemed to gleam in her 
 hair. It was as if she knew of the thoughts that were in 
 his mind, and of the fight he was making; as though through 
 space she had seen him, and watched him, and wanted 
 to cry out for him the way to come. There was a curious 
 tremble in his fingers as he restored the picture to his 
 pocket. He whispered something. His pipe had gone 
 out. In the same moment a sharp cry from Father Roland 
 startled him. The dogs halted suddenly. The creaking 
 of the sledge runners ceased. 
 
 Father Roland had turned his face down the lake, and 
 was pointing. 
 
 "Ldok!" he cried. 
 
 David jumped from the sledge and stared back ovef 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 97 
 
 their trail. The scintillating gleams of the snow crystals 
 were beginning to prick his eyes, and for a few moments he 
 could see nothing new He heard a muffled ejaculation of 
 surprise from Mukoki. And then, far back — probably 
 half a mile — ^he saw a dark object travelling slowly toward 
 them. It stopped. It was motionless as a dark rock now. 
 Olose beside him the Little Missioner said: 
 
 '* You've won again, David. Baree is following us!" 
 
 The dog came no nearer as they watched. After a 
 moment David pursed his Hps and sent back a curious, 
 piercing whistle. In days to come Baree was to recognize 
 that call, but he gave no attention to it now. For several 
 minutes they stood gazing back at him. When they were 
 ready to go on David for a third time that day put on his 
 snow shoes. His task seemed less difficult. He was 
 getting the "swing" of the shoes, and his breath came 
 more easily. At the end of half an hour Father Roland 
 halted the team again to give him a "winding" spell. 
 Baree had come nearer. He was not more than a quarter 
 of a mile behind. It was three o'clock when they struck 
 off the lake into the edge of the forest to the northwest. 
 The sun had grown cold and pale. The snow crystals no 
 longer sparkled so furiously. In the forest there was 
 gathering a gray, silent gloom. They halted again in the 
 edge of that gloom. The Missioner sHpped off his mittens 
 and filled his pipe with fresh tobacco. The pipe fell from 
 his fingers and bm-ied itself in the soft snow at his feet. 
 As he bent down for it Father Roland said quite audibly: 
 
 ''Damn!'' 
 
 He was smihng when he rose. David, also, was smiling. 
 
 "I was thinking," he said — as though the other had de- 
 
98 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 mahded an explanation of his thoughts — "what a curious 
 man of God you are, mon Pere I " 
 
 The Little Missioner chuckled, and then he muttered, 
 half to himself as he lighted the tobacco, "True — very 
 true." When the top of the bowl was glowing, he added: 
 "How are your legs? It is still a good mile to the shack." 
 
 "I am going to make it or drop," declared David. 
 
 He wanted to ask a question. It had been in his mind 
 for some time, and he burned with a strange eagerness to 
 have it answered. He looked back, and saw Baree circling 
 slowly over the surface of the lake toward the fores l. 
 Casually he inquired: 
 
 "How far is it to Tavish's, mon Pere?** 
 
 "Four days," said the Missioner. "Four days, if we 
 make good time, and another week from there to God*s 
 Lake. I have paid Tavish a visit in five days, and once 
 Tavish made God's Lake in two days and a night with 
 seven dogs. Two days and a night! Through darkness 
 he came — darkness and a storm. That is what fear will 
 do, David. Fear drove him. I have promised to tell you 
 about it to-night. You must know, to understand him. 
 He is a strange man — a very strange man!" 
 
 He spoke to Mukoki in Cree, and the Indian responded 
 with a sharp command to the dogs. The huskies sprang 
 from their bellies and strained forward in their traces. 
 The Cree picked his way slowly ahead of them. Father 
 Roland dropped in behind him. Again David followed 
 the sledge. He was struck with wonder at the suddenness 
 with which the sun had gone out. In the thick forest it 
 was like the beginning of night. The deep shadows and 
 darkly growing caverns of gloom seemed to give birth to 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 99 
 
 new sounds. He heard the whit, whit, whit, of something 
 close to him, and the next moment a great snow owl flitted 
 like a ghostly apparition over his head; he heard the patter 
 of snow as it fell from the bending limbs; from out of a 
 patch of darkness two trees, rubbing sUghtly against each 
 other, emitted a shivering wail that startled him — ^it had 
 seemed so like the cry of a child. He was straining his 
 ears so tensely to hear, and his eyes to see, that he forgot 
 the soreness of his knees and ankles. Now and then the 
 dogs stopped while Mukoki and the Missioner dragged a 
 log or a bit of brushwood from their path. During one of 
 these intervals there came to them, from a great distance, 
 a long, mournful howl. 
 
 " A wolf ! " said Father Roland, his face a gray i^dow as 
 he nodded at David. "Listen!** 
 
 From behind them came another cry. It was Baree. 
 
 They went on, circling around the edge of a great wind- 
 fall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the 
 spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their 
 heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were 
 pelting them from above. Again and again David caught 
 the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he 
 heard the wolf -howl; once again Baree's dismal, homeless 
 cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom 
 of the forest into the twilight gray of a clearing. Twenty 
 paces from them was a cabin. The dogs stopped. Father 
 Roland fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it dose up 
 to his eyes. 
 
 "Half -past four," he said. "Fairly good time for a be- 
 ginner, David!" 
 
 He broke into a cheerful whistle. The dogs were whin- 
 
100 THE COUIIAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 ing and snapping like joyous puppies as Mukoki unfastened 
 them. The Cree himself was voluble in a chuckling and 
 meaningless way. There was a great contentment in the 
 air, an indefinable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom, 
 David could not understand it, though in an elusive sort 
 of way he felt it. He did not understand until Father 
 Roland said, across the sledge, which he had begun to un- 
 pack: 
 
 "Seems good to be on the trail again, David." 
 That was it — ^the trail! This was the end of a day's 
 achievement. He looked at the cabin, dark and unlighted 
 in the open, with its big white cap of snow. It looked 
 friendly for all its darkness. He was filled with the desire 
 to become a partner in the activities of Mukoki and the 
 Missioner. He wanted to help, not because he placed any 
 value on his assistance, but simply because his blood and 
 his brain were imposing new desires upon him. He kicked 
 off his snow shoes, and went with Mukoki to the door of 
 the cabin, which was fastened with a wooden bolt. When 
 they entered he could make out things indistinctly — a. 
 stove at first, a stool, a box, a small table, and a bunk 
 against the wall. Mukoki was rattling the lids of the stove 
 when Father Roland entered with his arms filled. He 
 dropped his load on the floor, and David went back to the 
 sledge with him. By the time they had brought its 
 burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove, and 
 Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table. Then 
 Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge with his 
 thumb, and said to David: "Let's go cut our beds before 
 it's too dark." Cut their beds! But the Missioner's 
 broad back was disappearing through the door in a very 
 
THE COURAGE OF MAftOfi O'DOONE 101 
 
 purposeful way, and David csught .up <ia sectfnd -axe' iJad 
 followed. Young balsams twice as tall as a man were 
 growing about the cabin, and from these Father Roland 
 began stripping the branches. They carried armfuls into 
 the cabin imtil the one bunk was heaped high, and mean- 
 while Mukoki had half a dozen pots and kettles and pans 
 on the glowing top of the sheet-iron stove, and thick cari- 
 bou steaks were sizzling in a homelike and comforting way. 
 A little later David ate as though he had gone hungry all 
 day. Ordinarily he wanted his meat well done; to-night 
 he devoured an inch-and-a quarter sirloin steak that floated 
 in its own gravy, and was red to the heart of it. When they 
 had finished they lighted their pipes and went out to feed 
 the dogs a frozen fish apiece. 
 
 An immense satisfaction pK>ssessed David. It was Uke 
 something soft and purring inside of him. He made no 
 effort to explain things. He was accepting facts, and 
 changes. He felt bigger to-night, as though his lungs were 
 stretching themselves, and his chest expanding. His 
 fears were gone. He no longer saw anything to dread in 
 the white wilderness. He was eager to go on, eager to 
 reach Tavish's. Ever since Father Roland had spoken of 
 Tavish that desire had been growing within him. Tavish 
 had not only come from the Stikine River; he had lived on 
 Firepan Creek. It was incredible that he should not know 
 of the Girl: who she was; just where she Uved; why 
 she was there. White i>eople were few in that far country. 
 Tavish would surely know of her. He had made up his 
 mind that he would show Tavish the picture, keeping to 
 himself the manner in which he had come into possession 
 of it. The daughter of a friend, he would tell them — 
 
102 THE CODiyLtfEOF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 bo^ Fatls^'Jlela/id.an5 Tavish. Or of an acquaintance. 
 That, at least, was half truth. 
 
 A dozen things Father Roland spoke about that night 
 before he alluded to Tavish. David waited. He did not 
 want to appear too deeply interested. He desired to have 
 the thing work itself out in a fortuitous sort of way, gov- 
 erned, as he was, by a strong feeling that he could not 
 explain his position, or his strange and growing interest in 
 the Girlj if the Missioner should by any chance discover 
 the part he had played in the haunting though incidental 
 encounter with the woman on the train. 
 
 "Fear — a great fear — ^his Ufe is haunted by it," said 
 Father Roland, when at last he began talking about 
 Tavish. He was seated on a pile of balsams, his legs 
 stretched out flat on the floor, his back to the wall, and he 
 smoked thoughtfully as he looked at David. "A coward? 
 I don't know. I have seen him jump at the snap of a twig. 
 I have seen him tremble at nothing at all. I have seen 
 him shrink at darkness, and then, again, he came through 
 a terrible darkness to reach my cabin that night. Mad? 
 Perhaps. It is hard to believe he is a coward. Would a 
 coward live alone, as he does? That seems impossible, 
 too. And yet he is afraid. That fear is always close at 
 his heels, especially at night. It follows him like a hungry 
 dog. There are times when I would swear it is not fear of 
 a living thing. That is what makes it — disturbing. It is 
 weird — distressing. It makes one shiver." 
 
 The Missioner was silent for some moments, as if lost 
 in a reverie. Then he said, reflectively : 
 
 "I have seen strange things. I have had many peni- 
 tents. My ears have heard much that you would not be- 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 103 
 
 lieve. It has all come in my long day's work in the wil- 
 derness. But never, never have I seen a fight like this that 
 is being made by Tavish — a fight against that mysterious 
 fear, of which he will not speak. I would give a year of my 
 life — ^yes, even more — to help him. There is something 
 about him that is lovable, that makes you want to cling to 
 him, be near him. But he will have none of that. He 
 wants to be alone with his fear. Is it not strange? I have 
 pieced Httle things together, and that night — when terror 
 drove him to my cabin — ^he betrayed himself, and I learned 
 one thing. He is afraid of a w^omaw/" 
 
 "A woman!'* gasped David. 
 
 "Yes, a woman — a. woman who lives — or lived — ^up in 
 the Stikine River country you mentioned to-day.** 
 
 David's heart stirred strangely. 
 
 "The Stikine River, or — or — Firepan Creek?" he asked. 
 
 It seemed a long time to him before Father Roland 
 answered. He was thinking deeply, with his eyes half 
 closed, as though striving to recall things that he had for- 
 gotten. 
 
 "Yes — it was on the Firepan. I am sure of it," he said 
 slowly. "He was sick — small-pox, as I told you — ^and it 
 was on the Firepan. I remember that. And whoever the 
 woman was, she was there. A woman ! And he — afraid ! 
 Afraid, even now, with her a thousand miles away, if she 
 lives. Can you account for it? I would give a great deal 
 to know. But he will say nothing. And — it is not my 
 business to intrude. Yet I have guessed. I have my own 
 conviction. It is terrible." 
 
 He spoke in a low voice, looking straight at David. 
 
 " And that conviction. Father ? " David barely whispered. 
 
104 THE COURA.GE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Tavish is afraid of some one who is dead,** 
 
 "Dead!" 
 
 "Yes, a woman — or a girl — ^who is dead; dead in the 
 flesh, but living in the spirit to haunt him. It is that. I 
 know it. And he will not bare his soul to me." 
 
 "A girl . . . who is dead ... on Firepan 
 Creek. Her spirit . . . " 
 
 A cold, invisible hand was clutching at David's throat. 
 Shadows hid his face, or Father Roland would have seett» 
 His voice was strained. He forced it between his lips. 
 
 "Yes, her spirit," came the Missioner's answer, and 
 David heard the scrape of his knife as he cleaned out the 
 bowl of his pipe. "It haunts Tavish. It is with him 
 always. And he is afraid ofitT* 
 
 David rose slowly to his feet and went toward the door, 
 slipping on his coat and cap. "I'm going to whistle for 
 Baree," he said, and went out. The white world was bril- 
 liant under the glow of a full moon and a biUion stars. 
 It was the most wonderful night he had ever seen, and yet 
 for a few moments he was as obKvious of its amazing 
 beauty, its almost startling vividness, as though he had 
 passed out into darkness. 
 
 "A girl . . . Firepem . . . dead . • . 
 haunting Tavish . . . " 
 
 He did not hear the whining of the dogs. He was again 
 piecing together in his mind that picture — the barefooted 
 girl standing on the rock, disturbed, startled, terrified, 
 poised as if about to fly from a great danger. What had 
 happened after the taking of that picture? Was it Tavish 
 who had taken it? Was it Tavish who had smrprised hes 
 there? Was it Tavish— Tavish— Tavish . . . ? 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 105 
 
 His mind could not go on. He steadied himself, one 
 hand clutching at the breast of his coat, where the picture 
 lay. 
 
 The cabin door opened behind him. The Missioner 
 came out. He coughed, and looked up at the sky. 
 
 "A splendid night, David," he said softly. "A splen- 
 did night!" 
 
 He spoke in a strange, quiet voice that made David 
 turn. The Little Missioner was facing the moon. He was 
 gazing off into that wonder-world of forests and snow 
 and stars and moonlight in a fixed and steady gaze, and it 
 seemed to David that he aged, and shrank into smaller 
 form, and that his shoulders drooped as if under a weight. 
 And all at once David saw in his face what he had seen 
 before when in the coach — a forgetfulness of all things but 
 one, the lifting of a strange curtain, the baring of a soul; 
 and for a few moments Father Roland stood with his face 
 turned to the Ught of the skies, as if preoccupied by an 
 all-pervading and hopeless grief. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IT WAS Baree who disturbed the silent tableau in thd 
 moonlight. David was staring at the Missioner, 
 held by the look of anguish that had settled so quickly 
 and so strangely in his face, as if this bright night with its 
 moon and stars had recalled to him a great sorrow, when 
 they heard again the wolf-dog's howl out in the forest. 
 It was quite near. David, with his eyes still on the other, 
 saw Father Roland start, as if for an instant he had forgot- 
 ten where he was. The Missioner looked his way, and 
 straightened his shoulders slowly, with a smile on his Hps 
 that was strained and wan as the smile of one worn out by 
 an arduous toil. 
 
 "A splendid night," he repeated, and he raised a naked 
 hand to his head, as if slowly brushing away something 
 from before his eyes. "It was a night like this — ^this-^ 
 fifteen years ago . . . " 
 
 He stopped. In the moonlight he brought himself to- 
 gether with a jerk. He came and laid a hand on David's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "That was Baree," he said. "The dog has followed 
 us." 
 
 "He is not very far in the forest," answered David. 
 
 "No. He smells us. He is waiting out there for you." 
 
 There was a moment's silence between them as they 
 listened. 
 
 I0€ 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 107 
 
 "I will take him a fish," said David, then. "I am sure 
 he will come to me." 
 
 Mukoki had hoisted the gunny sack full of fish well up 
 against the roof of the cabin to keep it from chance ma- 
 rauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by while 
 David lowered it and made a choice for Baree's supper. 
 Then he reentered the cabin. 
 
 It was not Baree who drew David slowly into the forest. 
 He wanted to be alone, away from Father Roiand and the 
 quiet, insistent scrutiny of the Cree. He wanted to think, 
 ask himself questions, find answers for them if he could. 
 His mind was just beginning to rouse itself to the signifi- 
 cance of the events of the past day and night, and he was 
 like one bewildered by a great mystery, and startled by 
 visions of a possible tragedy. Fate had played with him 
 strangely. It had linked him with happenings that were 
 inexplicable and unusual, and he believed that they were 
 not without their meaning for him. More or less of a 
 fatalist, he was inspired by the sudden and disturbing 
 thought that they had happened by inevitable necessity. 
 
 Vividly he saw again the dark, haunting eyes of the 
 woman in the coach, and heard again the few low, tense 
 words with which she had revealed to him her quest of a 
 man — a man by the name of Michael O'Doone. In her 
 presence he had felt the nearness of tragedy. It had 
 stirred him deeply, almost as deeply as the picture she had 
 left in her seat — the picture hidden now against his breast 
 — ^like a thing which must not be betrayed, and which a 
 strange and compelling instinct had made him associate in 
 such a starthng way with Tavish. He could not get Tav- 
 ish out of his mind; Tavish, the haunted man; Tavish the 
 
tOS THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE ; 
 
 man who had fled from the Firepan Creek comitry at just 
 about the time the girl in the picture had stood on the 
 rock beside the pool; Tavish, terror-driven by a spirit of 
 the dead! He did not attempt to reason the matter, or 
 bare the folly of his alarm. He did not ask himself about 
 the improbabiHty of it all, but accepted without equivoca- 
 tion that strong impression as it had come to him — the 
 conviction that the girl on the rock and the woman in the 
 coach were in some way identified with the flight of Tavish, 
 the man he had never seen, from that far valley in the 
 northwest mountains. 
 
 The questions he asked himself now were not to establish 
 in his own mind either the truth or the absurdity of this 
 conviction. He was determining with himself whether 
 or not to confide in Father Roland. It was more than 
 delicacy that made him hesitate; it was almost a personal 
 shame. For a long time he had kept within his breast the 
 secret of his own tragedy and dishonour. That it was his 
 dishonour, almost as much as the woman's, had been his 
 own conviction; and how, at last, he had come to reveal 
 that corroding sickness in his soul to a man who was 
 almost a stranger was more than he could understand. 
 But he had done just that. Father Roland had seen him 
 stripped down to the naked truth in an hour of great need, 
 and he had put out a hand in time to save him. He no 
 longer doubted this last immeasurable fact. Twenty 
 times since then, coldly and critically, he had thought of 
 the woman who had been his wife, and slowly and terribly 
 the enormity of her crime had swept further and further 
 away from him the anguish of her loss. He was like a man 
 risen from a sick bed, breathing freely again, tasting once 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 109 
 
 more the flavour of the air that filled his lungs. All this 
 he owed to Father Roland, and because of this — and his 
 confession of only two nights ago — he felt a burning humili- 
 ation at the thought of telling the Missioner that another 
 face had come to fill his thoughts, and stir his anxieties. 
 And what less could he tell, if he confided in him at all? 
 
 He had gone a hundred yards or more into the forest, 
 and in a Uttle open space, lighted up like a tiny amphi- 
 theatre in the glow of the moon, he stopped. Suddenly 
 there came to him, thrilling in its promise, a key to the 
 situation. He would wait until they reached Tavish*s. 
 And then, in the presence of the Missioner, he would sud- 
 denly show Tavish the picture. His heart throbbed un- 
 easily as he anticipated the possible tragedy — the sudden 
 betrayal — of that moment, for Father Roland had said, ' 
 like one who had glimpsed beyond the ken of human eyes, 
 that Tatish was haunted by a vision of the dead. The 
 dead ! Could it be that she, the girl in the picture . . ,} 
 He shook himself, set his lips tight to get the thought away 
 from him. And the woman — the woman in the coach, 
 the woman who had left in her seat this picture that was 
 growing in his heart like a living thing — who was she? 
 Was her quest one of vengeance — of retribution? Was 
 Tavish the man she was seeking? Up in that mountain 
 valley — where the girl had stood on that rock — ^had his 
 name been Michael O'Doone? 
 
 He was trembling when he went on, deeper into the 
 forest. But of his determination there was no longer a 
 doubt. He would say nothing to Father Roland until 
 Tavish had seen the picture. 
 
 Until now he had forgotten Baree. In the disquieting 
 
110 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 fear with which his thoughts were weighted he had lost 
 hold of the fact that in his hand he still carried the slightly 
 curved and solidly frozen substance of a fish. The move- 
 ment of a body near him, so unexpected and alarmingly 
 close that a cry broke from his lips as he leaped to one side, 
 roused him with a sudden mental shock. The beast, 
 whatever it was, had passed within six feet of him, and 
 now, twice that distance away, stood like a statue hewn 
 out of stone levelling at him the fiery gleam of a solitary 
 eye. Until he saw that one eye, and not two, David did 
 not breathe. Then he gasped. The fish had fallen from 
 his fingers. He stooped, picked it up, and called softly: 
 
 "Baree!" 
 
 The dog was waiting for his voice. His one eye shifted, 
 slanting like a searchlight in the direction of the cabin, 
 and turned swiftly back to David. He whined, and David 
 spoke to him again, calling his name, and holding out the 
 fish. For several moments Baree did not move, but eyed 
 him with the immobihty of a half-bhnded sphinx. Then, 
 suddenly, he dropped on his belly and began crawling 
 toward him. 
 
 A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David, crouch- 
 ing on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for a moment 
 to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized its head be- 
 tween his powerful jaws with a grinding crunch. The 
 power of those jaws sent a fittle shiver through the man so 
 close to them. They were terrible — ^and splendid. A 
 man's leg-bone would have cracked between them like a 
 pipe stem. And Baree, with that power of death in his 
 jaws, had a second time crept to him on his belly — not 
 fearingly, in the shadow of a club, but like a thing tamed 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 111 
 
 into slavery by a yearning adoration. It was a fact that 
 seized upon David with a peculiar hold. It built up be- 
 tween them — between this down-and-out beast and a man 
 fighting to find himself — a comradeship which perhaps 
 only the man and the beast could understand. Even 
 as he devoured the fish Baree kept his one eye on David, 
 as though fearing he might lose him again if he allowed his 
 gaze to falter for an instant. The truculency and the 
 menace of that eye were gone. It was still bloodshot, still 
 burned with a reddish fire, and a great pity swept through 
 David, as he thought of the blows the club must have 
 given. He noticed, then, that Baree was making efforts 
 to open the other eye; he saw the swollen lid flutter, the 
 muscle twitch. Impulsively he put out a hand. It fell 
 unflinchingly on Baree*s head, and in an instant the 
 crunching of the dog's jaw had ceased, and he lay as if 
 dead. David bent nearer. With the thumb and fore- 
 finger of his other hand he gently lifted the swollen Kd. 
 It caused a hurt. Baree whined softly. His great body 
 trembled. His ivory fangs clicked Hke the teeth of a man 
 with ague. To his wolfish soul, trembHng in a body that 
 had been condemned, beaten, clubbed almost to the door 
 of death, that hurt caused by David's fingers was a caress. 
 He understood. He saw with a vision that was keener than 
 sight. Faith was born in him, and burned like a conflagra- 
 tion. His head dropped to the snow; a great, gasping sigh 
 ran through him, and his trembling ceased. His good eye 
 closed slowly as David gently and persistently massaged 
 the muscles of the other with his thumb and forefinger. 
 When at last he rose to his feet and returned to the cabin, 
 Baree followed him to the edge of the clearing. 
 
112 THE COURAGE OF MAHGE O'DOONE 
 
 Mukoki and the Missioner had made their beds of bal- 
 sam boughs, two on the floor and one in the bunk, and the 
 Cree had already rolled himself in his blanket when David 
 entered the shack. Father Roland was wiping David's gun. 
 
 "We'll give you a Uttle practice with this to-morrow," 
 he promised. "Do you suppose you can hit a moose? " 
 
 "I have my doubts, mon PereJ* 
 
 Father Roland gave vent to his ciu-ious chuckle. 
 
 "I have promised to make a marksman of you in ex- 
 change for your — ^your trouble in teaching me how to use 
 the gloves," he said, pohshing furiously. There was a 
 twinkle in his eyes, as if a moment before he had been 
 laughing to himself. The gloves were on the table. 
 He had been examining them again, and David found 
 himself smiKng at the childhke and eager interest he had 
 taken in them. Suddenly Father Roland rubbed still a 
 little faster, and said: 
 
 "If you can't hit a moose with a bullet you surely can 
 hit me with these gloves — eh?" 
 
 "Yes, quite positively. But I shall be merciful if you, 
 in turn, show some charity in teaching me how to shoot." 
 
 The Little Missioner finished his pohshing, set the rifle 
 against the wall, and took the gloves in his hands. 
 
 "It is bright — almost like day—outside," he said a little 
 yearningly. "Are you — tired?" 
 
 His hint was obvious, even to Mukoki, who stared at 
 him from under his blanket. And David was not tired. 
 If his afternoon's work had fatigued him his exhaustion 
 was forgotten in the mental excitement that had fol- 
 lowed the Missioner's story of Tavish. He took a pair 
 of the gloves in his hands, and nodded toward the door. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 113 
 
 '"You mean . . ." 
 ' Father Roland was on liis feet. 
 
 " If you are not tired. It would give us a better stomach 
 for sleep." 
 
 Mukoki rolled from his blanket, a grin on his leathery 
 face. He tied the wrist laces for them, and followed them 
 out into the moonlit night, his face a copper-coloured 
 gargoyle illuminated by that fixed and joyous grin. 
 David saw the look and wondered if it would change when 
 he sent the Little Missioner bowling over in the snow, 
 which he was quite sure to do, even if he was careful. 
 He was a splendid boxer. In the days of his practice he 
 had struck a terrific blow for his weight. At the Athletic 
 Club he had been noted for a subtle strategy and a clever- 
 ness of defence that were his own. But he felt that he had 
 grown rusty during the past year and a half. This 
 thought was in his mind when he tapped the Missioner on 
 the end of his ruddy nose. They squared away in the 
 moonhght, eight inches deep in the snow, and there was a 
 joyous and eager light in Father Roland's eyes. The tap 
 on his nose did not dim it. His teeth gleamed, even as 
 David's gloves went plunk, plunk, against his nose again. 
 Mukoki, still grinning like a carven thing, chuckled audi- 
 bly. David pranced carelessly about the Little Missioner, 
 poking him beautifully as he offered suggestions and 
 criticism. 
 
 "You should protect your nose, rnon Phre" — plunk! 
 "And the pit of your stomach" — plunk ! "And also your 
 ears" — plunk, plunk I "But especially your nose, mon 
 Pere" — plunk, plunk I 
 
 "And sometimes the tip of yoiu' jaw, David," gurgled 
 
114 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Father Roland, and for a few moments night closed in 
 darkly about David. 
 
 When he came fully into his senses again he was sitting 
 in the snow, with the Little Missioner bending over him 
 anxiously, and Mukoki grinning down at him like a 
 fiend. 
 
 "Dear Heaven, forgive me!" he heard Father Roland 
 saying. "I didn't mean it so hard, David — I didn't! 
 But oh, man, it was such a chance — such a beautiful 
 chance ! And now I've spoiled it. I've spoiled our fun." 
 
 "Not unless you're — tired," said David, getting up 
 on his feet. * "You took me at a disadvantage, mon Pbre, 
 I thought you were green." 
 
 "And you were pulverizing my nose," apologized Father 
 Roland. 
 
 They went at it again, and this time David spared none 
 of his caution, and offered no advice, and the Missioner 
 no longer posed, but became suddenly as elusive and as 
 agile as a cat. David was amazed, but he wasted no 
 breath to demand an explanation. Father Roland was 
 parrying his straight blows Hke an adept. Three times 
 in as many minutes he felt the sting of the Missioner's 
 glove in his face. In straight-away boxing, without the 
 finer tricks and artifice of the game, he was soon convinced 
 that the forest man was almost his match. Little by 
 little he began to exert the cleverness of his training. At 
 the end of ten minutes Father Roland was sitting dazedly 
 in the snow, and the grin had gone from Mukoki's face. 
 He had succumbed to a trick — a swift side step, a feint 
 that had held in it an ambush, and the seat of the Little 
 Missioner's faculties had rocked. But he was gurgling 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 115 
 
 joyously when he rose to his feet, and with one arm he 
 hugged David as they returned to the cabin. 
 
 "Only one other man has given me a jolt like that in 
 many a year," he boasted, a bit proudly. "And that was 
 Tavish. Tavish is good. He must have Hved long among 
 fighting men. Perhaps that is why I think so kindly of 
 him. I love a fighting man if he fights honoiu-ably with 
 eitlier brain or brawn, even more than I despise a coward.** 
 
 "And yet this Tavish, you say, is pursued by a great 
 fear. Can he be so much of a fighting man, in the way 
 you mean, and still live in terror of . . ." 
 
 That single word broke from the Missioner like the 
 sharp crack of a whip. 
 
 "0/ what is he afraid?" he repeated. "Can you toll 
 me? Can you guess more than I have guessed? Is one a 
 coward because he fears whispers that tremble in the air 
 and sees a face in the darkness of night that is neither Hving 
 nor dead? Is he?" 
 
 For a long time after he had gone to bed David lay wide 
 awake in the darkness, his mind working untU it seemed to 
 him that it was prisoned in an iron chamber from which 
 it was making futile efforts to escape. He could hear the 
 steady breathing of Father Roland and Mukoki, who were 
 asleep. His own eyes he could close only by forced efforts 
 to bring upon himself the unconsciousness of rest. Tavish 
 filled his mind — ^Tavish and the girl — and along with them 
 the mysterious woman in the coach. He struggled with 
 himself. He told himself how absurd it all was, how 
 grotesquely his imagination was employing itself with 
 him — ^how incredible it was that Tavish and the girl in the 
 
116 THE ^COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 
 
 picture should be associated in that terrible way that had 
 occurred to him. But he failed to convince himself. He 
 fell asleep at last, and his slumber was filled with fleeting 
 visions. When he awoke the cabin was filled with the glow 
 of the lantern. Father Roland and Mukoki were up, and 
 a fire was crackhng in the stove. 
 
 The four days that followed broke the last link in the 
 chain that held David Raine to the life from which he was 
 fleeing when the forest Missioner met him in the Trans- 
 continental. They were four wonderful days, in which 
 they travelled steadily northward; days of splendid sun- 
 shine, of intense cold, of brilliant stars and a full moon at 
 night. The first of these four days David travelled fifteen 
 miles on his snow shoes, and that night he slept in a balsam 
 shelter close to the face of a great rock which they heated 
 with a fire of logs, so that all through the cold hours be- 
 tween darkness and gray dawn the boulder was like a huge 
 warming-stone. The second day marked also the second 
 great stride in his education in the fife of the wild. Fang 
 and hoof and padded claw were at large again in the 
 forests after the bhzzard, and Father Roland stopped at 
 each broken path that crossed the trail, pointing out to him 
 the stories that were written in the snow. He showed him 
 where a fox had followed silently after a snow-shoe rabbit; 
 where a band of wolves had ploughed through the snow 
 in the trail of a deer that was doomed, and in a dense run 
 of timber where both moose and caribou had sought refuge 
 from the storm he explained carefully the slight difference 
 between the hoofprints of the two. That night Baree 
 came into camp while they were sleeping, and in the morn- 
 ing they found where he had burrowed his round bed in 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 117 
 
 the snow not a dozen yards from their shelter. The third 
 Horning David shot his moose. And that night he lured 
 Baree almost to the side of their campfire, and tossed him 
 chunks of raw flesh from where he sat smoking his pipe. 
 
 He was changed. Three days on the trail and three 
 nights in camp under the stars had begun their promised 
 miracle-working. His face was darkened by a stubble of 
 beard, his ears and cheek bones were reddened by exposure 
 to cold and wind; he felt that in those three days and nights 
 his muscles had hardened, and his weakness had left him. 
 "It was in your mind — ^your sickness," Father Roland 
 had told him, and he beUeved it now. He began to find 
 a pleasure in that physical achievement which he had 
 wondered at in Mukoki and the Missioner. Each noon 
 when they stopped to boil their tea and cook their dinner, 
 and each night when they made camp, he had chopped 
 down a tree. To-night it had been an 8-inch jack pine, 
 tough with pitch. The exertion had sent his blood pound- 
 ing through him furiously. He was still breathing deeply 
 as he sat near the fire, tossing bits of meat out to Baree. 
 They were sixty miles from Thoreau's cabin, straight north, 
 and for the twentieth time Father Roland was telling him 
 how weU he had done. 
 
 "And to-morrow," he added, "we'll reach Tavish's." 
 It had grown upon David that to see Tavish had be- 
 come his one great mission in the North. What adventure 
 lay beyond that meeting he did not surmise. All his 
 thoughts had centred in the single desire to let Tavish 
 look upon the picture. To-night, after the Missioner 
 had joined Mukoki in the silk tent buried warmly under 
 the mass of cut balsam, he sat a Httle longer beside the 
 
118 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 fire, and asked himself questions which he had not thought 
 of before. He would see Tavish. He would show him 
 the picture. And — ^what then? Would that be the end 
 of it? He felt, for a moment, uncomfortable. Beyond 
 Tavish there was a disturbing and imanswerable problem. 
 The Girl, if she still Hved, was a thousand miles from where 
 he was sitting at this moment; to reach her, with that 
 distance of mountain and forest between them, would be 
 like travelling to the end of the world. It was the first 
 time there had risen in his mind a definite thought of 
 going to her — ^if she were aUve. It startled him. It 
 was Hke a shock. Go to her? Why? He drew forth the 
 pictiu*e from his coat pocket and stared at the wonder-face 
 of the Girl in the Kght of the blazing logs. Why ? His 
 heart trembled. He lifted his eyes to the grayish film 
 of smoke rising between him and the balsam-covered tent, 
 and slowly he saw another face take form, framed in that 
 wraith-Hke mist of smoke — ^the face of a golden goddess, 
 laughing at him, taunting him. Laughing — laughing! 
 . . . He forced his gaze from it with a shudder. Again 
 he looked at the picture of the Girl in his hand. ^'She 
 knows. She understands, SJie comforts me." He whis- 
 pered the words. They were like a breath rising out of his 
 soul. He replaced the picture in his pocket, and for a 
 moment held it close against his breast. 
 
 The next day, as the swift-thickening gloom of northern 
 night was descending about them again, the Missioner 
 halted his team on the crest of a boulder-strewn ridge, and 
 pointing down into the murky plain at their feet he said, 
 with the satisfaction of one who has come to a journey's endt 
 
 "There is Tavish's." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THEY went down into the plain. David strained 
 his eyes, but he could see nothing where Father 
 Roland had pointed except the purpUsh sea of for- 
 est growing black in the fading twihght. Ahead of the team 
 Mukoki picked his way slowly and cautiously among the 
 snow-hidden rocks, and with the Missioner David flung 
 his weight backward on the sledge to keep it from running 
 upon the dogs. It was a thick, wild place and it struck 
 him that Tavish could not have chosen a spot of more 
 sinister aspect in which to hide himself and his secret. 
 \ terribly lonely place it was, and still as death as they 
 went down into it. They heard not even the howl of a 
 dog, and surely Tavish had dogs. He was on the point 
 of speaking, of asking the Missioner why Tavish, haunted 
 by fear, should bury himself in a place like this, when the 
 lead-dog suddenly stopped and a low, Hngering whine 
 drifted back to them. David had never heard anything 
 like that whine. It swept through the line of dogs, from 
 throat to throat, and the beasts stood stiff-legged and 
 stark in their traces, staring with eight pairs of restlessly 
 blazing eyes into the wall of darkness ahead. The Cree 
 had turned, but the sharp command on his lips had frozen 
 there. David saw him standing ahead of the team as 
 silent and as motionless as rock. From him he looked into 
 tbfc Missioner's face. Father Roland was staring. There 
 
 U9 
 
120 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 was a strange suspense in his breathing. And then, sud* 
 denly, the lead-dog sat back on his haunches and turning 
 his gray muzzle up to the sky emitted a long and mournful 
 howl. There was something about it that made David 
 shiver. Mukoki came staggering back through the snow 
 like a sick man. 
 
 ''Nipoo-vdn Ooyoo !" he said, his eyes shining Uke points 
 of flame. A shiver seemed to be running through him. 
 
 For a mcHnent the Missioner did not seem to hear him, 
 Then he cried : 
 
 " Give them the whip ! Drive them on ! " 
 
 The Cree turned, unwinding his long lash. 
 
 "NipoO'Win Ooyoo /" he muttered again. 
 
 The whip cracked over the backs of the huskies, the 
 end of it stinging the rump of the lead-dog, who was 
 master of them all. A snarl rose for an instant in his 
 throat, then he straightened out, and the dogs lurched 
 forward. Mukoki ran ahead, so that the lead-dog waa 
 close at his heels. 
 
 "What did he say?" asked David. 
 
 In the gloom the Missioner made a gesture of protest 
 with his two hands. David could no longer see his 
 face. 
 
 "He is superstitious," he growled. "He is absurd*- 
 He would make the very devil's flesh creep. He says that 
 old Beaver has given the death howl. Bah! " 
 
 David could feel the other's shudder in the darkness. 
 They went on for another himdred yards. With a low 
 word Mukoki stopped the team. The dogs were whining 
 softly, staring straight ahead, when David and the Mis- 
 s^ner joined the Cree. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 121 
 
 Father Roland pointed to a dark blot in the night, fifty 
 paces beyond them. He spoke to David. 
 
 "There is Tavish's cabin. Come. We will see." 
 
 Mukoki remained with the team. They could hear the 
 dogs whining as they advanced. The cabin took shape in 
 their faces — ^grotesque, dark, lifeless. It was a foreboding 
 thing, that cabin. He remembered in a flash all that the 
 Missidner had told him about Tavish. His pulse was 
 beating swiftly. A shiver ran up his back, and he was 
 filled with a strange dread. Father Roland's voice startled 
 him. 
 
 " Tavish ! Tavish ! " it called. 
 
 They stood close to the door, but heard no answer. 
 Father Roland stamped with his foot, and scraped with 
 his toe on the ground. 
 
 "Sec, the snow has been cleaned away recently," he 
 said. "Mukold is afooU He is superstitious. He made 
 me, for an instant — ^afraid." 
 
 There was a vast relief in his voice. The cabin door 
 was unbolted and he flung it open confidently. It was 
 pitch dark inside, but a flood of warm air struck their 
 faces. The Missioner laughed. 
 
 "Tavish, are you asleep?" he called. 
 
 There was no answer. Father Roland entered. 
 
 "He has been here recently. There is a fire in the 
 stove. We will make ourselves at home." He fumbled 
 in his clothes and found a match. A moment later he 
 struck it, and Kghted a tin lamp that hung from the 
 ceiUng. In its glow his face was of a strange colour. He 
 had been under strain. The hand that held the burning 
 match was unsteady. "Strange, very strange," he was 
 
122 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 saying, as if to himself. And then: "Preposterous! I 
 will go back and tell Mukoki. He is shivering. He ia 
 afraid. He believes that Tavish is in league with the devil. 
 He says that the dogs know, and that they have warned 
 him. Queer. Monstrously queer. And interesting. Eh?" 
 
 He went out. David stood where he was, looking about 
 him in the blurred light of the lamp over his head. He 
 almost expected Tavish to creep out from some dark cor- 
 ner; he half expected to see him move from under the 
 dishevelled blankets in the bunk at the far end of the 
 room. It was a big room, twenty feet from end to end, 
 and almost as wide, and after a moment or two he knew 
 that he was the only living thing in it, except a small, 
 gray mouse that came fearlessly quite close to his feet. 
 And then he saw a second mouse, and a third, and about 
 him, and over him, he heard a creeping, scurrying noise, as 
 of many tiny feet pattering. A paper on the table rustled, 
 a series of squeaks came from the bunk, he felt something 
 that was like a gentle touch on the toe of his moccasin, 
 and looked down. The cabin was alive with mice! It 
 was filled with the restless movement of them — little 
 bright-eyed creatures who moved about him without fear, 
 and, he thought, expectantly. He had not moved an inch 
 when Father Roland came again into the cabin. He 
 pointed to the floor. 
 
 "The place is alive with them!" he protested. 
 
 Father Roland appeared in great good humour as he 
 slipped off his mittens and rubbed his hands over the stove. 
 
 "Tavish's pets,'* he chuckled. "He says they're com-i 
 pany. I've seen a dozen of them on his shoulders at one 
 time. Queer. Queer." 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 123 
 
 His hands made the rasping sound as he rubbed them. 
 Suddenly he Kfted a Ud from the stove and peered into 
 the fire-box. 
 
 "He put fuel in here less than an hour ago," he said. 
 ** Wonder where he can be mouching at this hour. The 
 dogs are gone." He scanned the table. "No supper. 
 Pans clean. Mice hungry. He'll be back soon. But we 
 won't wait. I'm famished." 
 
 He spoke swiftly, and filled the stove with wood. 
 Mukoki began bringing in the dunnage. The uneasy 
 gleam was still in his eyes. His gaze was shifting and 
 restless with expectation. He came and went noiselessly, 
 treading as though he feared his footsteps would awaken 
 some one, and David saw that he was afraid of the mice. 
 One of them ran up his sleeve as they were eating supper, 
 and he flung it from him with a strange, quick breath, his 
 eyes blazing. 
 
 " Muche Munito I " he shuddered. 
 
 He swallowed the rest of his meat hurriedly, and after 
 that took his blankets, and with a few words in Cree to 
 the Missioner left the cabin. 
 
 "He says they are Httle devils — the mice," said Father 
 Roland, looking after him reflectively. "He will sleep 
 near the dogs. I wonder how far his intuition goes? He 
 beUeves that Tavish harbours bad spirits in this cabin, 
 and that they have taken the form of mice. Pooh! 
 They're cunning httle vermin. Tavish has taught them 
 tricks. Watch this one feed out of my hand ! " 
 
 Half a dozen times they had climbed to David's shoulders. 
 One of them had nestled in a warm furry ball against his 
 neck, as if waiting. They were certainly companionable — 
 
124 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 quite chummy, as the Missioner said. No wonder Tavish 
 harboured them in his loneUness. David fed them and 
 let them nibble from his fingers, and yet they gave him a 
 distinctly unpleasant sensation. When the Missioner had 
 finished his last cup of oofiFee he crumbled a thick chimlc 
 of bannock and placed it on the floor back of the stove. 
 The mice gathered roimd it in a silent, hungry, nibbUng 
 horde. David tried to count them. There must have 
 been twenty. He felt an impulse to scoop them up in 
 something, Tavish's water pail for instance, and pitch them 
 out into the night. The creatures became quieter aftei 
 their gorge on bannock crumbs. Most of them dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 For a long time David and the Missioner sat smoking 
 their pipes, waiting for Tavish. Father Roland was 
 puzzled and yet he was assured. He was puzzled because 
 Tavish's snow shoes hung on their wooden peg in one of 
 the cross logs and his rifle was in its rack over the bunk. 
 
 "I didn't know he had another pair of snow shoes," he 
 said. "Still, it is quite a time since I have seen him — a 
 number of weeks. I came down in the early November 
 snow. He is not far away or he would have taken his 
 rifle. Probably setting a few fresh poison-baits after the 
 storm." 
 
 They heard the sweep of a low wind. It often came at 
 night after a storm, usually from off the Barrens to the 
 northwest. Something thumped gently against the out- 
 side of the cabin, a low, pecuUarly heavy and soft sort of 
 sound, like a padded object, with only the log wall sepa- 
 rating it from the bunk. Their ears caught it quite dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 125 
 
 "Tavish hangs his meat out there," the Missioner ex- 
 plained, observing the sudden direction of David's eyes. 
 "A haunch of moose, or, if he has been lucky, of caribou. 
 I had forgotten Tavish's cache or we might have saved our 
 
 «K»t." 
 
 He ran a hand through his thick, grayish hair until it 
 «tood up about his head like a brush. 
 
 David tried not to reveal his restlessness as they waited. 
 At each new sound he hoped that what he heard was 
 Tavish's footsteps. He had quite decidedly planned his 
 dfcction. Tavish would enter, and of course there would be 
 greetings, and possibly half an hour or more of smoking and 
 talk before he brought up the Firepan Creek country, 
 unless, as might fortuitously happen. Father Roland spoke 
 of it ahead of him. After that he would show Tavish the 
 picture, and he would stand well in the light so that it 
 would be impressed upon Tavish all at once. He noticed 
 that the chimney of the lamp was sooty and discoloured, 
 and somewhat to the Missioner's amusement he took it off 
 and cleaned it. The Hght was much more satisfactory 
 then. He wandered about the cabin, scrutinizing, as if 
 out of curiosity, Tavish's belongings. There was not 
 much to discover. Close to the bunk there was a small 
 battered chest with riveted steel ribs. He wondered 
 whether it was unlocked, and what it contained. As he 
 stood over it he could hear plainly the ihtidy tkud, thvdy of the 
 thing outside — ^the haunch of meat — as though some one 
 were tapping fragments of the Morse code in a careless and 
 broken sort of way. Then, without any particular motive, 
 he stepped into the dark comer at the end of the bunk. 
 An agonized squeak came from under his foot, and he felt 
 
126 THE COURAGE OF MAllGE O'DOONE 
 
 something small and soft flatten out, like a wad of dough. 
 He jumped back. An exclamation broke from his lips. 
 It was unpleasant, though the soft thing was nothing more 
 than a mouse. 
 
 "Confound it!" he said. 
 
 Father Roland was listening to the slow, pendulum-like 
 ihtid, thudy thud, against the logs of the cabin. It seemed to 
 come more distinctly as David crushed out the life of the 
 mouse, as if pounding a protest upon the wall. 
 
 "Tavish has hung his meat low," he said concernedly. 
 ** Quite careless of him, unless it is a very large quarter." 
 
 He began slowly to undress. 
 
 "We might as well turn in," he suggested. "When 
 Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake us. 
 Throw out Tavish's blankets and put your own in his bunk. 
 I prefer the floor. Always did. Nothing Uke a good, 
 smooth floor . . ." 
 
 He was interrupted by the opening of the cabin door. 
 The Cree thrust in his head and shoulders. He came no 
 farther. His eyes were afire with the smouldering gleam of 
 garnets. He spoke rapidly in his native tongue to the 
 Missioner, gesturing with one lean, brown hand as he 
 talked. Father Roland's face became heavy, furrowed, 
 perplexed. He broke in suddenly, in Cree, and when he 
 ceased speaking Mukoki withdrew slowly. The last 
 David saw of the Indian was his shifting, garnet-like eyes, 
 disappearing like beads of blackish flame. 
 
 "Pestr* cried the Little Missioner, shrugging his 
 shoulders in disgust. "The dogs are uneasy. Mukoki 
 says they smell death. They sit on their haunches, he 
 «iys, staring — staring at nothiug, and whining like puppies. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 127 
 
 tte is going back with them to the other side of the ridge. 
 If it will ease his soul, let him go. " 
 
 "I have heard of dogs doing that," said David. 
 
 "Of course they will do it," shot back Father Roland 
 unhesitatingly. "Northern dogs always do it, and es- 
 pecially mine. They are accustomed to death. Twenty 
 times in a winter, and sometimes more, I care for the dead. 
 They always go with me, and they can smell death in the 
 wind. But here — ^why, it is absurd! There is nothing 
 dead here — ^unless it is that mouse, and Tavish's meat!** 
 He shook himself, grumbling under his breath at Mukoki'» 
 folly. And then: "The dogs have always acted queerly 
 when Tavish was near," he added in a lower voice. "1 
 can't explain why; they simply do. Instinct, possibly. 
 His presence makes them uneasy. An imusual man, thi* 
 Tavish. I wish he would come. I am anxious for you to 
 meet him." 
 
 That his mind was quite easy on the score of Tavish's 
 physical well-being he emphasized by falhng asleep very 
 shortly after rolling himself up in his blankets on the floor. 
 During their three nights in camp David had marvelled 
 at and envied the ease with which Father Roland could 
 drop off into profound and satisfactory slumber, this 
 being, as his new friend had explained to him, the great 
 and underlying virtue of a good stomach. To-nig!it, 
 however, the Missioner's deep and regular breathing as 
 he lay on the floor was a matter of vexation to him. He 
 wanted him awake. He wanted him up and alive, 
 thoroughly alive, when Tavish came. "Pounding his 
 ear like a tenderfoot," he thought, "while I, a puppy in 
 harness, couldn't sleep if I wanted to. " He was nervously 
 
128 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 alert. He filled his pipe for the third or fourth time and 
 sat down on the edge of the bunk, listening for Tavish. 
 He was certain, from all that had been said, that Tavish 
 would come. All he had to do was wait. There had been 
 growing in him, a bit imconsciously at first, a feeling of 
 animosity toward Tavish, an emotion that bm*ned in him 
 with a gathering fierceness as he sat alone in the dim 
 light of the cabin, grinding out in his mental restlessness 
 visions of what Tavish might have done. Conviction 
 had never been stronger in him. Tavish, if he had guessed 
 correctly, was a fiend. He would soon know. And if 
 he was right, if Tavish had done that, if up in those 
 mountains . . . 
 
 His eyes blazed and his hands were clenched as he 
 looked down at Father Roland. After a moment, without 
 taking his eyes from the Missioner's recumbent form, he 
 reached to the pocket of his coat which he had flung on 
 the bimk and drew out the picture of the Girl. He looked 
 at it a long time, his heart growing warm, and the tense 
 lines softening in his face. 
 
 "It can't be," he whispered. "She is alive!" 
 
 As if the wind had heard him, and was answering, there 
 came more distinctly the sound close behind him. 
 
 Thud! Thud! Thud! 
 
 There was a silence, in which David closed his fingers 
 tightly about the picture. And then, more insistently: 
 
 Thud! ThudJ Thud! 
 
 He put the picture back into his pocket, and rose to his 
 feet. Mechanically he slipped on his coat. He went to 
 the door, opened it softly, and passed out into the night. 
 The moon was above him, like a great, white disc. The 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 129 
 
 sky burned with stars. He could see now to the foot ol 
 the ridge over which Mukoki had gone, and the clearing 
 about the cabin lay in a cold and luminous glory. Tavish, 
 if he had been caught in the twihght darkness and had 
 waited for the moon to rise, would be showing up soon. 
 
 He walked to the side of the cabin and looked back. 
 Quite distinctly he could see Tavish's meat, suspended 
 from a stout sapling that projected straight out from under 
 the edge of the roof. It hung there darkly, a Httle in 
 shadow, swinging gently in the wind that had risen, and 
 tap-tap-tapping against the logs. David moved toward 
 it, gazing at the edge of the forest in which he thought 
 he had heard a sound that was like the creak of a sledge 
 runner. He hoped it was Tavish returning. For several 
 moments he listened with his back to the cabin. Then he 
 turned. He was very close to the thing hanging from the 
 sapUng. It was swinging sHghtly. The moon shone on 
 it, and then — Great God! A face — a. human face! 
 A face, bearded, with bulging, staring eyes, gaping mouth 
 — a grin of agony frozen in it! And it was tapping, tap- 
 ping, tapping! 
 
 He stagprered back with a dreadful cry. He swayed to 
 the door, groped bUndly for the latch, stumbled in clumsily, 
 like a drunken man. The horror of that lifeless, grinning 
 face was in his voice. He had awakened the Missioner, 
 who was sitting up, staring at him. 
 
 "Tavish . . ." cried David chokingly; "Tavish— 
 is dead!" and he pointed to the end of the cabin where 
 they could hear again that ta'p-tap-tapping against the log 
 wall. 
 
CHAPTER Xn 
 
 NOT until afterward did David realize how terribly 
 his announcement of Tavish's death must have 
 struck into the soul of Father Roland. For a few 
 seconds the Missioner did not move. He was wide awake, 
 he had heard, and yet he looked at David dumbly, his 
 two hands gripping his blanket. When he did move, it 
 was to turn Jiis face slowly toward the end of the cabin 
 where the thing was hanging, with only the wall between. 
 Then, still slowly, he rose to his feet. 
 
 David thought he had only half understood. 
 
 "Tavish — is dead!" he repeated huskily, straining to 
 swallow the thickening in his throat. "He is out there- 
 hanging by his neck — dead!" 
 
 Dead! He emphasized that word — spoke it twice. 
 
 Father Roland still did not answer. He was getting 
 into his clothes mechanically, his face curiously ashen, his 
 eyes neither horrified nor startled, but with a stunned look 
 in them. He did not speak when he went to the door and 
 out into the night. David followed, and in a moment 
 they stood close to the thing that was hanging where 
 Tavish's meat should have been. The moon threw a vivid 
 sort of spotlight on it. It was grotesque and horrible — ' 
 very bad to look at, and unforgettable. Tavish had not 
 died easily. He seemed to shriek that fact at them as he 
 swung there dead; even now he seemed more terrified thao 
 
 ISO 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE ISl 
 
 cold. His teeth gleamed a little. That, perhaps, was 
 the worst of it all. And his hands were clenched tight. 
 David noticed that. Nothing seemed relaxed about 
 him. 
 
 Not until he had looked at Tavish for perhaps sixty 
 full seconds did Father Roland speak. He had recovered 
 himself, judging from his voice. It was quiet and un- 
 excited. But in his first words, unemotional as they 
 were, there waa a significance that was almost frighten- 
 ing. 
 
 "At last! She made him do that!" 
 
 He was speaking to himself, looking straight into 
 Tavish's agonized face. A great shudder swept through 
 David. She! He wanted to cry out. He wanted to 
 know. But the Missioner now had his hands on 
 the gruesome thing in the moonlight, and he was say- 
 ing: 
 
 "There is still warmth in his body. He has not been 
 long dead. He hanged himself, I should say, not more 
 than half an hour before we reached the cabin. Give me 
 a hand, David!" 
 
 With a mighty effort David pulled himself together. 
 After all, it was nothing more than a dead man hanging 
 there. But his hands were hke ice as he seized hold of it. 
 A knife gleamed in the moonlight over Tavish's head as 
 the Missioner cut the rope. They lowered Tavish to the 
 snow, and David went into the cabin for a. blanket. 
 Father Roland wrapped the blanket carefully about the 
 body so that it would not freeze to the ground. Then 
 they entered the cabin. Tlie Missioner threw off his coat 
 end built up the fire. When he turned he seemed to 
 
132 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 
 
 notice for tlie first time the deathly pallor m David * 
 face. 
 
 "It shocked you — ^when you found it there," he said. 
 **UghI I don't wonder. ButI . . . David, I didn't 
 tell you I was expecting something like this. I have 
 feared for Tavish. And to-night when the dogs and 
 Mukoki signalled death I was alarmed — until we found the 
 fire in the stove. It didn't seem reasonable then. I 
 thought Tavish would return. The dogs were gone, too 
 He must have freed them just before he went out there. 
 Terrible! But justice — ^justice, I suppose. God some- 
 times works His ends in queer ways, doesn't He? " 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried David, again fighting that 
 thickening in his throat. "TeU me. Father! I must 
 know. Why did he kiU himself?" 
 
 His hand was clutching at his breast, where the picture 
 lay. He wanted to tear it out, in this moment, and 
 demand of Father Roland whether this was the face — 
 the girl's face — that had haunted Tavish. 
 
 "I mean that his fear drove him at last to kill himself," 
 said Father Roland in a slow, sure voice, as if carefully 
 weighing his words before speaking them. "I believe, 
 now, that he terribly wronged some one, that his con- 
 science was his fear, and that it haunted him by bringing 
 up visions and voices until it drove him finally to pay his 
 debt. And up here conscience is miioo aye chikoon — ^the 
 little Brother of God. That is all I know. I wish 
 Tavish had confided in me. I might have saved 
 him." 
 
 "Or — ^punished," breathed David. 
 
 "My business is not to punish. If he had oome to 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 13S 
 
 me, asking help for himself and mercy from his Grod, I 
 could not have betrayed him." 
 
 He was putting on his coat again. 
 
 "I am going after Mukoki," he said. "There is work 
 to be done, and we may as well get through with it by 
 moonlight. I don't suppose you feel like sleep? " 
 
 David shook his head. He was calmer now, quite 
 recovered from the first horror of his shock, when the door 
 closed behind Father Roland. In the thoughts that were 
 swiftly readjusting themselves in his mind there was no 
 very great sympathy for the man who had hanged himself. 
 In place of that sympathy the oppression of a thing that 
 was greater than disappointment settled upon him heavily, 
 driving from him his own personal dread of this night's 
 ghastly adventure, and adding to his suspense of the last 
 forty-eight hours a hopelessness the poignancy of which 
 was almost like that of a physical pain. Tavish was dead, 
 and in dying he had taken with him the secret for which 
 David would have paid with all he was worth in this hour. 
 In his despair, as he stood there alone in the cabin, he 
 muttered something to himself. The desire possessed 
 him to cry out aloud that Tavish had cheated him. A 
 strange kind of rage burned within him and he turned 
 toward the door, with clenched hands, as if about to rush 
 out and choke from the dead man's throat what he wanted 
 to know, and force his glazed and staring eyes to look for 
 just one instant on the face of the girl in the picture. 
 In another moment his brain had cleared itself of that 
 insane fire. After all, would Tavish kill himself without 
 leaving something behind? Would there not be some 
 kind of an explanation, written by Tavish before he took 
 
134 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 the final step? A confession? A letter to Father Roland? 
 Tavish knew that the Missioner would stop at his cabin 
 on his return into the North. Surely he would not kill 
 himself without leaving some work for him — at least a 
 brief accounting for his act! 
 
 He began looking about the cabin again, swiftly and 
 eagerly at first, for if Tavish had written anything ho 
 would beyond all doubt have placed the paper in some 
 conspicuous place: pinned it at the end of his bimk, or on 
 the wall, or against the door. They might have over- 
 looked it, or possibly it had fallen to the floor. To make 
 his search surer David lowered the lamp from its bracket 
 in the ceiling and carried it in his hand. He went into dark 
 comers, scrutinized the floor as well as the walls, and moved 
 garments from their wooden pegs. There was nothing 
 Tavish had cheated him again! His eyes rested finally 
 on the chest. He placed the lamp on a stool, and tried 
 the Ud. It was unlocked. As he lifted it he heard voices 
 indistinctly outside. Father Rolaind had returned with 
 Mukoki. He could hear them as they went to where 
 Tavish was lying with his face turned up to the moon. 
 
 On his knees he began pawing over the stuff in the 
 chest. It was a third filled with odds and ends — ^httle 
 else but trash; tangled ends of babichey a few rusted tooU, 
 nails and bolts, a pair of half-worn shoe packs — a mere 
 litter of disappointing rubbish. The door opened behin<J 
 him as he was rising to his feet. He turned to face 
 Mukoki and the Missioner. 
 
 "There is nothing," he said, with a gesture that took 
 in the room. "He hasn't left any word that I can find." 
 
 Father Roland had not closed the door. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 135 
 
 "Mukoki will help you search. Look in his cloth- 
 ing on the wall. Tavish must surely have left — some- 
 thing." 
 
 He went out, shutting the door behind him. For a 
 moment he Hstened to make sure that David was not going 
 to follow him. He hurried then to the body of Tavish, 
 and stripped off the blanket. The dead man was terrible 
 to look at, with his open glassy eyes and his distorted face, 
 and the moonlight gleaming on his grinning teeth. The 
 Missioner shuddered. 
 
 "I can't guess," he whispered, as if speaking to Tavish. 
 "I can't guess — quite — ^what made you do it, Tavish. 
 But you haven't died without telling me. I know it It's 
 there — in your pocket." 
 
 He listened again, and his lips moved. He bent over 
 him, on one knee, and averted his eyes as he searched the 
 pockets of Tavish's heavy coat. Against the dead man's 
 breast he found it, neatly folded, about the size of foolscap 
 paper — several pages of it, he judged, by the thickness of 
 the packet. It was tied with fine threads of babichcy and 
 in the moonlight he could make out quite distinctly the 
 words, "For Father Roland, God's Lake — ^Personal." 
 Tavish, after all, had not made himself the victim of sudden 
 fright, of a momentary madness. He had planned the 
 affair in a quite business-Hke way. Premeditated it with 
 considerable precision, in fact, and yet in the end he had 
 died with that stare of horror and madness in his face. 
 Father Roland spread the blanket over him again after he 
 had placed the packet in his own coat. He knew where 
 Tavish's pick and shovel were hanging at the back of the 
 cabin and he brought these tools and placed them be- 
 
136 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 side the body. After that he rejoined David and the 
 Cree. 
 
 They were still searching, and finding nothing. 
 
 "I have been looking through his clothes — out there,'* 
 said the Missioner, with a shuddering gestm-e which in- 
 timated that his task had been as fruitless as their own. 
 "We may as well bury him. A shallow grave, close to 
 where his body hes. I have placed a pick and a shovel on 
 the spot." He spoke to David: "Would you mind help- 
 ing Mukoki to dig? I would like to be alone for a little 
 while. You understand. There are things . . ." 
 
 "I understand. Father." 
 
 For the first time David felt something of the awe of this 
 thing that was death. He had forgotten, almost, that 
 Father Roland was a servant of God, so vitally human had 
 he found him, so unlike all other men of his calling he had 
 ever known. But it was impressed upon him now, as he 
 followed Mukoki. Father Roland wanted to be alone. 
 Perhaps to pray. To ask mercy for Tavish's soul. To 
 plead for its guidance into the Great Unknown. The 
 thought quieted his own emotions, and as he began to dig 
 in the hard snow and frozen earth he tried to think of 
 Tavish as a man, and not as a monster. 
 
 In the cabin Father Roland waited until he heard the 
 beat of the pick before he moved. Then he fastened the 
 cabin door with a wooden bolt and sat himself down at the 
 table, with the lamp close to his bent head and Tavish's 
 confession in his hands. He cut the baMche threads with 
 his knife, imfolded the sheets of paper and began to read, 
 while Tavish's mice nosed slyly out of their murky corners 
 rondering at the new and sudden stillness in the cabin and. 
 
THE COUKAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 137 
 
 it may be, stirred into restlessness by the absence of their 
 master. 
 
 The ground under the snow was discouragingly hard. 
 To David the digging of the grave seemed hke chipping out 
 bits of flint from a soHd block, and he soon tiu-ned over the 
 pick to Mukoki. Alternately they worked for an hour, 
 and each time that the Cree took his place David wondered 
 what was keeping the Missioner so long in the cabin. At 
 last Mukoki intimated with a sweep of his hands and a 
 hunch of his shoulders that their work was done. The 
 grave looked very shallow to David, and he was about to 
 protest against his companion's judgment when it occurred 
 to him that Mukoki had probably digged many holes such 
 as this in the earth, and had helped to fill them again, so it 
 was possible he knew his business. After all, why did 
 people weigh down one's last slumber with six feet of soil 
 overhead when three or four would leave one nearer to the 
 sun, and make not quite so chill a bed? He was thinking 
 of this as he took a last look at Tavish. Then he heard 
 the Indian give a sudden grunt, as if some one had poked 
 him unexpectedly in the pit of the stomach. He whirled 
 about, and stared. 
 
 Father Roland stood within ten feet of them, and at 
 sight of him an exclamation rose to David's lips and died 
 there in an astonished gasp. He seemed to be swaying, 
 like a sick man, in the moonlight, and impelled by the 
 same thought Mukoki and David moved toward him. 
 The Missioner extended an arm, as if to hold them back. 
 His face was ghastly, and terrible — almost as terrible as 
 
138 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Tavish's, and he seemed to be struggling with something 
 in his throat before he could speak. Then he said, in a 
 strange, forced voice that David had never heard come 
 from his lips before : 
 
 "Bury him. There will be — no prayer." 
 He turned away, moving slowly in the direction of the 
 forest. And as he went David noticed the heavy drag ot 
 his feet, and the unevenness of his trail in the snow. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FOR two or three minutes after Father Roland had 
 disappeared in the forest David and Mukoki stood 
 without moving. Amazed and a Kttle stunned by 
 the change they had seen in the Missioner's ghastly face, 
 and perplexed by the strangeness of his voice and the un- 
 steadiness of his walk as he had gone away from them, they 
 looked exi>ectantly for him to return out of the shadows of 
 the timber. His last words had come to them with metal- 
 lic hardness, and their effect, in a way, had been rather 
 appalling: "There will be — ^no prayier." Why? The 
 question was in Mukoki's gleaming, narrow eyes as he 
 faced the dark spruce, and it was on David's lips as 
 he turned at last to look at the Cree. There was to 
 be no prayer for Tavish! David felt himself shudder- 
 ing, when suddenly, breaking the silence like a sinister 
 cackle, an exultant exclamation burst from the Indian, 
 as though, all at once, understanding had dawned 
 upon him. He pointed to the dead man, his eyes widen- 
 ing. 
 
 "Tavish — ^he great devil," he said. "Jfon Pere make 
 no prayer. Mey-oo I " and he grinned in triumph, for had 
 he not, during all these months, told his master that Tavish 
 was a devil, and that his cabin was filled with little devils? 
 ^*Mey-oo," he cried again, louder than before. "A devil!" 
 and with a swift, vengeful movement he sprang to Tavisli* 
 
 139 
 
140 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 caught him by his moccasined feet, and to David's horror 
 flung him fiercely into the shallow grave. "A devil!" he 
 croaked again, and like a madman began throwing in thp 
 frozen earth upon the body. 
 
 David turned away, sickened by the thud of the body 
 and the fall of the clods on its upturned face — ^for he had 
 caught a last unpleasant glimpse of the face, and it was 
 staring and grinning up at the stars. A feeling of dread 
 followed him into the cabin. He filled the stove, and sat 
 down to wait for Father Roland. It was a long wait. 
 He heard Mukoki go away. The mice rustled about him 
 again. An hour had passed when he heard a sound at the 
 door, a scraping sound, like the peculiar drag of claws over 
 wood, and a moment later it was followed by a whine that 
 came to him faintly. He opened the door slowly. Baree 
 stood just outside the threshold. He had given him two 
 fish at noon, so he knew that it was not hunger that had 
 brought the dog to the cabin. Some mysterious instinct 
 had told him that David was alone; he wanted to come 
 in; his yearning gleamed in his eyes as he stood there stiff- 
 legged in the moonHght. David held out a hand, on thtj 
 point of enticing him through the door, when he heard the 
 soft crunching of feet in the snow. A gray shadow, swift 
 as the wind, Baree disappeared. David scarcely knew 
 when he went. He was looking into the face of Father 
 Roland. He backed into the cabin, without speaking, and 
 the Missioner entered. He was smiling. He had, to an 
 extent, recovered himself. He threw off his mittens and 
 rasped his hands over the fire in an effort at cheerfulness. 
 But there was something forced in his manner, something 
 that he was making a terrific fight to keep under. He was 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 141 
 
 JSke one who had been in great mental stress for many days 
 instead of a single hour. His eyes burned with the 
 smouldering glow of a fever; his shoulders hung loosely 
 as though he had lost the strength to hold them erect; 
 he shivered, David noticed, even as he rubbed his hands and 
 ismiled. 
 
 "Curious how this has affected me, David," he said 
 apologetically. "It is incredible, this weakness of mine. 
 I have seen death many scores of times, and yet I could 
 not go and look on his face again. Inci-edible! Yet it is 
 so. I am anxious to get away. Mukoki will soon be 
 coming with the dogs. A devil, Mukoki says. Well, 
 perhaps. A strange man at best. We must forget this 
 night. It has been an unpleasant introduction for you 
 into our North. We must forget it. We must forget 
 Tavish." And then, as if he had omitted a fact of some 
 importance, he added; "I will kneel at his graveside 
 Ibefore we go." 
 
 "If he had only waited," said David, scarcely knowing 
 what words he was speaking, "if he had waited until 
 to-morrow, only, or the next day • • ." 
 
 "Yes; if he had waited!" 
 
 The Missioner's eyes narrowed. David heard the click 
 <5f his jaws as he dropped his head so that his face was 
 flidden. 
 
 "If he had waited," he repeated, after David, "if he 
 had only waited!" And his hands, spread out fan-like 
 over the stove, closed slowly and rigidly as if gripping at 
 the throat of something. 
 
 "I have friends up in that country he came from," 
 David forced himself to say, "and I had hoped he would 
 
142 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 be able to tell me something about them. He must have 
 iaiown them, or heard of them/' 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said the Missioner, still looking at the 
 top of the stove, and unclenching his fingers as slowly as 
 he had drawn them together, "but he is dead.*' 
 
 There was a note of finaUty in his voice, a sudden forceful- 
 ness of meaning as he raised his head and looked at David. 
 
 "Dead," he repeated, "and buried. We are no longer 
 privileged even to guess at what he might have said. As 
 I told you once before, David, I am not a Cathohc, nor a 
 Church-of-England man, nor of any religion that wears 
 a name, and yet I accepted a httle of them aU into my 
 own creed. A wandering Missioner — ^and I am such a 
 one — must obliterate to an extent his own deep-souled 
 convictions and accept indulgently aU articles of Christian 
 faith; and there is one law, above all others, which he 
 must hold inviolate. He must not pry into the past of the 
 dead, nor speak aloud the secrets of the living. Let us 
 forget Tavish." 
 
 His words sounded a knell in David's heart. If he had 
 hoped that Father Roland would, at the very last, tell him 
 something more about Tavish, that hope was now gone. 
 The Missioner spoke in a voice that was almost gentle, 
 and he came to David and put a hand on his shoulder as a 
 father might have done with a son. He had placed him- 
 self, in this moment, beyond the reach of any questions 
 that might have been in David's mind. With eyes and 
 touch that spoke a deep affection he had raised a barrier 
 between them as inviolable as that law of his creed which 
 he had just mentioned. And with it had come a bettei 
 understanding. 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE US 
 
 David was glad that Mukoki's voice and the commotion 
 *)f the dogs came to interrupt them. They gathered up 
 hurriedly the few things they had brought into the cabin 
 and carried them to the sledge. David did not enter 
 the cabin again but stood with the dogs in the edge of the 
 timber, while Father Roland made his promised visit to 
 the grave. Mukoki followed him, and as the Missioner 
 stood over the dark mound in the snow, David saw the 
 Cree slip like a shadow into the cabin, where a light was 
 still burning. Then he noticed that Father Roland was 
 kneeling, and a moment later the Indian came out of the 
 cabin quietly, and without looking back joined him near 
 the dogs. They waited. 
 
 Over Tavish's grave Father Roland's lips were naoving^ 
 and out of his mouth strange words came in a low and 
 unemotional voice that was not much above a wliisper : 
 
 "... and I thank God that you did not tell me 
 before you died, Tavish," he was saying. "I thank God 
 for that. For if you had — I would have killed you I " 
 
 As he came back to them David noticed a flickering of 
 tight in the cabin, as though the lamp was sputtering and 
 about to go out. They put on their snow shoes, and with 
 Mukoki breaking the trail buried themselves in the moon- 
 lit forest. 
 
 Half an hour later they halted on the summit of a 
 second ridge. The Cree looked back and pointed with 
 an exultant cry. Where the cabin had been a red flare of 
 flame was rising above the tree tops. David understood 
 what the flickering hght in the cabin had meant. Mukoki 
 had spilled Tavish*s kerosene and had touched a match 
 to it so that the little devils might follow their master into 
 
144 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 the black abyss. He almost fancied he could hear the 
 agonized squeaking of Tavish*s pets. 
 
 Straight northward, through the white moonlight of 
 that night, Mukoki broke their trail, travelling at times so 
 swiftly that the Missioner commanded him to slacken his 
 pace on David's account. Even David did not think of 
 stopping. He had no desire to stop so long as their way 
 was Hghted ahead of them. It seemed to him that the 
 world was becoming brighter and the forest gloom less 
 cheerless as they dropped that evil valley of Tavish's 
 farther and farther behind them. Then the moon began 
 to fade, hke a great lamp that had burned itself out of oil, 
 and darkness swept over them like huge wings. It was 
 two o'clock when they camped and built a fire. 
 
 So, day after day, they continued into the North. At 
 the end of his tenth day — ^the sixth after leaving Tavish's 
 — ^David felt that he was no longer a stranger in the coun- 
 try of the big snows. He did not say as much to Father 
 Roland, for to express such a thought to one who had Hved 
 there all his life seemed to him to be little less than a bit 
 of sheer imbecility. Ten days! That was all, and yet 
 they might have been ten months, or as many years for 
 that matter, so completely had they changed him. He was 
 not thinking of himself physically — not a day passed that 
 Father Roland did not point out some fresh triumph for 
 him there. His limbs were nearly as tireless as the Mis- 
 sioner*s; he knew that he was growing heavier; and he 
 could at last chop through a tree without winding himself. 
 These things his companions could see. His appetite was 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 145 
 
 voracious. His eyes were keen and his hands steady, so 
 that he was doing splendid practice shooting with both 
 rifle and pistol, and each day when the Missioner insisted 
 on their bout with the gloves he found it more and more 
 difficult to hold himseK in. "Not so hard, David," 
 Father Roland frequently cautioned him, and in place of 
 the first joyous grin th«*e was always a look of settled 
 anxiety in Mukoki's face as he watched them. The more 
 David pummelled him, the greater was the Little Mis« 
 sioner's triumph. "I told you what this north country 
 could do for you," was his exultant slogan; " I told you ! " 
 
 Once David was on the point of telling him that he could 
 st>e only the tenth part of what it had done for him, but 
 tlie old shame held his tongue. He did not want to bring 
 up the old story. The fact that it had existed, and had 
 Written itself out in human passion, remained with him 
 still as a personal and humiliating degradation. It was 
 like a scar on his own body, a repulsive sore which he 
 wished to keep out of sight, even from the eyes of the man 
 who had been his salvation. The growth of this revulsion 
 within him had kept pace with his physical improvement, 
 and if at the end of these ten days Father Roland had 
 spoken of the woman who had betrayed him — the woman 
 who had been his wife — he would have turned the key on 
 that subject as decisively as the Missioner had banred 
 further conversation or conjecture about Tavish. This 
 was, perhaps, the best evidence that he had cut out the 
 cancer in his breast. The Golden Goddess, whom he had 
 thought an angel, he now saw stripped of her glory. If she 
 had repented in that room, if she had betrayed fear even, 
 « single emotion of mental agony, he would not have felt 
 
146 THE COUKAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 
 
 so sure of himself. But she had laughed. She wa^, like 
 Tavish, a devil. He thought of her beauty now as that of a 
 poisonous flower. He had unwittingly touched such a 
 flower once, a flower of wonderful waxen lovehness, and 
 it had produced a pustular eruption on his hand. She 
 was like that. Poisonous. Treacherous. A creature with 
 as little soul as that flower had perfume. It was this 
 change in him, in his conception and his memory of her, 
 that he would have given much to have Father Roland 
 understand. 
 
 Duriug this period of his own transformation he had 
 observed a curious change in Father Roland. At times, 
 after leaving Tavish's cabin, the Little Missioner seemed 
 struggling under the weight of a deep and gloomy oppres- 
 sion. Once or twice, in the firelight, it had looked almost 
 like sickness, and David had seen his face grow wan and 
 old. Always after these fits of dejection there would 
 follow a reaction, and for hours the Missioner would be Hke 
 •one upon whom had fallen a new and sudden happiness. 
 As day added itself to day, and night to night, the periods 
 of depression became shorter and less frequent, and at last 
 Father Roland emerged from them altogether, as though 
 he had been fighting a great fight, and had won. There 
 was a new lustre in his eyes. David wondered whether 
 it was a trick of his imagination that made him think the 
 lines in the Missioner's face were not so deep, that he 
 stood straighter, and that there was at times a deep and 
 vibrant note ia his voice which he had not heard before. 
 
 During these days David was trying hard to make 
 himself behev^ that no reasonable combination of cir- 
 cumstances could have associated Tavish with the girl 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 147 
 
 whose picture he kept in the breast pocket of his coat. 
 He succeeded in a way. He tried also to dissociate the 
 face in the picture from a Uving personaHty. In this he 
 failed. More and more the picture became a living thing 
 for him. He found a great comfort in his possession of it. 
 He made up his mind that he would keep it, and that its 
 sweet face, always on the point of speaking to him, should 
 go with him wherever he went, guiding him in a way — a 
 comjMinion. He found that, in hours when the darkness 
 and the emptiness of his life oppressed him, the face gave 
 him new hope, and he saw new Hght. He ceased to think 
 of it as a picture, and one night, speaking half aloud, he 
 called her Little Sister. She seemed nearer to him after 
 that. Unconsciously his hand learned the habit of going 
 to his breast pocket when they were travelling, to make sure 
 that she was there. He would have suffered physical 
 torment before he would have confided all this to any 
 Hving soul, but the secret thought that was growing more 
 and more in his heart he told to Baree. The dog came into 
 their camps now, but not until the Missioner and Mukoki 
 had gone to bed. He would cringe down near David's 
 feet, lying there motionless, obUvious of the other dogs and 
 showing no inclination to disturb them. He was there on 
 the tenth night, looking steadily at David with his two 
 bloodshot eyes, wondering what it was that his master 
 held in his hands. From the lips and eyes of the Girl, 
 trembhng and aglow in the firehght, David looked at Baree. 
 In the bloodshot eyes he saw the immeasurable faith of an 
 adoring slave. He knew that Baree would never leave 
 him. And the Girl, looking at him as steadily as Bare^ 
 would never leave him. There was a tremendous thrill ir. 
 
148 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 
 
 the thought. He leaned over the dog, and with a tremu* 
 lous stir in his voice, he whi^)ered : 
 
 "Some day, boy, we may go to her." 
 
 Baree shivered with joy. David's voice, whispering to 
 him in that way, was like a caress, and he whined softly as 
 he crept an inch or two nearer to his master's feet. 
 
 That night Father Roland was restless. Hom^ latert 
 when he was lying snug and warm in his own blankets, 
 David heard him get up, and watched him as he scraped 
 together the burned embers dP the fire and added fresh fuel 
 to them. The flap of the tent was back a little, so that he 
 could see plainly. It could not have been later than mid- 
 night. The Missioner was fully dressed, and as the fire 
 burned brighter David could see the ruddy glow of his face, 
 and it struck him that it looked singularly boyish in the 
 flame-glow. He did not guess what was keeping the 
 Missioner awake until a little later he heard him among the 
 dogs, and his voice came to him, low and exultingly, and as 
 boyish as his face had seemed: "We'll be home to-mor- 
 row, boys — hoTneT' That word — ^home — sounded oddly 
 enough to David up here three hundred miles from civili- 
 zation. He fancied that he heard the dogs shufl3ing in the 
 snow, and the satisfied rasping of their master's hands. 
 
 Father Roland did not return into the tent again that 
 night. David fell asleep, but was roused for breakfast at 
 three o'clock, and they were away before it was yet light. 
 Through the morning darkness Mukoki led the way as 
 unerringly as a fox, for he was now on his own ground. 
 As dawn came, with a promise of sun, David wondered in 
 a whimsical sort of way whether his companions, both 
 dogs and men, were going mad. He had not as yet cjk 
 
THE COURAGE OF MaRGE O'DOONE 140 
 
 perienced the joy and excitement of a northern home* 
 coming, nor had he dreamed that it .was possible for Mu" 
 koki's leathern face to break into wild jubilation. As the 
 first rays of the sun shot over the forests, he began, all at 
 once, to sing, in a low, chanting voice that grew steadily 
 louder; and as he sang he kept time in a curious way with 
 his hands. He did not slacken his pace, but kept steadily 
 on, and suddenly the Little Missioner joined him in a voice 
 that rang out like the blare of a bugle. To David's ears 
 there was something familiar in that song as it rose wildly 
 on the morning air. 
 
 "Pa sho ke non ze koon, 
 
 Ta ba nin ga. 
 Ah no go suh nuh guk, 
 
 Na quash kuh mon; 
 Na guh mo yah nin koo. 
 Pa sho ke non ze koon. 
 Pa sho ke non ze koon, 
 
 Ta ba nin go." 
 
 "Y^hat is it?" he asked, when Father Roland dropped 
 back to his side, smiling and breathing deeply. " It sound* 
 like a Chinese puzzle, and yet . . ." 
 
 The Missioner laughed. Mukoki had ended a second 
 verse. 
 
 "Twenty years ago, when I first knew Mukoki, he wo'ild 
 chant nothing but Indian legends to the beat of a tom- 
 tom," he explained. " Since I've had him he has developed 
 « passion for ^mission singing' — ^for hymns. That was 
 ^Nearer, my God, to Thee.'" 
 
 Mukoki, gathering wind, had begun again. 
 
 ** That's his favourite." explained Father Roland. **At 
 
150 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 times, when he is alone, he will chant it by the hour. He 
 is delighted when I join in with him. It's *From Green- 
 land's Icy Mountains.' " 
 
 "Ke wa de noong a yah jig, 
 
 Kuh ya 'gewh wah bun oong, 
 E gewh an duh nuh ke jig, 
 E we de ke zhah tag, 
 Kuh ya puh duh ke woo waud 
 
 Palm e nuh sah wunzh eeg, 
 Ke nun doo me goo nah nig 
 
 Che shuh wa ne mung wah." 
 
 At first David had felt a slight desire to laugh at the 
 Cree's odd chanting and the grotesque movement of his 
 hands and arms, like two pump handles in slow and rhyth- 
 mic action, as he kept time. This desire did not come to 
 him again during the day. He remembered, long years ago, 
 hearing his mother sing those old hymns in his boyhood 
 home. He could see the ancient melodeon with its yellow 
 keys, and the ragged hymn book his mother had prized 
 next to her Bible; and he could hear again her sweet, 
 quavering voice sing those gentle songs, like unforgettable 
 benedictions — the same songs that Mukoki and the 
 Missioner were chanting now, up here, a thousand miles 
 away. That was a long time ago — ^a very, very long time 
 ago. She had been dead many years. And he — ^he must 
 be growing old. Thirty-eight! And he was nine then, 
 with slender legs and tousled hair, and a worship for his 
 mother that had mellowed and perhaps saddened his whole 
 life. It was a long time ago. But the gongs had lived. 
 They must be known over the wh©le world — those songs 
 his mother used to sing. He began to join in where he 
 
THE COURAGE OF MAEGE O^DOONE 151 
 
 could catch the tunes, and his voice sounded strange and 
 broken and unreal to him, for it was a long time since those 
 boyhood days, and he had not lifted it in song since he had 
 sung then — with his mother. 
 
 It was growing dusk when they came to the Missioner's 
 home on God's Lake. It was almost a chateau, David 
 thought when he first saw it, built of massive logs. Be- 
 yond it there was a smaller building, also built of logs, and 
 toward this Mukoki hurried with the dogs and the sledge. 
 He heard the welcoming cries of Mukoki*s family and the 
 excited barking of dogs as he followed Father Roland into 
 the big cabin. It was lighted, and warm. Evidently 
 some one had been keeping it in readiness for the Mission- 
 er's return. They entered into a bigiroom, and in his first 
 glance David saw three doors leading from this room : two 
 of them were open, the third was closed. There was 
 something very like a sobbing note in Father Roland's 
 voice as he op>ened his arms wide, and said to David: 
 
 "Home, David — your home!" 
 
 He took off his things — his coat, his cap, his moccasins, 
 and his thick German socks — and when he again spoke to 
 David and looked at him, his eyes had in them a mysteri- 
 ous light and his words trembled with suppressed emotion. 
 
 "You will forgive me, David — ^you will forgive me a 
 weakness, and make yourself at home — ^while I go alone 
 for a few minutes into . . . that . . . room? " 
 
 He rose from the chair on which he had seated himself 
 to strip off his moccasins and faced the closed door. He 
 seemed to forget David after he had spoken. He went to 
 it slowly, his breath coming quickly, and whea lie re/idied 
 
152 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 it he drew a heavy key from his pocket. He unlocked the 
 door. It was dark inside, and David could see nothing as 
 the Missioner entered. For many minutes he sat where 
 Father Roland had left him, staring at the door. 
 
 "A strange man — a very strange man!" Thoreau had 
 said. Yes, a strange man! What was in that room? 
 Why its unaccountable silence? Once he thought he 
 heard a low cry. For ten minutes he sat, waiting. And 
 then — ^very faintly at first, almost like a wind soughing 
 through distant tree tops and coming ever nearer, nearer, 
 and more distinct — ^there came to him from beyond the 
 closed door the gently subdued music of a violin. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN THE days and weeks that followed, this room 
 beyond the closed door, and what it contained, be- 
 came to David more and more the great mystery in 
 Father Roland's life. It impressed itself upon him slowly 
 but resolutely as the key to some tremendous event in his 
 life, some vast secret which he was keeping from all other 
 human knowledge, unless, perhaps, Mukoki was a silent 
 sharer. At times David beUeved this was so, and espe- 
 cially after that day when, carefully and slowly, and in 
 good English, as though the Missioner had trained him in 
 what he was to say, the Cree said to him: 
 
 "No one ever goes into that room, m'sieu. And no 
 man has ever seen mon Pbre*s vioHn." 
 
 The words were si>oken in a low monotone without 
 emphasis or emotion, and David was convinced they were 
 a message from the Missioner, something Father Roland 
 wanted him to know without speaking the words himself. 
 Not again after that first night did he apologize for his 
 visits to the room, nor did he ever explain why the door 
 was always locked, or why he invariably locked it after 
 him when he went in. Each night, when they were at 
 home, he disappeared into the room, opening the door 
 only enough to let his body pass through; sometimes he 
 remained there for only a few minutes, and occasionally 
 for a long time. At least once a day, usually in the even- 
 
 \53 
 
154 THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 ing, lie played the violin. It was always the same piece 
 that he played. There was never a variation, and David 
 could not make up his mind that he had ever heard it 
 before. At these times, if Mukoki happened to be in the 
 Chdteau, as Father Roland called his place, he would sit 
 like one in a trance, scarcely breathing until the music 
 had ceased. And when the Missioner came from the room 
 his face was always Ht up in a kind of halo. There was one 
 exception to all this, David noticed. The door was never 
 unlocked when there was a visitor. No other but himself 
 and Mukoki heard the sound of the viohn, and this fact^ 
 in time, impressed David with the deep faith and affection 
 of the Little Missioner. One evening Father Roland 
 came from the room with his face aglow with some strange 
 happiness that had come to him in there, and placing his 
 hands on David's shoulders he said, with a yearning and 
 yet hopeless inflection in his voice; 
 
 "I wish you would stay with me always, David. It has 
 made me younger, and happier, to have a son." 
 
 In David there was growing — ^but concealed from Father 
 Roland's eyes for a long time — ^a strange insistent rest- 
 lessness. It ran in his blood, Hke a thing aUve, when- 
 ever he looked at the face of the Girl. He wanted to go 
 on. 
 
 And yet life at the Chateau, after the first two weeks, 
 was anything but dull and unexciting. They were in the 
 heart of the great trapping country. Forty miles to the 
 north was a Hudson's Bay post where an ordained minister 
 of the Church of England had a mission. But Father 
 Roland belonged to the forest people alone. They were 
 his "children," scattered in their shacks and tepees over 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 155 
 
 ten thousand square miles of country, with the Chateau 
 as its centre. He was ceaselessly on the move after that 
 first fortnight, and David was always with him. The 
 Indians worshipped him, and the quarter-breeds and half- 
 breeds and occasional French called him "mon Pere'* 
 in very much the same tone of voice as they said "Our 
 Father" in their prayers. These people of the trap-lines 
 were a revelation to David. They were wild, Uving in a 
 savage primitiveness, and yet they reverenced a divinity 
 with a conviction that amazed him. And they died. 
 That was the tragedy of it They died — too easily. He 
 imderstood, after a while, why a country ten times as large 
 as the state of Ohio had altogether a population of less 
 than twenty-five thousand, a fair-sized town. Their belts 
 were drawn too tight — men, women, and little children — 
 their belts too tight. That was it! Father Roland em- 
 phasized it. Too much hunger in the long, terrible months 
 of winter, when to keep body and soul together they 
 trapped the furred creatures for the hordes of luxurious 
 barbarians in the great cities of the earth. Just a steady, 
 gnawing hunger all through the winter — ^hunger for some- 
 thing besides meat, a hunger that got into the bones, into 
 the eyes, into arms and legs — a hunger that brought sick- 
 ness, and then death. 
 
 That winter he saw grown men and women die of 
 meastes as easily as flies that had devoured poison. They 
 were over at Metoosin's, sixty miles to the west of the 
 Chdteau, when Metoosin returned to his shack with 
 supplies from a Post. Metoosin had taken up lynx and 
 marten and mink that would sell the next year in London 
 and Paris for a thousand dollars, and he had brought back 
 
156 THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 a few small cans of vegetables at fifty cents a can, a little 
 flour at forty cents a pound, a bit of cheap cloth at the 
 price of rare silk, some tobacco and a pittance of tea, and 
 lie was happy. A half season's work on the trap-line 
 and his family could have eaten it all in a week — if they 
 had dared to eat as much as they needed. 
 
 "And still they're always in the debt of the Posts," the 
 Missioner said, the Unes settling deeply on his face. 
 
 And yet David could not but feel more and more deeply 
 the thrill, the fascination, and, in spite of its hardships, 
 the recompense of this life of which he had become a 
 part. For the first time in his life he clearly perceived 
 the primal measiu-ements of riches, of contentmentp and 
 of ambition, and these three things that he saw stripped 
 naked for his eyes many other things which he had not 
 understood, or in blindness had failed to see, in the life 
 from which he had come. Metoosin, with that little 
 treasure of food from the Post, did not know that he was 
 poor, or that through many long years he had been slowly 
 starving. He was rich! He was a great trapper! And 
 his Cree wife I-owa, with her long, sleek braid and her 
 great, dark eyes, was tremendously proud of feer lord, that 
 he should bring home for her and the children such a wealth 
 of things — a little flour, a few cans of things, a few yards 
 of cloth, and a little bright ribbon. David choked when 
 he ate with them that night. But they were happy ! That, 
 after all, was the reward of things, even though people 
 died slowly of something which they could not understand. 
 And there were, in the domain of Father Roland, many 
 Metoosins, and many I-owas, who prayed for nothing more 
 than enough to eat, clothes to cover them, and the ua- 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 157 
 
 broken love of their firesides. And David thought of 
 them, as the weeks passed, as the most terribly enslaved 
 of all the slaves of Civilization — slaves of vain civilized 
 women; for they had gone on like this for centuries, and 
 would go on for other generations, giving into the hands 
 of the great Company their life's blood which, in the end, 
 could be accounted for by a yearly dole of food which, 
 under stress, did not quite serve to keep body and soul 
 together. 
 
 It was after a comprehension of these things that David 
 understood Father Roland's great work. In this kingdom 
 of his, running approximately fifty miles in each direction 
 from the Chdteau — except to the northward, where the 
 Post lay — there were two hundred and forty-seven men, 
 women, and children. In a great book the Little Missioner 
 had their names, their ages, the blood that was in them, 
 and where they lived; and by them he was worshipped 
 as no man that ever lived in that vast country of cities 
 and towns below the Height of Land. At every tepee and 
 shack they visited there was some token of love awaiting 
 Father Rob "'id; a rare skin here, a pair of moccasins there, 
 a pair of sno v7 shoes that it had taken an Indian woman's 
 hands weeks to make, choice cuts of meat, but mostly — 
 as they travelled along — the thickly furred skins of animals; 
 and never did they go to a place at which the Missiorer 
 did not leave something in return, usually some article of 
 clothing so thick and warm that no Indian was rich enough 
 to buy it for himself at the Post. Twice each winter 
 Father Roland sent down to Thoreau a great sledge load 
 of these contributions of his people, and Thoreau, selling 
 them, sent back a still greater sledge load of supplies that 
 
158 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 found their way in this manner of exchange into the shacks 
 and tepees of the forest people. 
 
 "If I were only rich!" said Father Roland one night at 
 the Chateau, when it was storming dismally outside. " But 
 I have nothing, David. I can do only a tenth of what I 
 would like to do. There are only eighty families in this 
 country of mine, and I have figured that a hundred dol- 
 lars a family, spent down there and not at the Post, would 
 keep them all in comfort through the longest and hardest 
 winter. A hundred dollars, in Winnipeg, would buy 
 as much as an Indian trapper could get at the Post for a 
 thousand dollars' worth of fiu", and five hundred dollars 
 is a good catch. It is terrible, but what can I do? I 
 dare not buy their furs and sell them for my people, be- 
 cause the Company would blacklist the whole lot and it 
 would be a great calamity in the end. But if I had money 
 — if I could do it with my own . . . " 
 
 David had been thinking of that. In the late January 
 snow two teams went down to Thoreau in place of one. 
 Mukoki had charge of them, and with him went an even 
 haK of what David had brought with him — fifteen hun* 
 dred dollars in gold certificates. 
 
 "If I live I'm going to make them a Christmas present 
 of twice that amount each year," he said. "I can afford 
 it. I fancy that I shall take a great pleasure in it, and that 
 occasionally I shall return into this country to make a 
 visit." 
 
 It was the first time that he had spoken as though he 
 would not remain with the Missioner indefinitely. But the 
 conviction that the time was not far away when he would 
 be leaving him had been growing within him steadily. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 159 
 
 He kept it to himself. He fought against it even. But it 
 grew. And, curiously enough, it was strongest when 
 Father Roland was in the locked room playing softly on 
 the violin. David never mentioned the room. He feigned 
 an indifference to its very existence. And yet in spite of 
 himself the mystery of it became an obsession with him. 
 Something within it seemed to reach out insistently and 
 invite him in, like a spirit chained there by the Missioner 
 himself, crying for freedom. One night they returned to 
 the Chateau through a blizzard from the cabin of a half- 
 breed whose wife was sick, and after their supper the 
 Missioner went into the mystery-room. He played the 
 violin as usual. But after that there was a long silence. 
 When Father Roland came out, and seated himself op- 
 posite David at the small table on which their books were 
 scattered, David received a shock. Clinging to the Mis- 
 sioner's shoulder, shimmering like a polished silken thread 
 in the lampglow, was a long, shining hair — a woman's 
 hair. With an effort David choked back the word of 
 amazement in his throat, and began turning over the pages 
 of a book. And then suddenly, the Missioner saw that 
 silken thread. David heard his quick breath. He saw, 
 without raising his eyes, the slow, almost stealthy move- 
 ment of his companion's fingers as he plucked the hair 
 from his arm and shoulder, and when David looked up the 
 hair was gone, and one of Father Roland's hands was 
 closed tightly, so tightly that the veins stood out on it. 
 He rose from the table, and again went into the room 
 beyond the locked door. David's heart was beating like 
 an unsteady hammer. He could not quite account for 
 the strange effect this incident had upon him-. He wanted 
 
100 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 more than ever to ^see that room beyond the locked 
 door. 
 
 February — ^the Hunger Moon — of this year was a month 
 of great storm in the Northland. This meant sickness, 
 and a great deal of travel for Father Roland. He and 
 David were almost ceaselessly on the move, and its hard- 
 ships gave the finishing touches to David's education. 
 The wilderness, vast and empty as it was, no longer held 
 a dread for him. He had faced its bitterest storms; he 
 had slept with the deep snow imder his blankets; he had 
 followed behind the Missioner through the blackest nights, 
 when it had seemed as though no human soul could find 
 its way; and he had looked on death. Once they ran 
 swiftly to it through a night blizzard; again it came, three 
 in a family, so far to the west that it was out of Father 
 Roland's beaten trails; and again he saw it in the Madonna- 
 like face of a young French girl, who had died clutching a 
 cross to her breast. It was this girl's white face, sweet as a 
 child's and strangely beautiful in death, that stirred David 
 most deeply. She must have been about the ag« of the 
 girl whose picture he carried next his heart. 
 
 Soon after this, early in March, he had definitely made 
 up his mind. There was no reason now why he should not 
 go on. He was physically fit. Three months had hard- 
 ened him until he was like a rock. He believed that he had 
 more than regained his weight. He could beat Father 
 Roland with either rifle or pistol, and in one day he had 
 travelled forty miles on snow shoes. That was when they 
 had arrived just in time to save the life of Jean Croisset's 
 little girl, who lived over on the Big Thunder. The crazed 
 father had led them a mad race, but they had kept up 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 161 
 
 with him. And just in time. There had not been, an 
 hour to lose. After that Croisset and his half-breed wife 
 would have laid down their lives for Father Roland — and for 
 him. For the forest people had begim to accept him as a 
 part of Father Roland; more and more he could see their 
 growing love for him, their gladness when he came, their 
 sorrow when he left, and it gave him what he thought of as 
 a sort of filling satisfaction, something he had never quite 
 fully experienced before in all his life. He knew that he 
 would come back to them again some day — that, in the 
 course of his life, he would spend a ^"eat deal of time 
 among them. He assured Father Roland of this. 
 
 The Missioner did not question him deeply about his 
 "friends" in the western mountains. But night after 
 night he helped him to mark out a trail on the maps that 
 he had at the Chateau, giving him a great deal of informa- 
 tion which David wrote down in a book, and letters to 
 certain good friends of his whom he would find along the 
 way. As the slush snow came, and the time when David 
 would be leaving drew nearer. Father Roland could not 
 entirely conceal his depression, and he spent more time in 
 the room beyond the locked door. Several times when 
 about to enter the room he seemed to hesitate, as if ther^/ 
 were something which he wanted to say to David. Twic# 
 David thought he was almost on the point of inviting him 
 into the room, and at last he came to believe that the 
 Missioner wanted him to know what was beyond that 
 mysterious door, and yet was afraid to tell him, or ask him 
 in. It was well along in March that the thing happened 
 which he had been ex|>ecting. Only it came in a manner 
 that amazed him deeply. Father Roland came from the 
 
162 THE COURAGE OF MARGE OT)OONE 
 
 room early in the evening, after playing his violin. He 
 locked the door, and as he put on his cap he said : 
 
 "I shall be gone for an hour, David. I am going over 
 to Mukoki's cabin." 
 
 He did not ask David to accompany him, and as he 
 turned to go the key that he had held in his hand dropped 
 to the floor. It fell with a quite audible sound. The 
 Missioner must have heard it, and would have recovered 
 it had it slipped from his fingers accidentally. But he 
 paid no attention to it. He went out quickly, withouli 
 glancing back. 
 
 For several minutes David stared at the key withoi^t 
 moving from his chair near the table. It meant but on^ 
 thing. He was invited to go into that room — alone. If 
 he had had a doubt it was dispelled by the fact that Father 
 Roland had left a light burning in there. It was not 
 chance. There was a purpose to it all: the light, the 
 audible dropping of the heavy key, the swift going of the 
 Missioner. David made himself sure of this before he rose 
 from his chair. He waited perhaps five minutes. Then 
 he picked up the key. 
 
 At the door, as the key clicked in the lock, he hesitated. 
 The thought came to him that if he was making a mistake 
 it would be a terrible mistake. It held his hand for a 
 moment. Then, slowly, he pushed the door inward and 
 followed it until he stood inside. The first thing that he 
 noticed was a big brass lamp, of the old style, brought over 
 from England by the Company a hundred years ago, and 
 he held his breath in anticipation of something tremendous 
 impending. At first he saw nothing that impressed hiw 
 forcibly. The room was a disappointment in that fir&t 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 163 
 
 glance. He could see nothing of its mystery, nothing of 
 that strangeness, quite indefinable even to himself, which 
 he had expected. And then, as he stood there staring 
 about with wide-open eyes, the truth flashed uf>on him 
 with a suddenness that drew a quick breath from his Ups. 
 He was standing in a womarCs room I There was no doubt. 
 It looked very much as though a woman had left it only 
 recently. There was a bed, fresh and clean, with a white 
 counterpane. She had left on that bed a — ^nightgown; 
 yes, and he noticed that it had a frill of lace at the neck. 
 And on the wall were her garments, quite a number of 
 them, and a long coat of a curious style, with a great fur 
 collar. There was a small dresser, oddly antique, and on 
 it were a brush and comb, a big red pin cushion, and odds 
 and ends of a woman's toilet affairs. Close to the bed 
 were a pair of shoes and a pair of slippers, with unusually 
 high heels, and hanging over the edge of the counterpane 
 was a pair of long stockings. The walls of the room were 
 touched up, as if by a woman's hands, with pictures and 
 a few ornaments. Where the garments were hanging 
 David noticed a pair of woman's snow shoes, and a woman's 
 moccasins under a picture of the Madonna. On the man- 
 tel there was a tall vase filled with the dried stems of 
 flowers. And then came the most amazing discovery of 
 all. There was a second table between the lamp and the 
 bedt and it was set for two! Yes, for two! No, for three! 
 For, a little in shadow, David saw a crudely made 
 high-chair — a baby's chair — and on it were a little knife 
 and fork, a baby spoon, and a Httle tin plate. It was 
 astounding. Perfectly incredible. And David's eyes 
 sought questingly for a door through which a woman 
 
164 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 might come and go mysteriously and unseen. There was 
 none, and the one window of the room was so high up that 
 a person standing on the ground outside could not look in. 
 
 And now it began to dawn upon David that all these 
 things he was looking at were old — very old. In the 
 Chdteau the Missioner no longer ate on tin plates. The 
 shoes and slippers must have been made a generation ago. 
 The rag carpet under his feet had lost its vivid lines of 
 colouring. Age impressed itself upon him. This was a 
 woman's room, but the woman had not been here recently. 
 And the child had not been here recently. 
 
 For the first time his eyes turned in a closer inspection of 
 the table on which stood the big brass lamp. Father 
 Roland's violin lay beside it. He made a step or two 
 nearer, so that he could see beyond the lamp, and his heart 
 gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on the faded red cloth 
 of the table, glowing as brightly as though it had been 
 clipped from a woman's head but yesterday, was a long, 
 thick tress of hair! It was dark, richly dark, and his sec- 
 ond impression was one of amazement at the length of it. 
 The tress was as long as the table — ^fully a yard down the 
 woman's back it must have hung. It was tied at the end 
 with a bit of white ribbon. 
 
 David drew slowly back tgward the door, stirred all at 
 once by a great doubt. Had Father Roland meant him to 
 look upon all this? A lump rose suddenly in his throat. 
 He had made a mistake — a great mistake. He felt now 
 like one who had broken into the sanctity of a sacred place. 
 He had committed sacrilege. The Missioner had not 
 dropped the key purposely. It must have been an acci- 
 dent. And he — David — was guilty of a great blunder. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 165 
 
 He withdrew from the room, and locked the door. He 
 dropped the key where he had found it on the floor, and 
 sat down again with his book. He did not read. He 
 scarcely saw the lines of the printed page. He had not 
 been in his chair more than ten minutes when he heard 
 quick footsteps, followed by a hand at the door, and Father 
 Roland came in. He was visibly excited, and his glance 
 shot at once to the room which David had just left. Then 
 his eyes scanned the floor. The key was gleaming where 
 it had fallen, and with an exclamation of relief the Mission- 
 er snatched it up. 
 
 "I thought I had lost my key," he laughed, a bit 
 nervously; then he added, with a deep breath: "It*s 
 snowing to-night. A heavy snow, and there will be good 
 sledging for a few days. God knows I don't want you to 
 leave me, but if it must be — we should take advantage of 
 this snow. It will be the last. Mukoki and I will go with 
 you as far as the Reindeer Lake country, two hundred 
 miles northwest. David — mz^^yougo?'* 
 
 It seemed to David that two tiny fists were pwDunding 
 against his breast, where the picture lay. 
 
 "Yes, I must go," he said. "I have quite made up my 
 mind to that. I must go." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TEN days after that night when he had gone into the 
 mystery-room at the Chdteau, David and Father 
 Roland clasped hands in a final farewell at White 
 Porcupine House, on the Cochrane River, 270 miles from 
 God's Lake. It was something more than a hand-shake. 
 The Missioner made no effort to speak in these last 
 moments. His team was ready for the return drive and 
 he had drawn his travelling hood close about his face. In 
 his own heart he believed that David would never return. 
 He would go back to civilization, probably next autunm, 
 and in time he would forget. As he said, on their last day 
 before reaching the Cochrane, David's going was like 
 taking a part of his heart away. He blinked now, as he 
 dropped David's hand — ^blinked and turned his eyes. 
 And David's voice had an odd break in it. He knew what 
 the Missioner was thinking. 
 
 "I'll come back, mon Pere,'* he called after him, as 
 Father Roland broke away and went toward Mukoki and 
 the dogs. " I'll come back next year ! " 
 
 Father Roland did not look back until they were started. 
 Then he turned and waved a mittened hand. Mukoki 
 heard the sob in his throat. David tried to call a last 
 word to him, but his voice choked. He, too, waved a 
 hand. He had not known that there were friendships like 
 this between men, and as the Missioner trailed steadily 
 
 J 66 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 167 
 
 away from him, growing smaller and smaller against the 
 dark rim of the distant forest, he felt a sudden fear and a 
 great loneliness — a fear that, in spite of himself, they would 
 not meet again, and the loneliness that comes to a man 
 when he sees a world widening between himself and the 
 one friend he has on earth. His one friend. The man 
 who had saved him from himself, who had pointed out the 
 way for him, who had made him fight. More than a 
 friend; a father. He did not stop the broken sound that 
 came to his lips. A low whine answered it, and he looked 
 down at Baree, huddled in the snow within a yard of his 
 feet. "My god and master," Baree's eyes said, as they 
 looked up at him, "I am here." It was as if David had 
 heard the words. He held out a hand and Baree came to 
 him, his great wolfish body aquiver with joy. After all, 
 he was not alone. 
 
 A short distance from him the Indian who was to take 
 him over to Fond du Lac, on Lake Athabasca, was waiting 
 with his dogs and sledge. He was a Sarcee, one of the 
 last of an almost extinct tribe, so old that his hair was of a 
 shaggy white, and he was so thin that he looked like a 
 famine-stricken Hindu. "He has lived so long that no 
 one knows his age," Father Roland had said, "and he is 
 the best trailer betwden Hudson's Bay and the Peace." 
 His name was Upso-Gee (the Snow Fox), and the Mission- 
 er had bargained with him for a hundred dollars to take 
 David from White Porcupine House to Fond du Lac, three 
 hundred miles farther northwest. He cracked his long 
 caribou-gut whip to remind David that he was ready. 
 David had said good-bye to the factor and the clerk at the 
 Company store and there was no longer an excuse to detain 
 
168 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 him. They struck out across a small lake. Five minutes 
 later he looked back. Father Roland, not much more 
 than a speck on the white plain now, was about to dis- 
 appear in the forest. It seemed to David that he had 
 stopped, and again he waved his hand, though human 
 eyes could not have seen the movement over that distance. 
 Not until that night, when David sat alone beside his 
 campfire, did he begin to realize fully the vastness of this 
 adventure into which he had plunged. The Snow Fox 
 was dead asleep and it was horribly lonely. It was a 
 dark night, too, with the shivering wailing of a restless 
 wind in the tree tops; the sort of night that makes loneli- 
 ness grow imtU it is like some kind of a monst^ inside, 
 choking off one's breath. And on Upso-Gee's tepee, with 
 the firelight dancing on it, there was painted in red a 
 grotesque fiend with horns — a medicine man, or devil 
 chaser; and this devil chaser grinned in a bloodthirsty 
 manner at David as he sat near the fire, as if gloating over 
 some dreadful fate that awaited him. It was lonely. 
 Even Baree seemed to sense his master's oppression, for 
 he had laid his head between David's feet, and was as 
 still as if asleep. A long way off David could hear the 
 howling of a wolf and it reminded him shiveringly of the 
 lead-dog's howl that night before Tavish's cabin. It was 
 like the death cry that comes from a dog's throat; and 
 where the forest gloom mingled with the firehght he saw a 
 phantom shadow — in the morning he found that it was a 
 spruce bough, broken and hanging down — that made him 
 think again of Tavish swinging in the moonlight. His 
 thoughts bore upon him deeply and with foreboding. 
 And he asked himself questions — questions which were not 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 169 
 
 new, but which came to him to-night with a new and deeper 
 significaiice. He beUeved that Father Roland would have 
 gasped in amazement and that he would have held up his 
 hands in increduHty had he known the truth of this 
 astonishing adventure of his. An astonishing adventure 
 — nothing less. To find a girl. A girl he had never seen, 
 who might be in another part of the world, when he had 
 got to the end of his journey — or married. And if he 
 found her, what would he say? What would he dor 
 Why did he want to find her? "God alone knows," he 
 said aloud, borne down under his gloom, and went to bed. 
 Small things, as Father Roland had frequently said, 
 decide great events. The next morning came with a 
 glorious sun; the world again was white and wonderful, 
 and David found swift answers to the questions he had 
 asked himself a few hours before. Each day thereafter 
 the sun was warmer, and with its increasing promise of the 
 final "break-up" and slush snows, Upso-Gee's taciturnity 
 and anxiety grew apace. He was little more talkative 
 than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of 
 his tepee, but he gave David to understand that he would 
 have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge 
 from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had 
 anticipated. David marvelled at the old warrior's en- 
 durance, and especially when they crossed the forty miles 
 of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness. 
 At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the 
 sunny slopes even then, and by the time they reached the 
 Porcupine, Snow Fox was chanting his despairing prayer 
 nightly before that grinning thing on his tepee. "Swas- 
 tao (the thaw) she kam dam* queek," he said to David, 
 
170 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 grimacing his old face to express other things which he 
 could not say in English. And it did. Four days later, 
 when they reached Fond duLac, there was water underfoot 
 in places, and Upso-Gee turned back on the home trail 
 within an hour. 
 
 This was in April, and the Post reminded David of a 
 great hive to which the forest people were swarming like 
 treasure-laden bees. On the last snow they were coming 
 in with their furs from a himdred trap-lines. Luck was 
 with David. On the first day Baree fought with a huge 
 malemute and almost killed it, and David, in separating 
 the dogs, was slightly bitten by the malemute. A friend- 
 ship sprang up instantly between the two masters. Bou- 
 vais was a Frenchman from Horseshoe Bay, fifty miles from 
 Fort Chippewyan, and a hundred and fifty straight west 
 of Fond du Lac. He was a fox hunter. "I bring my furs 
 over here, m*sieu," he explained, "because I had a fight 
 with the factor at Fort Chippewyan and broke out two of 
 his teeth," which was sufficient explanation. He was 
 delighted when he learned that David wanted to go west* 
 They started two days later with a sledge heavily laden 
 with supplies. The runners sank deep in the growing 
 slush, but under them was always the thick ice of Lake 
 Athabasca, and going was not bad, except that David'a 
 feet were always wet. He was surprised that he did not 
 take a "cold." "A cold — what is that?" asked Bouvais, 
 who had lived along the Barrens all his life. David de- 
 scribed a typical case of sniffles, with running at eyes and 
 nose, and Bouvais laughed. "The only cold we have up 
 here is when the lungs get touched by frost," he said, 
 "and then you die — the following spring. Always then* 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 171 
 
 The lungs slough away.** And then he asked : " Why are 
 you going west?'* 
 
 David found himself face to face with the question, and 
 had to answer. "Just to toughen up a bit,'* he replied. 
 "Wandering. Nothing else to do." And after all, he 
 thought later, wasn't that pretty near the truth? He 
 tried to convince himself that it was. But his hand 
 touched the picture of the Girl, in his breast pocket. 
 He seemed to feel her throbbing against it. A prepos- 
 terous imagination! But it was pleasing. It warmed his 
 blood. 
 
 For a week David and Baree remained at Horseshoe 
 Bay with the Frenchman. Then they went on around 
 the end of the lake toward Fort Chippewyan. Bouvais 
 accompanied them, out of friendship purely, and they 
 travelled afoot with fifty-pound packs on their shoulders, 
 for in the big, sunUt reaches the ground was already grow- 
 ing bare of snow. Bouvais turned back when they were 
 ten miles from Fort Chippewyan, explaining that it was a 
 nasty matter to have knocked two teeth down a factor's 
 throat, and particularly down the throat of the head factor 
 of the Chippewyan and Athabasca district. "And they 
 went down,'* assured Bouvais. "He tried to spit them 
 out, but couldn't." A few hours later David met the 
 factor and observed that Bouvais had spoken the truth; 
 at least there were two teeth missing, quite conspicuously. 
 Hatchett was his name. He looked it; tall, thin, sinewy, 
 with bird-like eyes that were shifting this way and that 
 at all times, as though he were constantly on the alert for 
 an ambush, or feared thieves. He was suspicious of 
 David, coming in alone in this No Man's Land with a pack 
 
172 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 on his back; a white man, too, which made him all the more 
 suspicious. Perhaps a possible free trader looking for a 
 location. Or, worse still, a spy of the Company's hated 
 comp>etitors, tlie Revilon Brothers. It took some time 
 for Father Roland's letter to convince him that David 
 was harmless. And then, all at once, he warmed up like a 
 birch-bark taking fire, and shook David's hand three 
 times within five minutes, so hungry was he for a white 
 man's companionship — an honest white man's, mind you, 
 and not a scoundrelly competitor's ! He opened four cans 
 of lobsters, left over from Christmas, for their first meal, 
 and that night beat David at seven games of cribbage in a 
 row. He wasn't married, he said; didn't even have an 
 Indian woman. Hated women. If it wasn't for breeding 
 a future generation of trappers he would not care if they 
 all died. No good. Positively no good. Always making 
 trouble, more or less. That's why, a long time ago, there 
 was a fort at Chipj>ewyan — sort of blockhouse that still 
 stood there. Two men, of two different tribes, wanted 
 same woman; quarrelled; fought; one got his blamed head 
 busted; tribes took it up; raised hell for a time — ^all over 
 that rag of a woman! Terrible creatures, women were. 
 He emphasized his behef in short, biting snatches of words, 
 as though afraid of wearing out his breath or his vocabulary 
 or both. Maybe his teeth had something to do with it. 
 Where the two were missing he carried the stem of his 
 pipe, and when he talked the stem clicked, like a castanet. 
 David had come at a propitious moment — a "most 
 propichus moment," Hatchett told him. He had done 
 splendidly that winter. His bargains with the Indians 
 had been sharp and exceedingly profitable for the Company 
 
THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 173 
 
 and as soon as he got his furs off to Fort McMurray on their 
 way to Edmonton he was going on a long journey of 
 inspection, which was his reward for duty well performed. 
 His fur barges were ready. All they were waiting for was 
 the breaking up of the ice, when the barges would start 
 up the Athabasca, which meant souih; while he, in his 
 big war canoe, would head up the Peace, which meant 
 west. He was going as far as Hudson's Hope, and this 
 was within two hundred and fifty miles of where David 
 wanted to go. He proved that fact by digging up an old 
 Company map. David's heart beat an excited tattoo. 
 This was more than he had expected. Almost too good 
 to be true. "You can toork your way up there with me," 
 declared Hatchett, cHcking his pipe stem. "Won't cost 
 you a cent. Not a dam' cent. Work. Eat. Smoke. 
 Fine trip. Just for compauy. A man needs company 
 once in a while — decent company. Ice will go by middle 
 of May. Two weeks. Meanwhile, have a devil of a time 
 playing cribbage." 
 
 They did. Cribbage was Hatchett's one passion, unless 
 another was — ^beating the Indians. "Rascally devils," 
 he would say, driving his cribbage pegs home. "Always 
 trying to put off poor fur on me for good. Deserve to be 
 beat. And I beat 'em. Dam-if-I-don't." 
 
 "How did you lose your teeth?" David asked him at 
 last. They were playing late one night. 
 
 Hatchett sat up in his chair as if stung. His eyes 
 bulged as he looked at David, and his pipe stem clicked 
 fiercely. 
 
 "Frenchman," he said. "Dirty pig of a Frenchman. 
 No use for 'em. None. Told him women were no good 
 
174 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 — all women were bad. Said he had a woman. Said I 
 didn't care — all bad just the same. Said the woman he 
 referred to was his wife. Told him he was a fool to have a 
 wife. No warning — the pig! He biffed me. Knocked 
 those two teeth out — down I I'll get him some day. Flay 
 him. Make dog whips of his dirty hide. All Frenchmen 
 ought to die. Hope to God they will. Starve. Freeze." 
 
 In spite of himself David laughed. Hatchett took no 
 offense, but the grimness of his long, sombre countenance 
 remained unbroken. A day or two later he discovered 
 Hatchett in the act of giving an old, white-haired, half* 
 breed cripple a bag of supplies. Hatchett shook himself, 
 as if caught in an act of crime. 
 
 "I'm going to kill that old Dog Rib soon as the ground's 
 soft enough to dig a grave," he declared, shaking a fist: 
 fiercely after the old Indian. "Beggar. A sneak. No 
 good. Ought to die. Giving him just enough to keep 
 him aMve until the ground is soft." 
 
 After all, Hatchett's face belied his heart. His tongue 
 was hke a cleaver. It ripped things generally — ^was ter- 
 rible in its threatening, but harmless, and tremendously 
 amusing to David. He liked Hatchett. His cadaverous 
 countenance, never breaking into a smile, was the oddest 
 mask he had ever seen a human being wear. He believed 
 that if it once broke into a laugh it would not straighten 
 back again without leaving a permanent crack. And yet 
 he hked the man, and the days passed swiftly. 
 
 It was the middle of May before they started up the 
 Peace, three days after the fur barges had gone down the 
 Athabasca. David had never seen anything Hke Hatch- 
 ett's big war canoe, roomy as a small ship, and Ught as a 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 175 
 
 f mther on the water. Four powerful Dog Ribs went with 
 them, making six paddles in all. When it came to a 
 question of Baree, Hatchett put down his foot with 
 emphasis. "What! Make a dam" passenger of a dog? 
 Never. Let him follow ashore — or die." 
 
 This would undoubtedly have been Baree's choice if 
 he had had a voice in the matter. Day after day he 
 followed the canoe, swimming streams and working his 
 way through swamp and forest. It was no easy matter. 
 In the deep, slow waters of the Lower Peace the canoe 
 made thirty-five miles a day; twice it made forty. But 
 Hatchett kept Baree well fed, and each night the dog slept 
 at David's feet in camp. On the sixth day they reached 
 Fort Vermilion, and Hatchett announced himself hke a 
 king. For he was on inspection. Company inspection, 
 mind you. Important! A week later they arrived at 
 Peace River landing, two hundred miles farther west, and 
 on the twentieth day came to Fort St. John, fifty miles 
 from Hudson's Hope. From here David saw his first of 
 the mountains. He made out their snowy peaks clearly, 
 seventy miles away, and with his finger on a certain spot 
 on Hatchett's map his heart thrilled. He was almost 
 there! Each day the mountains grew nearer. From 
 Hudson's Hope he fancied that he could almost see the 
 dark blankets of timber on their sides. Hatchett grunted. 
 They were still forty miles away. And Mac Veigh, the 
 factor at Hudson's Hope, looked at David in a curious sort 
 of way when David told him where he was going. 
 
 "You're the first white man to do it," he said — ^an 
 inflection of doubt in his voice. "It's not bad going up 
 the. Finly as f ar as the Kwadocha. But from there. . ." 
 
176 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 He shook his head. He was short and thick, and his 
 jaw hung heavy with disapproval. 
 
 "You*re still seventy miles from the Stikine when you 
 end up at the Kwadocha," he went on, thumbing the map. 
 "Who the devil will you get to take you on from there? 
 Straight over the backbone of the Rockies. No trails. 
 Not even a Post there. Too rough a country. Even the 
 Indians won't live in it." He was silent for a moment, as 
 if reflecting deeply. " Old Towaskook and his tribe are on 
 the Kwadocha," he added, as if seeing a glimmer of hope. 
 "He might. But I doubt it. They're a lazy lot of mon- 
 grels, Towaskook's people, who carve things out of wood, 
 to worship. StiU, he might, I'U send up a good man with 
 you to influence him, and you'd better take along a couple 
 hundred dollars in supphes as a further inducement." 
 
 The man was a half-breed. Three days later they left 
 Hudson's Hope, with Baree riding amidships. The moun- 
 tains loomed up swiftly after this, and the second day they 
 were among them. After that it was slow work fighting 
 their way up against the current of the Finly. It was 
 tremendous work. It seemed to David that half their 
 time was spent amid the roar of rapids. Twenty-seven 
 times within five days they made portages. Later on it 
 took them two days to carry their canoe and supplies 
 around a mountain. Fifteen days were spent in making 
 eighty miles. Easier travel followed then. It was the 
 twentieth of June when they made their last camp before 
 reaching the Kwadocha. The sun was still up; but they 
 *vere tired, utterly exhausted. David looked at his map 
 and at the figures in the notebook he carried. He had 
 come close to fifteen hundred miles since that d^ when he 
 
TEE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 177 
 
 and Father Roland and Mukoki had set out for the 
 Cochrane. Fifteen hundred miles! And he had less 
 than a hundred more to go! Just over those mountains — 
 somewhere beyond them. It looked easy. He would 
 not be afraid to go alone, if old Towaskook refused to help 
 him. Yes, alone. He would find his way, somehow, he 
 and Baree. He had unbounded confidence in Baree. 
 Together they could fight it out. Within a week or two 
 they would find the Girl. 
 
 And thea . . . ? 
 
 He looked at the picture a long time in the glow of the 
 setting sun. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IT WAS the week of the Big Festival when David and 
 his half-breed arrived at Towaskook's village. To- 
 waskook was the "farthest east" of the totem- wor- 
 shippers, and each of his forty or fifty people reminded 
 David of the devil chaser on the canvas of the Snow Fox*s 
 tepee. They were dressed up, as he remarked to the half- 
 breed, "like fiends." On the day of David's arrival 
 Towaskook himseK was disguised in a huge bear head from 
 which protruded a pair of buffalo horns that had somehow 
 drifted up there from the western prairies, and it was his 
 special business to perform various antics about his totem 
 pole for at least six hours between sunrise and sunset, 
 chanting all the time most dolorous supplications to the 
 squat monster who sat, grinning, at the top. It was " the 
 day of good hunting," and Towaskook and his people 
 worked themselves into exhaustion by the ardour of their 
 prayers that the game of the mountains might walk right 
 up to their tepee doors to be killed, thus necessitating the 
 smallest possible physical exertion in its capture. That 
 night Towaskook visited David at his camp, a little up 
 the river, to see what he could get out of the white 
 man. He was monstrously fat — fat from laziness; 
 and David wondered how he had managed to put ifn 
 his hours of labour under the totem pole. David snt 
 in silence, trying to make out something from their ge^^ 
 
 178 
 
THE COURAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 179 
 
 lures, as his half-breed, Jacques, and the old chief 
 ty-lked. 
 
 Jacques repeated it all to him after Towaskook, sighing 
 deeply, had risen from his squatting posture, and left them. 
 It was a terrible journey over those mountains, Towaskook 
 had said. He had been on the Stikine once. He had 
 split with his tribe, and had started eastward with many 
 followers, but half of them had died — died because they 
 would not leave their precious totems behind — and so 
 had been caught in a deep snow that came early. It was a 
 ten-day journey over the mountains. You went up above 
 the clouds — many times you had to go above the clouds. 
 He would never make the journey again. There was one 
 chance — just one. He had a young bear hunter, Kio, 
 hi* face was still smooth. He had not won his spurs, so 
 to speak, and he was anxious to perform a great feat, 
 especially as he was in love with his medicine man*s 
 daughter Kwak-wa-pisew (the Butterfly). Kio might go, 
 to prove his valour to the Butterfly. Towaskook had gone 
 fof him. Of course, on a mission of this kind, Kio would 
 accept no pay. That would go to Towaskook. The two 
 himdred dollars* worth of supplies satisfied him. 
 
 A little later Towaskook returned with Kio. He was 
 exceedingly youthful, slim-built as a weazel, but with a 
 deep-set and treacherous eye. He listened. He would 
 go. He would go as far as the confluence of the Pitman 
 and the Stikine, if Towaskook would assure him the Butter- 
 fly. Towaskook, eyeing greedily the supplies which 
 Jacques had laid out alluringly, nodded an agreement to 
 that. "The next day,'* Kio said, then, eager now for the 
 adventure. " The next day they would start." 
 
180 THE COUEAGE OF MABGE O'DOONE 
 
 That night Jacques carefully made up the two shoulder 
 packs which David and Kio were to carry, for thereafter 
 their travel would be entirely afoot. David's burden, 
 with his rifle, was fifty pounds. Jacques saw them off, 
 shouting a last warning for David to "keep a watdi on 
 that devil-eyed Ejo." 
 
 Kjo was not like his eyes. He turned out, very shortly, 
 to be a communicative and rather likable young fellow. 
 He was ignorant of the white man's talk. But he was a 
 master of gesticulation; and when, in climbing their first 
 mountain, David discovered muscles in his legs and back 
 that he had never known of before, Kio laughingly sym- 
 pathized with him and assured him in vivid pantomime 
 that he would soon get used to it. Their first night they 
 camped almost at the summit of the mountain. Kjo 
 wanted to make the warmth of the valley beyond, but 
 those new muscles in David's legs and back declared other- 
 wise. Strawberries were ripening in the deeper valleys, 
 but up where they were it was cold. A bitter wind came 
 off the snow on the peaks, and David could smell the pun- 
 gent fog of the clouds. They were so high that the scrub 
 twigs of their fire smouldered with scarcely sufficient heat 
 to fry their bacon. David was oblivious of the discomfort. 
 His blood ran warm in hope and anticipation. He was 
 almost at the end of his joiu*ney. It had been a great 
 fight, and he had won. There was no doubt in his mind 
 now. After this he could face the world again. 
 
 Day after day they made their way westward. It was 
 tremendous, this journey over the backbone of the moun- 
 tains. It gave one a different conception of men. They 
 were like ante on these mountains, David thought — in- 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 181 
 
 significant, crawling ants. Here was where one might 
 find a soul and a religion if he had never had one before. 
 One's littleness, at times, was almost frightening. It made 
 one think, impressed upon one that life was not much 
 more than an accident in this vast scale of creation, and 
 that there was great necessity for a God. In Kio's eyes, 
 as he sometimes looked down into the valleys, there was 
 this thing; the thought which perhaps he couldn't analyze, 
 the great truth which he couldn't understand, but feli. 
 It made a worshipper of him — a devout worshipper of the 
 totem. And it occurred to David that perhaps the spirit 
 of God was in that totem even as much as in finger-worn 
 rosaries and the ivory crosses on women's breasts. 
 
 Early on the eleventh day they came to the confluence 
 of the Pitman and the Stlkine rivers, and a little later Kio 
 turned back on his homeward journey, and David and 
 Baree were alone. This aloneness fell upon them hke a 
 thing that had a pulse and was alive. They crossed the 
 Divide and were in a great sunlit country of amazing 
 beauty and grandeur, with wide valleys between the 
 mountains. It was July. From up and down the valley, 
 from the breaks between the peaks and from the little 
 gullies cleft in shale and rock that crept up to the snow 
 lines, came a soft and droning murmur. It was the music 
 of running water. That music was always in the air, for 
 the rivers, the creeks, and the tiny streams, gushing down 
 from the snow that lay eternally up near the clouds, were 
 never still. There were sweet perfumes as well as music 
 in the air. The earth was bursting with green; the early 
 flowers were turning the sunny slopes into coloured splashes 
 of red and white and purple — splashes of violets and for- 
 
182 THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 
 
 get-me-nots, of wild asters and hyacinths. David looked 
 upon it all, and his soul drank in its wonders. He made 
 his camp, and he remained in it all that day, and the next* 
 He was eager to go on, and yet in his eagerness he hesitated, 
 and waited. It seemed to him that he must become ac- 
 quainted with this empty world before venturing farther 
 into it — alone; that it was necessary for him to understand 
 it a little, and get his bearings. He could not lose himself. 
 Jacques had assured him of that, and Kio had pantomimed 
 it, pointing many times at the broad, shallow stream that 
 ran ahead of him. All he had to do was to follow the 
 river. In time, many weeks, of course, it would bring him 
 to the white settlement on the ocean. Long before that he 
 would strike Firepan Creek. Kio had never been so far; 
 he had never been farther than this junction of the two 
 streams, Towaskook had informed Jacques. So it was not 
 fear that held David. It was the aloneness. He was 
 taking a long mental breath. And, meanwhile, he was 
 repairing his boots, and doctoring Baree's feet, bruised and 
 sore by their travel over the shale of the mountain 
 tops. 
 
 He thought that he had experienced the depths of loneli- 
 ness after leaving the Missioner. But here it was a much 
 larger thing. This night, as he sat under the stars and a 
 great white moon, with Baree at his feet, it engulfed him; 
 not in a depressing way, but aw^esomely. It was not an 
 unpleasant loneliness, and yet he felt that it had no limit, 
 that it was immeasurable. It was as vast as the mountains 
 that shut him in. Somewhere, miles to the east of him 
 now, was Kio. That was all. He knew that he would 
 never be able to describe it, this loneliness — or aloneness; 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 183 
 
 one man, and a dog, with a world to themselves. After 
 a time, as he looked up at the stars and listened to the 
 droning sound of the waters in the valley, it began to 
 thrill him with a new kind of intelligence. Here was 
 peace as vast as space itself. It was not troubled by the 
 struggling existence of men, and women, and it seemed to 
 him that he must remain very still under the watchfulness 
 of those billions of sentinels in the sky, with the white moon 
 floating under them. The second night he made himself 
 and Baree a small fire. The third morning he shouldered 
 his pack and went on. 
 
 Baree kept close at his master's side, and the eyes of 
 the two were constantly on the alert. They were in a 
 splendid game country, and David watched for the first 
 opportunity that would give Baree and himself fresh meat. 
 The white sand bars and gravelly shores of the stream were 
 covered with the tracks of the wild dwellers of the valley 
 and the adjoining ranges, and Baree sniffed hungrily when- 
 ever he came to the warm scent of the last night's spoor. 
 He was hungry. He had been hungry all the way over the 
 mountains. Three times that day David saw a caribou at 
 a distance. In the afternoon he saw a grizzly on a green 
 slope. Toward evening he ran into luck. A band of 
 sheep had come down from a mountain to drink, and he 
 came upon them suddenly, the wind in his favour. He 
 killed a young ram. For a full minute after firing the shot 
 ke stood in his tracks, scarcely breathing. The report of 
 his rifle was like an explosion. It leaped from mountain 
 to mountan, echoing, deepening, coming back to him in 
 murmuring intonations, and dying out at last in a sighing 
 gasp. It was a weird and disturbing sound. He fancied 
 
184 THE COUBAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 
 
 that it could be heard many miles away. That night the 
 two feasted on fresh meat. 
 
 It was their fifth day in the valley when they came to a 
 break in the western wall of the range, and through this 
 break flowed a stream that was very much like the Stikine, 
 broad and shallow and ribboned with shifting bars of 
 sand. David made up his mind that it must be the Fire- 
 pan, and he could feel his pulse quicken as he started up it 
 with Baree. He must be quite near to Tavish's cabin, if 
 it had not been destroyed. Even if it had been burned on 
 account of the plague that had infested it, he would surely 
 discover the charred ruins of it. It was three o'clock when 
 he started up the creek, and he was — ^inwardly — ^much 
 agitated. He grew more and more positive that he was 
 close to the end of his adventure. He would soon come 
 upon life — ^himaan life. And then? He tried to dispel 
 the unsteadiness of his emotions, the swiftly growing dis- 
 comfort of a great anxiety. The first, of course, would be 
 Tavish's cabin, or the ruins of it. He had taken it for 
 granted that Tavish's location would be here, near the 
 confluence of the two streams. A hunter or prospector 
 would naturally choose such a position. 
 
 He travelled slowly, questing both sides of the stream, 
 and listening. He expected at any moment to hear a 
 sound, a new kind of sound. And he also scrutinized 
 closely the dean, white bars of sand. There were foot- 
 prints in them, of the wild things. Once his heart gave a 
 sudden jump when he saw a bear track that looked very 
 much like a moccasin track. It was a wonderful bear 
 country. Their signs were everywhere along the stream, 
 and their number and freshness made Baree restless. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 185 
 
 David travelled until dark. He had the desire to go on 
 even then. He built a small fire instead, and cooked his 
 supper. For a long time after that he sat in the moonlight 
 smoking his pipe, and still listening. He tried not to think. 
 The next day would settle his doubts. The Girl? What 
 would he find.'* He went to sleep late and awoke with the 
 summer dawn. 
 
 The stream grew narrower and the country wilder as he 
 progressed. It was noon when Baree stopped dead in his 
 tracks, stiff-legged, the bristles of his spine erect, a low 
 and ominous growl in his throat. He was standing over a 
 patch of white sand no larger than a blanket. 
 
 "What is it, boy?" asked David. 
 
 He went to him casually, and stood for a moment at 
 the edge of the sand without looking down, lighting his 
 pipe. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 The next moment his heart seemed rising up into his 
 throat. He had been expecting what his eyes looked upon 
 now, and he had been watching for it, but he had not 
 anticipated such a tremendous shock. The imprint of a 
 moccasined foot in the sand! There was no doubt of it 
 this time. A human foot had made it — one, two, three, 
 four, five times — in crossing that patch of sand! He 
 stood with the pipe in his mouth, staring down, apparently 
 without power to move or breathe. It was a small foot- 
 print. Like a boy's. He noticed, then, with slowly 
 shifting eyes, that Baree was bristling and growling over 
 another track. A bear track, huge, deeply impressed in 
 the sand. The beast's great spoor crossed the outer edge 
 of the sand, following the direction of the moccasin tracks. 
 
186 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 It was thrillingly fresh, if Baree's bristling spine and rum- 
 bling voice meant anything. 
 
 David's eyes followed the direction of the cwo trails. 
 A hundred yards upstream he could see where gravel antl 
 rock were replaced entirely by sand, quite a wide, unbroken 
 sweep of it, across which those clawed and moccasined 
 feet must have travelled if they had followed the creek. 
 He was not interested in the bear, and Baree was not 
 interested in the Indian boy; so when they came to the 
 sand one followed the moccasin tracks and the other the 
 claw tracks. They were not at any time more than ten 
 feet apart. And then, all at once, they came together, 
 and David saw that the bear had crossed the sand last 
 and that his huge paws had obliterated a part of the 
 moccasin trail. This did not strike him as unusually 
 significant until he came to a point where the moccasins 
 turned sharply and circled to the right. The bear fol- 
 lowed. A little farther — and David's heart gave a sudden 
 thump! At first it might have been coincidence, a bit of 
 chance. It was chance no longer. It was deliberate. 
 The claws were on the trail of the moccasins. David 
 halted and pocketed his pipe, on which he had not drawn 
 a breath in several minutes. He looked at his rifle, making 
 sure that it was ready for action. Baree was growling. 
 His white fangs gleamed and lurid lights were in his eyes 
 as he gazed ahead and sniffed. David shuddered. With- 
 out doubt the claws had overtaken the moccasins by this 
 time. 
 
 It was a grizzly. He guessed so much by the size of the 
 spoor. He followed it across a bar of gravel. Then they 
 turned a twist in the creek and came to other sand. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 187 
 
 Aery of amazement bm'st from David's lips when he looked 
 closely at the two trails again. 
 
 The moccasins were now following the grizzly I 
 He stared, for a few moments disbelieving his eyes. 
 Here, too, there was no room for doubt. The feet of the 
 Indian boy had trodden in the tracks of the bear. The 
 evidence was conclusive; the fact astonishing. Of course, 
 it was barely possible ... 
 
 Whatever the thought might have been in David's 
 mind, it never reached a conclusion. He did not cry out 
 at what he saw after that. He made no sound. Perhaps 
 he did not even breathe. But it was there — under his 
 eyes; inexplicable, amazing, not to be easily believed. A 
 third time the order of the mysterious footprints in the 
 sand was changed — and the grizzly was now following the 
 boy, obliterating almost entirely the indentures in the 
 sand of his small, moccasined feet. He wondered whether 
 it was possible that his eyes had gone b^d on him, or that 
 his mind had slipped out of its normal groove and was 
 tricking him with weirdly absurd hallucinations. So what 
 happened in almost that same breath did not startle him 
 as it might otherwise have done. It was for a brief mo- 
 ment simply another assurance of his insanity; and if the 
 mountains had suddenly turned over and balanced them- 
 selves on their peaks their gymnastics would not have 
 frozen him into a more speechless stupidity than did the 
 Girl who rose before him just then, not twenty paces 
 away. She had emerged like an apparition from behind a 
 great boulder — a little older, a little taller, a bit wilder 
 than she had seemed to him in the picture, but with that 
 same glorious hair sweeping about her, and that same 
 
188 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 questioning look in her eyes as she stared at him. Her 
 hands were in that same way at her side, too, as if she 
 were on the point of rmming away from him. He tried to 
 speak. He believed, afterward, tliat he even made an 
 effort to hold out his arms. But he was powerless. And 
 so they stood there, twenty paces apart, staring as if they 
 had met from the ends of the earth. 
 
 Something happened then to whip David's reason back 
 into its place. He heard a crunching — heavy, slow. 
 From around the other end of the boulder came a huge bear. 
 A monster. Ten feet from the girl. The first cry rushed 
 out of his throat. It was a warning, and in the same 
 instant he raised his rifle to his shoulder. The girl was 
 quicker than he — like an arrow, a flash, a whirlwind of 
 burnished tresses, as she flew to the side of the great beast. 
 She stood wdth her back against it, her two hands clutching 
 its tawny hair, her sUm body quivering, her eyes flashing 
 at David. He felt weak. He lowered his rifle and ad- 
 vanced a few steps. 
 
 "Who . . . what . . ." he managed to say; 
 and stopped. He was powerless to go on. But she seemed 
 to understand. Her body stiffened. 
 
 "I am Marge 0*Doone,'* she said defiantly, **and this is 
 my bear!" 
 
CHAPTER XVn 
 
 SHE was splendid as she stood there, an exquisite 
 human touch in the savageness of the world about 
 her — and yet strangely wild as she faced David, 
 protecting with her own quivering body the great beast 
 behind her. To David, in the first immensity of his as- 
 tonishment, she had seemed to be a woman; but now she 
 looked to him like a child, a very young girl. Perhaps 
 it was the way her hair fell in a tangled riot of curling 
 tresses over her shoulders and breast; the slimness of her; 
 the shortness of her skirt; the unfaltering clearness of the 
 great, blue eyes that were staring at him; and, above all 
 else, the manner in which she had spoken her name. The 
 bear might have been nothing more than a rock to him 
 now, against which she was leaning. He did not hear 
 Baree's low growling. He had travelled a long way to 
 find her, and now that she stood there before him in flesfa 
 and blood he was not interested in much else. It was a 
 rather difficult situation. He had known her so long, she 
 had been with him so constantly, filling even his dreams, 
 that it was difficult for him to find words in which to begin 
 speech. When they did come they were most common- 
 place; his voice was quiet, with an assured and protecting 
 note in it. 
 
 "My name is David Raine," he said. "I have comea 
 great dbtance to find you." 
 
 189 
 
190 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 It was a simple and unemotional statement of fact, 
 with nothing that was alarming in it, and yet the girl 
 shrank closer against her bear. The huge brute was 
 standing without the movement of a muscle, his smaU 
 reddish eyes fixed on David. 
 
 " I won't go back ! " she said. " I'll— fight ! " 
 
 Her voice was clear, direct, defiant. Her hands ap- 
 peared from behind her, and her httle fists were clenched. 
 With a swift movement she tossed her hair back from about 
 her face. Her eyes were blue, but dark as thunder clouds 
 in their gathering fierceness. She was like a child, and 
 yet a woman. A ferocious little person. Ready to fight. 
 Ready to spring at him if he approached. Her eyes 
 never left his face. 
 
 " I won't go back ! " she repeated. " I won't ! " 
 
 He was noticing other things about her. Her moo 
 casins were in tatters. Her short skirt was torn. Her 
 shining hair was in tangles. As she swept it back from 
 her face he saw under her eyes the darkness of exhaustion; 
 in her cheeks a wanness,which he did not know just then 
 was caused by hunger, and by her struggle to get away 
 from something. On the back of one of her clenched hands 
 was a deep, red scratch. The look in his face must have 
 given the girl some inkling of the truth. She leaned a 
 little forward, quickly and eagerly, and demanded: 
 
 "Didn't you come from the Nest? Didn't they send 
 you — after me.^" 
 
 She pointed down the narrow valley, her lips parted as 
 she waited for his answer, her hair rioting over her breast 
 again as she bent toward him. 
 
 "I've come fifteen himdred miles — ^from that direction," 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 191 
 
 said David, swinging an arm toward the backward moun- 
 tains. "IVe never been in this country before. I don*t 
 know where the Nest is, or what it is. And I*m not 
 going to take you back to it unless you want to go. If 
 some one is coming after you, and you're bound to fight, 
 I'll help you. Will that bear bite? " 
 
 He swung off his pack and put down his gun. For a 
 moment the girl stared at him with widening eyes. The 
 fear went out of them slowly. Her hand unclenched, and 
 suddenly she turned to the big grizzly and clasped her 
 bared arms about the shaggy monster's neck. 
 
 "Tara, Tara, it isn't one of them!" she cried. "It 
 isKi't one of them — and we tiiought it was!" 
 
 She whirled on David with a suddenness that took his 
 bieath away. It was like the swift turning of a bird. 
 H<e had never seen a movement so quick. 
 
 "Who are you?" she flung at him, as if she had not 
 already heard his name. "Why are you here? What 
 business have you going up there — to the Nest?" 
 
 "I don't like that bear," said David dubiously, as the 
 grizzly made a slow movement toward him. 
 
 "Tara won't hurt you," she said. "Not unless you put 
 your hands on me, and I scream. I've had him ever since 
 he was a baby and he has never hurt any one yet. But — 
 he idU 1 " Her eyes glowed darkly again, and her voice 
 had a strange, hard little note in it. "I've been . . • 
 training him," she added. "Tell me — why are you going 
 to the Nest?" 
 
 It was a point-blank, determined question, with still a 
 hint of suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it, were 
 the clearest, steadiest, bluest eyes he had ever looked into. 
 
192 THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 
 
 He was finding it hard to live up to what he had expected 
 ©f himself. Manj times he had thought of what he would 
 say when he found this girl, if he ever did find her; but he 
 had anticipated something a little more conventional, and 
 had believed that it would be quite the easiest matter in 
 the world to tell who he was, and why he had come, and to 
 tell it all convincingly and understandably. He had not, 
 in short, expected the sort of little person who stood there 
 against her bear — a. very diflficult Httle person to approach 
 easily and with assurance — ^half woman and half child, 
 and beautifully wild. She was not disappointing. She 
 was greatly appealing. When he surveyed her in a par- 
 ticularizing way, as he did swiftly, there was an exquisite- 
 ness about her that gave him pleasureable thrills. But it 
 was all wild. Even her hair, an amazing glory of tangled 
 curls, was wild in its disorder; she seemed palpitating with 
 that wildness, like a fawn that had been run into a corner — 
 no, not a fawn, but some beautiful creature that could and 
 would fight desperately if need be. That was his impres- 
 sion. He was undergoing a smashing of his conceptions 
 of this girl as he had visioned her from the picture, and a 
 readjustment of her as she existed for him now. And he 
 was not disappointed. He had never seen anything quite 
 like this Marge O'Doone and her bear. O^Doone I His 
 'mind had harked back quickly, at her mention of that 
 name, to the woman in the coach of the Transcontinental, 
 the woman who was seeking a man by the name of Michael 
 O'Doone. Of course the woman was her mother. Her 
 name, too, must have been 0*Doone. 
 fltVery slowly the girl detached herself from her bear* 
 and came until she stood within three steps of David* 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 193 
 
 •*Tara won't hurt you," she assured him again, "unless 
 I scream. He would tear you to pieces, then." 
 
 K she had betrayed a sudden fear at his first appearance, 
 it was gone now. Her eyes were like dark rock-violets 
 and again he thought them the bluest and most fearless 
 eyes he had ever seen. She was less a child now, standing 
 so close to him; her slimness made her appear taller than 
 she was. David knew that she was going to question him, 
 and before she could speak he asked: 
 
 "Why are you afraid of some one coming after you from 
 the Nest, BS^you call it?" 
 
 "Because," she repUed with quiet fearlessness, "I am 
 running away from it." 
 
 "Running away!" he gasped. "How long . . ." 
 
 "Two days." 
 
 He understood now — ^her ragged moccasins, her frayed 
 skirt, her tangled hair, the look of exhaustion about her. 
 It came upon him all at once that she was standing un- 
 steadily, swaying sHghtly like the slender stem of a flower 
 stirred by a breath of air, and that he had not noticed 
 these things because of the steadiness and clearness of her 
 wonderful eyes. He was at her side in an instant. He 
 forgot the bear. His hand seized hers — ^the one with the 
 deep, red scratch on it — and drew her to a flat rock a few 
 steps away. She followed him, keeping her eyes on him in 
 a wondering sort of way. The grizzly's reddish eyes were 
 on David. A few yards away Baree was lying flat on his 
 belly between two stones, his eyes on the bear. It was a 
 strange scene and rather weirdly incongruous. David 
 no longer sensed it. He still held the girl's hand as he 
 seated her on the rock, and he looked into her eyes, 
 
194 THE COURA.GE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 smiling confidently. She was, after all, his little chum— • 
 the Girl who had been with him ever since that first night's 
 vision in Thoreau's cabin, and who had helped him to win 
 that great fight he had made; the girl who had cheered 
 and inspired him during many months, and whom he had 
 come fifteen hundred miles to see. He told her this. 
 At first she possibly thought him a little mad. Her eyes 
 betrayed that suspicion, for she uttered not a word to 
 break in on his story; but after a little her lips parted, her 
 breath came a little more quickly, a flush grew in her 
 cheeks. It was a wonderful thing in her life, this story, 
 no matter if the man was a bit mad, or even an impostor. 
 He at least was very real in this moment, and he had told 
 the story without excitement, and with an immeasurable 
 degree of confidence and quiet tenderness — as though he 
 had been simplifying the strange tale for the ears of a 
 child, which in fact he had been endeavouring to do; for 
 with the flush in her cheeks, her parted lips, and her soft- 
 ening eyes, she looked to him more like a child now than 
 ever. His manner gave her great faith. But of course she 
 was, deep in her trembling soul, quite incredulous that he 
 should have done all these things for her — incredulous 
 until he ended his story with that day's travel up the 
 valley, and then, for the first time, showed to her — as a 
 proof of all he had said — the picture. 
 
 She gave a little cry then. It was the first sound that 
 had broken past her lips, and she clutched the picture in 
 her hands and stared at it; and David, looking down, could 
 see nothing but that shining disarray of curls, a rich and 
 wonderful brown in the sunlight, clusteriAg about her 
 shoulders and falling thickly to her waist. He thought it 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 195 
 
 indescribably beautiful, in spite of the manner in which 
 the curls and tresses had tangled themselves. They hid 
 her face as she bent over the picture. He did not sp>eak. 
 He waited, knowing that in a moment or two all that he had 
 guessed at would be clear, and that when the girl looked 
 up she would tell him about the picture, and why she hap- 
 pened to be here, and not with the woman of the coach, 
 who must have been her mother. 
 
 When at last she did look up from the picture her eyes 
 were big and staring and filled with a mysterious ques- 
 tioning. 
 
 David, feeling quite sure of himself, said: 
 ' " How did it happen that you were away up here, and not 
 with your mother that night when I met her on the train? ** 
 
 "She wasn't my mother," replied the girl, looking at 
 him still in that strange way. "My mother is dead," 
 
CHAPTER XVm 
 
 l^FTER that quietly spoken fact that her mother was 
 ZJ^ dead, David waited for Marge O'Doone to make 
 «A. ^ some fmther explanation. He had so firmly con- 
 vinced himself that the pictiu*e he had carried was the key 
 to aU that he wanted to know — ^first from Tavish, if he had 
 lived, and now from the girl — ^that it took him a moment 
 or two to imderstand what he saw in his companion's 
 face. He realized then that his possession of the picture 
 and the manner in which it had come into his keeping 
 were matters of great perplexity to her, and that the 
 woman whom he had met in the Transcontinental held 
 no significance for her at all, although he had told her with 
 rather marked emphasis that this woman — ^whom he had 
 thought was her mother — ^had been searching for a man 
 who bore her own name, O'Doone. The girl was plainly 
 expecting him to say something, and he reiterated this 
 fact — ^that the woman in the coach was very anxious 
 to find a man whose name was O'Doone, and that it was 
 quite reasonable to suppose that her name was O'Doone, 
 especially as she had with her this pictmre of a girl 
 bearing that name. It seemed to him a powerful and 
 utterly convincing argument. It was a combination 
 of facts difficult to get away from without certain con- 
 clusions, but this girl who was so near to him that he could 
 almost feel her breath did not appear fully to comprehend 
 
 196 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 197 
 
 their significance. She was looking at him with wide-open, 
 wondering eyes, and when he had finished she said again: 
 
 "My mother is dead. And my father is dead» too. 
 And my aunt is dead — up at the Nest. There isn't any one 
 left but my uncle Hauck, and he is a brute. And Brokaw. 
 He is a bigger brute. It was he who made me let him take 
 this picture — two years ago. I have been training Tara to 
 kill — to kill any one that touches me, when I scream." 
 
 It was wonderful to watch her eyes darken, to see her 
 pupils grow big and luminous. She did not look at the 
 pictvu-e clutched in her hands, but straight at him. 
 
 "He caught me there, near the creek. He frightened 
 me. He made me let him take it. He wanted me to take 
 offmy . . ." 
 
 A flood of wild blood rushed into her face. In her heart 
 was a fury. 
 
 "I wouldn't be afraid now — ^not of him alone," she cried. 
 "I would scream — and fight, and Tara would tear him 
 into pieces. Oh, Tara knows how to do it — now ! I have 
 trained him.*' 
 
 "He compelled you to let him take the picture," urged 
 David gently. "And then ..." 
 
 "I saw one of the pictures afterward. My aunt had it. 
 I wanted to destroy it, because I hated it, and I hated 
 him. But she said it was necessary for her to keep it. 
 She was sick then. , I loved her. She would put her arms 
 around me every day. She used to kiss me, nights, when 
 I went to bed. But we were afraid of Hauck — I don't 
 call him * uncle.' iS/t^ was afraid of him. Once I jumped 
 at him and scratched his face when he swore at her, and he 
 pulled my hair. Ugh, I can feel it now! After that she 
 
198 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 used to cry, and she always put her arms around me 
 closer than ever. She died that way, holding my liead 
 down to her, and trying to say something. But I couldn't 
 understand. I was crying. That was six months ago. 
 Since then I've been training Tara — ^to kill." 
 
 "And why have you trained Tara, little girl?" 
 
 David took her hand. It lay warm and unresisting in 
 his, a firm, very little hand. He could feel a slight shudder 
 pass through her. 
 
 "I heard — something," she said. "The Nest is a 
 terrible place. Hauck is terrible. Brokaw is terrible. 
 And Hauck sent away somewhere up there" — she pointed 
 northward — "for Brokaw. He said — ^I belonged to Bro- 
 kaw. What did he mean?" 
 
 She turned so that she could look straight into David's 
 eyes. She was hard to answer. If she had been a 
 woman . . . 
 
 She saw the slow, gathering tenseness in David's face as 
 he looked for a moment away from her bewildering eyes — 
 the hardening muscles of his jaws; and her own hand 
 tightened as it lay in his. 
 
 "What did Haack mean?" she persisted. "Why do I 
 belong to Brokaw — that great, red brute?" 
 
 The hand he had been holding he took between both his 
 palms in a gentle, comforting way. His voice was gentle, 
 too, but the hard lines did not leave his face. 
 
 "How old are you, Marge?" he asked. 
 
 "Seventeen," she said. 
 
 "And I am — thirty-eight." He tiu'ned to smile at her. 
 ^'See . . ." He raised a hand and took off his hat. 
 ••My hair is getting gray!" 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 19& 
 
 She looked up swiftly, and then, so suddenly that it 
 took his breath away, her fingers were running back 
 through his thick blond hair. 
 
 "A little," she said. "But you are not old." 
 
 She dropped her hand. Her whole movement had been 
 innocent as a child's. 
 
 " And yet I am quite old," he assured her. ** Is this man 
 Brokaw at the Nest, Marge?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "He has been there a month. He came after Hauck 
 sent for him, and went away again. Then he came back.'* 
 
 "And you are now running away from him?" 
 
 "From all of them," she said. "If it were just Brokaw 
 I wouldn't be afraid. I would let him catch me, and 
 scream. Tara would kill him for me. But it's Hauck, 
 too. And the others. They are worse since Nisikoos 
 died. That is what I called her — Nisikoos — my aunt. 
 They are all terrible, and they all frighten me, especially 
 since they began to build a great cage for Tara. Why 
 should they build a cage for Tara, out of small trees?* 
 Why do they want to shut him up? None of them will 
 tell me. Hauck says it is for another bear that Brokaw is 
 bringing down from the Yukon. But I know they are 
 lying. It is for Tara." Suddenly her fingers clutched 
 tightly at his hand, and for the first time he saw under her 
 long, shimmering lashes the darkening fire of a real terror. 
 "Why do I belong to Brokaw?" she asked again, a little 
 tremble in her voice. " Why did Hauck say that ? Can — 
 can a man — ^buy a girl?" 
 
 The nails of her slender fingers were pricking his flesh. 
 David did not feel their hurt. 
 
200 THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 
 
 "What do you mean?" he asked, trying to keep his 
 voice steady. "Did that man — ^Hauck — sell you?" 
 
 He looked away from her as he asked the question. Hft 
 was afraid, just then, that something was in his face which 
 he did not want her to see. He began to understand; at 
 least he was beginning to picture a very horrible possi- 
 bility. 
 
 "I — don't — ^know," he heard her say, close to his 
 shoulder. "It was night before last I heard them quar- 
 relling, and I crept close to a door that was a little open, 
 and looked in. Brokaw had given my uncle a bag of gold, 
 a little sack, hke the miners use, and I heard him swear at 
 my uncle, and say: 'That's more than she is worth but 
 I'll give in. Now she's mine!' I don't know why it 
 frightened me so. It wasn't Brokaw. I guess it was the 
 terrible look in that man's face — my uncle's. Tara and I 
 ran away that night. Why do you suppose they want to 
 put Tara in a cage? Do you think Brokaw was buying 
 Tara to put into that cage? He said *she,' not *he'. " 
 
 He looked at her again. Her eyes were not so fearless 
 now, 
 
 "Was he buying Tara, or me?" she insisted. 
 
 "Why do you have that thought — ^that he was buying 
 you?^^ David asked. "Has anything — ^happened?" 
 
 A second time a fury of blood leapt into her face and hep 
 lashes shadowed a pair of blazing stars. 
 
 "He — ^that red brute — caught me in the dark two weeks 
 ago, and held me there — and kissed me.'" She fairly 
 panted at him, springing to her feet and standing before 
 him. "I would have screamed, but it was in the house, 
 and Tara couldn't have come to me. I scratched him, and 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 201 
 
 >=. -^.. <■-, 
 
 fought, but he bent my head back until it hurt. He tried 
 it again the day he gave my uncle the gold, but I struck 
 him with a stick, and got away. Oh, I hate him ! And he 
 knows it. And my uncle cursed me for striking him! 
 And that's why , . . I'm running away." 
 
 "I understand," said David, rising and smiling at her 
 confidently, while in his veins his blood was running like 
 little streams of fire. "Don't you beUeve, now, all that 
 I've told you about the picture? How it tried so hard to 
 talk to me, and tell me to hurry? It got me here just 
 about in time, didn't it? It'll be a great joke on Brokaw, 
 little girl. And yom* uncle Hauck. A great joke, eh?" 
 He laughed. He felt like laughing, even as his blood 
 pounded through him at fever heat. "You're a little 
 brick. Marge — ^you and your bear!" 
 
 It was the first time he had thought of the bear since 
 Marge had detached herself from the big beast to come to 
 him, and as he looked in its direction he gave a startled 
 exclamation. 
 
 Baree and the grizzly had been measuring each other 
 for some time. To Baree this was the most amazing 
 experience in all his life, and flattened out between the two 
 rocks he was at a loss to comprehend why his master did 
 not either run or shoot. He wanted to jump out, if his 
 master showed fight, and leap straight at that ugly mon- 
 ster, or he wanted to run away as fast as his legs would 
 carry him. He was shivering in indecision, waiting a 
 signal from David to do either one or the other. And 
 Tara was now moving slowly toward the dog! His huge 
 head was hung low, swinging slightly from side to side in a 
 most terrifying way; his great jaws were agape, and the 
 
202 THE COURAGE OF MAUGE O^DOONE 
 
 nearer he came to Baree the smaller the dog seemed to 
 grow between the rocks. At David's sudden cry the girl 
 had turned, and he was amazed to hear her laughter, clear 
 And sweet as a bell. It was funny, that picture of the dog 
 and the bear, if one was in the mood to see the humour of 
 it! 
 
 "Tara won't hurt him," she hurried to say, seeing 
 David's uneasiness. "He loves dogs. He wants to 
 play with . . . what is his name?" 
 
 "Baree. And mine is David." 
 
 "Baree—David. See!" 
 
 Like a bird she had left his side and in an instant, it 
 seemed, was astride the big grizzly, digging her fingers into 
 Tara's thick coat — smiling back at him, her radiant hair 
 about her like a cloud, filled with marvellous red-and-gold 
 fires in the sun. 
 
 "Come," she said, holding out a hand to David. "I 
 want Tara to know you are our friend. Because" — the 
 darkness came into her eyes again — "I have been training 
 him, and I want him to know he must not hurt yow." 
 
 David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance 
 he was about to make, until Marge slipped off her bear and 
 put her two arms mihesitatingly about his shoulders, and 
 drew him down with her close in front of Tara's big head 
 and round, emotionless eyes. For a thrilling moment or 
 two she pressed her face close to his, looking all the time 
 straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily. David did 
 not sense what she was saying, except that in a general 
 way she was telling Tara that he must never hurt this man, 
 no matter what happened. He felt the warm crush of her 
 hair on his neck and face. It billowed on his breast for a 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 203 
 
 moment. The girrs liand touched his cheek, warm and 
 caressing. He made no movement of his own, except to 
 rise rigidly when she miclasped her arms from about his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "There; he won't hurt you now!" she exclaimed in 
 triumph. 
 
 Her cheeks were flaming, but not with embarrassment. 
 Her eyes were as clear as the violets he had crushed under 
 his feet in the mountain valleys. He looked at her as she 
 stood before him, so much Hke a child, and yet enough 
 of a woman to make his own cheeks burn. And then he 
 saw a sudden changing expression come into her face* 
 There was something pathetic about it, something that 
 made him see again what he had forgotten — ^her exhaustion, 
 the evidences of her struggle. She was looking at his 
 pack. 
 
 "We haven't had anything to eat since we ran away,*^ 
 she said simply. "Fm hungry." 
 
 He had heard children say "I'm hungry" in that same 
 voice, with the same hopeful and entreating insistence in it; 
 he had spoken those words himself a thousand times, to his 
 mother, in just that same way, it seemed to him; and as 
 she stood there, looking at his pack, he was filled with a 
 very strong desire to crumple her close in his arms — ^not 
 as a woman, but as a child. And this desire held him so 
 still for a moment that she thought he was waiting for her 
 to explain. 
 
 "I fastened our bundle on Tara's back and we lost it 
 in the night coming up over the mountain," she said. 
 "It was so steep that in places I had to catch hold of 
 Tara and let him drag me up." 
 
964 ^THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'BOONE^ 
 
 In another moment h^ was at his pack, opening it, and 
 tossing things to right and left on the white sand, and the 
 girl watched him, her eyes very bright with anticipation. 
 
 "Coffee, bacon, bannock,'and potatoes," he said, making 
 « a quiik inventory of his small stock of provisions. 
 
 "Potatoes!** cried the girl. 
 
 **Yes — dehydrated. See? It looks like rice. One 
 pound of this equals fourteen pounds of potatoes. And 
 you can't tell the difference when it's cooked right. Now 
 for a fire!" 
 
 She was darting this way and that, collecting small 
 dry sticks in the sand before he was on his feet. He 
 could not resist standing for a moment and watching her. 
 Her movAnents, even in her quick and eager quest of fuel. 
 Were the most graceful he had ever seen in a human being. 
 And yet she was tired! She was hungry! And he be- 
 Eeved that her feet, concealed in those rock-torn moccasins, 
 were bruised and sore. He went down to the stream for 
 water, and in the few moments that he was gone his mind 
 worked swiftly. He believed that he understood, perhaps 
 ev»en more than the girl herself. There was something 
 about her that was so sweetly childish — ^in spite of her age 
 and her height and her amazing prettiness that was not all 
 a child's prettiness — that he could not feel that she had 
 realized fully the peril from which she was fleeing when he 
 found her. He had guessed that her dread was only partly 
 for herself and that the other part was for Tara, her bear. 
 She had asked him in a sort of plaintive anxiety and with 
 rather more of wonderment and perplexity in her eyes 
 than fear, whether she belonged to Brokaw, and what it all 
 meant, and whether a man could buy a girl. It was not s 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 205 
 
 mystery to him that the "red brute" she had told him 
 about should want her. His puzzlement was that such a 
 thing could happen, if he had guessed right, among 
 men. Buy her? Of course down there in the big cities 
 such a thing had happened hundreds and thousands of 
 time9 — were happening every day — but he could not easily 
 picture it happening up here, where men Uved because of 
 their strength. There must surely be other men at the 
 Nest than the two hated and feared by the girl — ^Hauck, 
 her uncle, and Brokaw, the "red brute." 
 
 She had built a httle pile of sticks and dry moss ready 
 for the touch of a match when he returned. Tara had 
 stretched himself out lazily in the sun and Baree was still 
 between the two rocks, eyeing him watchfully. Before 
 David Hghted the fire he spread his one blanket out on the 
 sand and made the Girl sit down. She was close to him, 
 and her eyes did not leave his face for an instant. When- 
 ever he looked up she was gazing straight at him, and when 
 he went down to the creek for another pail of water he felt 
 that her eyes were still on him. When he turned to come 
 back, with fifty paces between them, she smiled at him and 
 he waved his hand at her. He asked her a great many 
 questions while he prepared their dinner. The Nest, 
 he learned, was a free-trading place, and Hauck was its 
 proprietor. He was surprised when he learned that he 
 was not on Firepan Creek after all. The Firepan was 
 over the range, and there were a good many Indians to 
 the north and west of it. Miners came down frequently 
 from the Taku River country and the edge of the Yukon, 
 she said. At least she thought they were miners, for that 
 is what Hauck used to tell Nisikoos, her aunt. They came 
 
206 THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 after whisky. Always whisky. And the Indians came 
 for liquor, too. It was the chief article that Hauck, her 
 unde, traded in. He brought it from the coast, in the 
 winter time — many sledge loads of it; and some of those 
 "miners" who came down from the north carried away 
 much of it. If it was summer they would take it away on 
 pack horses. What would they do with so much Uquor, 
 she wondered? A little of it made such a beast of Hauck, 
 and a beast of Brokaw, and it drove the Indians wild. 
 Hauck would no longer allow the Indians to drink it at 
 the Nest. They had to take it away with them — into 
 the mountains. Just now there was quite a number of the 
 "miners" down from the north, ten or twelve of them. 
 She had not been afraid when Nisikoos, her aunt, was alive. 
 But now there was no other woman at the Nest, except an 
 old Indian woman who did Hauck's cooking. Hauck 
 wanted no one there. And she was afraid of those men. 
 They all feared Hauck, and she knew that Hauck was 
 afraid of Brokaw. She didn't know why, but he was. 
 And she was afraid of them all, and hated them all. 
 She had been quite happy when Nisikoos was alive. 
 Nisikoos had taught her to read out of books, had taught 
 her things ever since she could remember, ^e could 
 write almost as well as Nisikoos. She said this a bit 
 proudly. But since her aunt had gone, things were 
 terribly changed. Especially the men. They had made 
 her more afraid, every day. 
 
 "None of them is like you," she said with startling 
 frankness, her eyes shining at him. "I would love to be 
 with you!" 
 
 He turned, then, to look at Tara dozing in the sun. 
 
CHAPTER XrX 
 
 THEY ate, facing each other, on a clean, flat stone 
 that was like a table. There was no hesitation on 
 the girl's part, no false pride in the concealment of 
 her himger. To David it was a joy to watch her eat, and 
 to catch the changing exjH'essions in her eyes, and the 
 little half -smiles that took the place of words as he helped 
 her diligently to bacon and bannock and potatoes and 
 coffee. The bright glow went only once out of her eyes, 
 and that was when she looked at Tara and Baree. 
 
 "Tara has been eating roots all day," she said, **But 
 what will he eat? " and she nodded at the dog. 
 
 "He had a whistler for breakfast," David assured her. 
 ** Fat as butter. He wouldn't eat now anyway. He is too 
 much interested in the bear." She had finished, with a 
 little sigh of content, when he asked: "What do you 
 mean when you say that you have trained Tara to kill? 
 Why have you trained him?" 
 
 "I began the day after Brokaw did that — ^held me there 
 in his arms, with my head bent back. Ugh I he was 
 terrible, with his face so close to mine!" She shuddered. 
 "Afterward I washed my face, and scrubbed it hard, 
 but I could still feel it. I can feel it now I " Her eyes were 
 darkening again, as the sun darkens when a thunder cloud 
 passes imder it. "I wanted te make Tara imderstand 
 what he must do after that, so I stole some of Brokaw's 
 
 Wi 
 
208 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE , 
 
 clothes and carried them up to a little plain on the side of 
 the mountain. I stuffed them with grass, and made a 
 . . . what do you call it? In Indian it is issena-- 
 Icoosewin . . /' 
 
 "A dummy," he said. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Yes, that is it. Then I would go with it a little distance 
 from Tara, and would begin to struggle with it, and 
 scream. The third time, when Tara saw me lying under 
 it, kicking and screaming, he gave it a blow with his paw 
 that ripped it clean in two! And after that . . .'* 
 
 Her eyes were glorious in their wild triumph. 
 
 •*He would tear it into bits," she cried breathlessly. 
 "It would take me a whole day to mend it again, and. at 
 last I had to steal more clothes. I took Hauck's this trfcie. 
 And soon they were gone, too. That is just what Tara 
 will do to a man — ^when I fight and scream!" 
 
 "And a Httle while ago you were ready to jump at me, 
 and fight and scream!" he reminded her, smiling across 
 their rock table. 
 
 "Not after you spoke to me," she said, so quickly that 
 the words seemed to spring straight from her heart. "I 
 wasn't afraid then. I was — ^glad. No, I wouldn't scream 
 — ^not even if you held me like Brokaw did ! " 
 
 He feh the warm blood rising under his skin again. It 
 was impossible to keep it down. And he was ashamed of 
 it — ashamed of the thought that for an instant was in his 
 mind. The soul of the wild, little mountain creature was 
 in her eyes. Her lips made no concealment of its thoughts 
 or its emotions, pure as the blue skies above them and as 
 nngovemed by conventionality as the winds that shifted 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 209 
 
 up and down the valleys. She was a new sort of being to 
 him, a child- woman, a little wonder-nymph that had grown 
 up with the flowers. And yet not so Uttle after all. He 
 had noticed that the top of her shining head came con- 
 siderably above his chin. 
 
 "Then you will not be afraid to go back to the Nest — 
 with me?" he asked. 
 
 "No," she said with a direct and amazing confidence. 
 "But I'd rather run away with you." Then she added 
 quickly, before he could sp>eak: "Didn't you say you came 
 all that way — ^hundreds of miles — ^to find me ? Then why 
 must we go back?" 
 
 He explained to her as clearly as he could, and as reason 
 seemed to poiat out to him. It was impossible, he assured 
 her, that Brokaw or Hauck or any other man could harm 
 her now that he was here to take care of her and straighten 
 matters out. He was as frank with her as she had been 
 with him. Her eyes widened when he told her that he did 
 not beheve Hauck was her uncle, and that he was certain 
 the woman whom he had met that night on the Trans- 
 continental, and who was searching for an O'Doone, had 
 some deep interest in her. He must discover, if possible, 
 how the picture had got to her, and who she was, and he 
 could do this only by going to the Nest and learning the 
 truth straight from Hauck. Then they would go on to 
 the coast, which would be an easy journey. He told her 
 that Hauck and Brokaw would not dare to cause them 
 trouble, as they were carrying on a business of which the 
 provincial police would make short work, if they knew of 
 it. They held the whip hand, he and Marge. Her eyes 
 shone with increasing faith as he talked. 
 
^10 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 She had leaned a little over the narrow rock betwe(?Q 
 them so that her thick curls fell in shining clusters undur 
 his eyes, and suddenly she reached out her arms throu^fh 
 them and her two hands touched his face. 
 
 "And you will take me away? You promise?" 
 
 "My dear child, that is just what I came for," he said, 
 feigning to be surprised at her questions. "Fifteen hun- 
 dred miles for just that. Now don't you believe all that 
 I Ve told you about the picture? *' 
 
 "Yes," she nodded. 
 
 She had drawn back, and was looking at him so steadiJy 
 and with such wondering depths in her eyes that he found 
 himself compelled for an instant to turn his own gaze carte- 
 lessly away. 
 
 "And you used to talk to it," she said, "and it seem^Jd 
 
 "V^y much alive. Marge." 
 
 '*And you dreamed about me?" 
 
 He had said that, and he felt again that warm rise of 
 blood. He felt himself in a diJEcult place. If she had 
 been older, or even younger ... 
 
 "Yes," he said truthfully. 
 
 He feared one other question was quite uncomfortably 
 near. But it didn't come. The girl rose suddenly to her 
 feet, flung back her hair, and ran to Tara, dozing in the 
 sun. What she was saying to the beast, with her arms 
 about his shaggy neck, David could only guess. He found 
 himsdf laughing again, quietly of course, with his back to 
 her, as he picked up their dinner things. He had not 
 anticipated such an experience as this. It rather unsettled 
 iiim. It was amusing — ^and had a decided thrill to it. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE aDOONE 211 
 
 Undoubtedly Hauck and Brokaw were rough men; from 
 what she had told him he was convinced they w^re lawless 
 men, engaged in a very wide "underground** trade in 
 whisky. But he believed that he would not find them as 
 bad as he had pictured them at first, even though the Nest 
 was a horrible place for the girl. Her running away was 
 the most natural thing in the world — for her. She was an 
 amazingly spontaneous little creature, full of courage and 
 a fierce determination to fight some one, but probably to- 
 day or to-morrow she would have been forced to tiu-n 
 homeward, quite exhausted with her adventure, and 
 nibbling roots along with Tara to keep herself alive. The 
 thought of her hunger and of the dire necessity in which he 
 had found her, drove the smile from his lips. He was fin- 
 ishing his pack when she left the bear and came to him. 
 
 "If we are to get over the mountain before dark we must 
 hurry," she said. "See — ^it is a big mountain!" 
 
 She pointed to a barren break in the northward range, 
 close up to the snow-covered peaks. 
 
 "And it's cold up there when night comes," she added. 
 
 "Can you make it?" David asked. "Aren't you tired.^ 
 Your feet sore? We can wait here until morning . . ." 
 
 "I can climb it," she cried, with an excitement which he 
 had not seen in her before. "I can climb it — and travel 
 all night — to tell Brokaw and Hauck I don't belong to 
 them any more, and that we're going away! Brokaw 
 will be like a mad beast, and before we go I'll scratch his 
 eyes out!" 
 
 "Good Lord!" gasped David under his breath. 
 
 "And if Hauck swears at me I'll scratch his out!" she 
 declared, trembling in the glorious anticipation of her 
 
212 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 vengeance. "I'll . . . I'll scratch his out, anyway, 
 for what he did to Nisikoos!" 
 
 David stared at her. She was looking away from him, 
 her eyes on the break between the momitains, and he 
 noticed how tense her slender body had become and how 
 tightly her hands were clenched. 
 
 "They won't dare to touch me or swear at me when you 
 are there," she added, with sublime faith. 
 
 She turned in time to catch the look in his face. Swiftly 
 the excitement faded out of her own. She touched Ids 
 arm, hesitatingly. 
 
 "Wouldn't . . . you want me . . . to scratch 
 out their eyes?" she asked. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "It wouldn't do," he said. "We must be very careful. 
 We mustn't let them know you ran away. We must tell 
 them you climbed up the mountain, and got lost." 
 
 "I never get lost," she protested. 
 
 "But we must tell them that just the same," he insisted. 
 "Will you.?" 
 
 She nodded emphatically. 
 
 "And now, before we start, tell me why they haven't 
 followed you?" 
 
 "Because I came over the mountain," she replied, 
 pointing again toward the break. "It's all rock, and 
 Tara left no marks. They wouldn't think we'd climb over 
 the range. They've been looking for us in the other valley 
 if they have hunted for us at all. We were going to cHmb 
 over that range, too." She turned so that she was 
 pointing to the south, 
 
 "And then?" 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 2U 
 
 "There are people over there. I've heard Hauck talk 
 about them." 
 
 "Did you ever hear him speak of a man by the name of 
 Tavish?" he asked, watching her closely. 
 
 "Tavish?" She pursed her lips into a red "O," and 
 little lines gathered thoughtfully between her eyes. 
 "Tavish? No-o-o, I never have." 
 
 "He lived at one time on Firepan Creek, Had small- 
 pox," said David. 
 
 "That is terrible," the girl shuddered. "The Indians 
 die ©f it up here. Hauck says that my father and mother 
 died of small-pox, before I could remember. It is all 
 like a dream. I can see a woman's face sometimes, and I 
 can remember a cabin, and snow, and lots of dogs. Are 
 you ready to go?" 
 
 He shouldered his pack, and as he arranged the straps 
 Marge ran to Tara. At her command the big beast rose 
 slowly and stood before her, swinging his head from side to 
 side, his jaws agape. David called to Baree and the dog 
 came to him like a streak and stood against his leg, snarling 
 fiercely. 
 
 "Tut, tut," admonished David, softly, laying a hand on 
 Baree's head. " We're all friends, boy. Look here ! " 
 
 He walked straight over to the grizzly and tried to 
 induce Baree to follow him. Baree came half way and 
 then sat himself on his haunches and refused to budge an- 
 other inch, an expression so doleful in his face that it drew^ 
 from the girl's lips a peal of laughter in which David found! 
 it impossible not to join. It was delightfully infectious; 
 he was laughing more with her than at Baree. In the 
 same breath his merriment was cut short by an unexpected* 
 
214 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOCM^E 
 
 and most amazing discovery. Tara, after all, had his 
 usefulness. His mistress had vaulted astride of him, and 
 was nudging him with her heels, leaning forward so that 
 with one hand she was pulling at his left ear. The bear 
 turned slowly, his finger-long claws clicking on the stones, 
 and when his head was in the right direction Marge re- 
 leased his ear and spK)ke sharply, beating a tattoo with her 
 lieels at the same time. 
 
 "Neah, Tara, Neah /" she cried. 
 
 After a moment's hesitation, in which the grizaly seemed 
 to be getting his bearings, Tara struck out straight for the 
 break between the mountains, with his burden. The girl 
 turned and waved a beckoning hand at David. 
 
 '*Pao I you must hurry!" she called to him, laughing at 
 the astonishment in his face. 
 
 He had started to fill his pipe, but for the next few min- 
 utes he forgot that the pipe was in his hand. His eyes 
 did not leave the huge beast, ambling along a dozen paces 
 ahead of him, or the slip of a girl who rode him. He had 
 caught a glimpse of Baree, and the dog's eyes seemed to be 
 bulgmg. He half believed that his own mouth was open 
 when the girl called to him. What had happened was 
 most startJingly unexpected, and what he stared at now was 
 a wondrous sight ! Tara travelled with the rolling, slouch- 
 ing gait typical of the wide-quartered grizzly, and the girl 
 was a sinuous part of him — by all odds the most wonder- 
 ful thing in the world to David at this moment. Her hair 
 streamed down her back in a cascade of ^nht glory. She 
 flung back her head, and he thought of a wonderful 
 golden-bronze flower. He heard her laugh, and cry out 
 to Tara, and when the grizzly climbed up a bit of steep 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE «15 
 
 slide she leaned forward and became a part of the bear's 
 back, her curls shimmering in the thick ruff of Tara's 
 neck. As he toiled upward in their wake, he caught a 
 glimpse of her looking back at him from the top of the 
 slide, her eyes shining and her hps smiling at him. She 
 reminded him of something he had read about Leucosia, 
 his favorite of the "Three Sirens," only in this instance it 
 was a siren of the mountains and not of the sea that was 
 leading him on to an early doom — if he had to keep up with 
 that bear! His breath came more quickly. In ten min- 
 utes he was gasping for wind, and in despair he slackened 
 his pace as the bear and his rider disappeared over the 
 crest of the first slope. She was waving at him then, 
 fully two hundred yards up that infernal hill, and he was 
 sure that she was laughing. He had almost reached the 
 top when he saw her sitting in the shade of a rock, watch- 
 ing him as he toiled upward. There was a mischievous 
 seriousness in the blue of her eyes when he reached her side. 
 
 "I*m sorry, Sakewawiriy* she said, lowering her eyes 
 until they were hidden under the silken sheen of her long 
 lashes, "I couldn't make Tara go slowly. He is hungry, 
 and he knows that he is going home." 
 
 "And I thought you had sore feet," he managed to say. 
 
 " I don't ride him going down a mountain," she explained, 
 thrusting out her ragged little feet. " I can't hang on, and 
 I slip over his head. You must walk ahead of Tara. That 
 will hold him back." 
 
 He tried this experiment when they continued their 
 ascent, and Tara followed so uncomfortably close that at 
 times David could feel his warm breath against his hand. 
 When they reached the second slope the girl walked beside 
 
216 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 him. For a half mile it was not a bad climb and there 
 was soft grass underfoot. After that came the rock and 
 shale, and the air grew steadily colder. They had started 
 at one o'clock and it was five when they reached the first 
 snow. It was six when they stood at the summit. Under 
 them lay the valley of the Firepan, a broad, sim-filled 
 sweep of scattered timber and green plain, and the girl 
 pointed into it, north and west. 
 
 "Off there is the Nest," she said. " We could almost see 
 it if it weren't for that big, red mountain." 
 
 She was very tired, though she had ridden Tara at least 
 two thirds of the distance up the mountains. In her eyes 
 was the mistiness of exhaustion, and as a chill wind swept 
 about them she leaned against David, and he could feel 
 that her endurance was nearly gone. As they had come up 
 to the snow line he had made her put on the light woollen 
 shirt he carried in his pack; and the big handkerchief, in 
 which he had so long wrapped the pictiu^, he had fastened 
 scarf -like about her head, so she was not cold. But she 
 looked pathetically childlike and out of place, standing 
 here beside him at the very top of the world, with the 
 valley so far down that the clumps of timber in it were 
 like painted splashes. It was a half mile down to the 
 first bit of timber — a small round patch of it in a narrow 
 dip — and he pointed to it encouragingly. 
 
 "We'll camp there and have supper. I beheve it is 
 far enough down for a fire. And if it is impossible for you 
 to ride Tara — Fm going to carry you!" 
 
 "You can't, Sdkewawin" she sighed, letting her head 
 touch his arm for a moment. "It is more difficult to 
 carry a load down a mountain than up. I can walk." 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 217 
 
 Before he could stop her she had begun to descend.! 
 They went down quickly — ^three times as quickly as they 
 had climbed the other side — ^and when, half an hour later, 
 they reached the timber in the dip, he felt as if his back were 
 broken. The girl had persistently kept ahead of him, and 
 with a little cry of triumph she dropped down at the foot of 
 the first balsam they came to. The pupils of her eyes were 
 big and dark as she looked up at him, quivering with the 
 strain of the last great effort, and yet she tried to smile at 
 him. 
 
 "You may carry me — some time — ^but not down a 
 mountain," she said, and laid her head wearily on the 
 pillow of her arm, so that her face was concealed from him. 
 **And now — ^please get supper, Sakewaicin." 
 
 He spread his blanket over her before he began searching 
 for a camp site. He noticed that Tara was already hunt- 
 ing for roots. Baree followed close at his master's heels. 
 Quite near, David found a streamlet that trickled down 
 from the snow line, and to a grassy plot on the edge of this 
 he dragged a quantity of dry wood and built a fire. Then 
 he made a thick couch of balsam boughs and went to his 
 little companion. In the half hour he had been at work 
 she had fallen asleep. Utter exhaustion was in the limp- 
 ness of her slender body as he raised her gently in his arms. 
 The handkerchief had slipped back over her shoulder and 
 she was wonderfully sweet, and helpless, as she lay with 
 her head on his breast. She was still asleep when he 
 placed her on the balsams, and it was dark when he 
 awakened her for supper. The fire was burning 
 brightly. Tara had stretched himself out in a huge, 
 dark bulk in the outer glow of it. Baree was close to 
 
218 THE COURAGE OF MARGE OT>OONE 
 
 the fire. The girl sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stared at 
 David. 
 
 *' Sakewavdn,'* she whispered then, looking about her in a 
 moment's bewilderment. 
 
 "Supper," he said, smiling. "I did it all while you 
 were napping, Httle lady. Are you hungry?" 
 
 He had spread their meal so that she did not have to 
 move from her balsams, and he had brought a short piece 
 of timber to place as a rest at her back, cushioned by his 
 shoulder pack and the blanket. After all his trouble she 
 did not eat much. The mistiness was still in her eyes, 
 so after he had finished he took away the timber and made 
 of the balsams a deep pillow for her, that she might lie 
 restfully, with her head well up, while he smoked. He did 
 not want her to go to sleep. He wanted to talk. And he 
 began by asking how she had so carelessly run away with 
 only a pair of moccasins on her feet and no clothes but the 
 thin garments she was wearing. 
 
 "They were in Tara's pack, Sahewawirty* she explained, 
 her eyes glowing like sleepy pools in the fireglow. "They 
 were lost." 
 
 He began then to tell her about Father Roland. She 
 listened, growing sleepier, her lashes drooping slowly 
 imtil they formed dark curves on her cheeks. He was 
 close enough to marvel at their length, and as he watched 
 them, quivering in her efforts to keep awake and Usten to 
 him, they seemed to him like the dark petals of two beauti- 
 ful flowers closing slumbrously for the night. It was a 
 wonderful thing to see them open suddenly and find the full 
 glory of the sleep-filled eyes on him for an instant, and 
 then to watch them slowly close again as she fought val- 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 219 
 
 iantly to conqiter her irresistible drowsiness, the merest 
 dimpUng of a smile on her lips. The last time she opened 
 them he had her picture in his hands, and was looking at it, 
 quite close to her, with the fire lighting it up. For a 
 moment he thought the sight if it had awakened h^ com- 
 pletely. 
 
 "Throw it into the fire,'* she said. "Brokaw made me 
 let him take it, and I hate it. I hate Brokaw. I hate the 
 picture. Bum it." 
 
 "But I must keep it," he protested. "Burn it! Why 
 it's . . ." 
 
 "You won't want it — after to-night." 
 
 Her eyes were closing again, heavily, for the last time. 
 
 "Why.?" he asked, bending over her. 
 
 "Because, Sakewawin . . . you have me . . . 
 now," came her voice, in drowsy softness; and then the 
 long lashes lay quietly against her cheeks. u 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 HE THOUGHT of her words a long time after ehe 
 had fallen asleep. Even in that last moment of her 
 consciousness he had found her voice filled with a 
 strange faith and a wonderful assurance as it had drifted 
 away in a whisper. He would not want the pictxu^ any 
 more — ^because he had her I That was what she had said, 
 and he knew it was her soul that had spoken to him as she 
 had hovered that instant between consciousness and slum- 
 ber. He looked at her, sleeping under his eyes, and he felt 
 upon him for the first time the weight of a sudden trouble, 
 a gloomy foreboding — ^and yet, under it all, like a fire 
 banked beneath dead ash, was the warm thrill of his pos- 
 session. He had spread his blanket over her, and now he 
 leaned over and drew back her thick curls. They were 
 warm and soft in his fingers, strangely sweet to touch, 
 and for a moment or two he fondled them while he gazed 
 steadily into the childish loveliness of her face, dimpled 
 still by that shadow of a smile with which she had fallen 
 asleep. He was beginning to feel that he had accepted for 
 himself a tremendous task, and that she, not much more 
 than a child, had of coiu-se scarcely foreseen its possibilities. 
 Her faith in him was a pleasurable thing. It was abso- 
 lute. He realized it more as the hours dragged on and he 
 sat alone by the fire. So great was it that she was going 
 back fearlessly to those whom she hated and feared. She 
 
 220 
 
I 
 
 THE COUBAGE OF MABGE O'DOONE 221 
 
 was returning not only fearlessly but with a certain defiant 
 satisfaction. He could fancy her saying to Hauck, and 
 the Red Brute: "IVe come back. Now touch me if you 
 dare ! " What would he have to do to Uve up to that surety 
 of her confidence in him? A great deal, undoubtedly. 
 And if he won for her, as she fully expected him to win, 
 what would he do with her? Take her to the coast — ^put 
 her into a school somewhere down south? That was his 
 first notion. For to him she looked more than ever like 
 a child as she lay asleep on her bed of balsams. 
 
 He tried to picture Brokaw. He tried to see Hauck m 
 his mental vision, and he thought over again all that the 
 girl had told him about herself and these men. As he 
 looked at her now — a Uttle, softly breathing thing under his 
 gray blanket — it was hard for him to believe anything so 
 horrible as she had suggested. Perhaps her fears had been 
 gi*ossly exaggerated. The exchange of gold between 
 Hauck and the Red Brute had probably been for some- 
 thing else. Even men engulfed in the brutaUty of the trade 
 they were in would not think of such an appaUing 
 crime. And then — ^with a fierceness that made his blood 
 boil — came the thought of that time when Brokaw had 
 caught her in his arms, and had held her head hack until 
 it hurt — and had kissed her ! Baree had crept between his 
 knees, and David's fingers closed so tightly in the loose 
 skin of his neck that the dog whined. He rose to his feet 
 and stood gazing down at the girl. He stood there for a 
 long time without moving or making a sound. 
 
 "A Uttle woman," he whispered to himself at last. 
 "Not a child." 
 
 From that moment his blood was hot with a desire to 
 
%%% THE COUEAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 
 
 feach the Nest, ile Aad never thought seriously of 
 physical struggle with men except in the way of sport. 
 His disposition had always been to regard such a thing as 
 barbarous, and he had never taken advantage of his skill 
 with the gloves as the average man might very probably 
 have done. To fight was to lower one's seK-respect enor- 
 mously, he thought. It was not a matter of timidity, but 
 of very strong conviction — an entrenchment that had saved 
 him from wreaking vengeance — in the hour when another 
 man would have killed. But there, in that room in his 
 home, he had stood face to face with a black, revolting sin. 
 There had been nothing left to shield, nothing to protect. 
 Here it was different. A soul had given itself into his pro- 
 tection, a soul as pure as the stars shining over the moun- 
 tain tops, and its little keeper lay there under his eyes 
 sleeping in the sweet faith that it was safe with him. A 
 little later his fingers tingled with an odd thrill as he took 
 his automatic out of his pack, loaded it carefully, and 
 placed it in his pocket where it could be easily reached. 
 The act was a declaration of something ultimately definite. 
 He stretched himself out near the fire and went to sleep 
 with the force of this declaration brewing strangely within 
 him. 
 
 He was awake with the summer dawn and the sun was 
 beginning to tint up the big red mountain when they began 
 the descent into the valley. Before they started he loaned 
 the girl his comb and single military brush, and for fifteen 
 minutes sat watching her while she brushed the tangles 
 out of her hair until it fell about her in a thick, waving 
 splendour. At the nape of her neck she tied it with a bit 
 of string which he found for her, and after that, as they 
 
THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 22S 
 
 travelled downward, he observed how the rebellious 
 tresses, shimmering and dancing about her, persisted in 
 forming themselves into curls again. In an hour they 
 reached the valley, and for a few moments they sat down 
 to rest, while Tara foraged among the rocks for marmots. 
 It was a wonderful valley into which they had come. 
 From where they sat, it was like an immense park. Green 
 slopes reached almost to the summits of the mountains, 
 and to a point half way up these slopes — the last timber 
 line— clumps of spruce and balsam trees were scattered 
 over the green as if set there by hands of men. Some of 
 thi^se timber patches were no larger than the decorative 
 clymps in a city park, and others covered acres and tens of 
 aaes; and at the foot of the slopes on either side, like 
 decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken lines of forest. 
 Bo: ween these two hues of forest lay the open valley of 
 soft and undulating meadow, dotted with its purplish 
 boi.ks of buffalo-, willow-, and mountain-sage, its green 
 coj^pices of wild rose and thorn, and its clumps of trees. 
 In the hollow of the valley ran a stream. 
 
 And this was her home! She was telling him about it 
 as they sat there, and he listened to her, and watched her 
 bu d-like movements, without breaking in to ask questions 
 which the night had shaped in his mind. She pointed out 
 gray summits on which she had stood. Off there, just 
 visible in the gray mist of early sunshine, was the mountain 
 where she had found Tara five years ago — a tiny cub who 
 must have lost his mother. Perhaps the Indians had 
 killed her. And that long, rock-strewn slide, so steep in 
 pla<^5s that he shuddered when he thought of what she had 
 dooij, was where she and Tara had climbed over the range 
 
224 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE , 
 
 in their flight. She chose the rocks so that Tara would 
 leave no trail. He regarded that slide as conclusive evi- 
 dence of the very definite resolution that must have inspired 
 her. A fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up 
 that rock slide, and in the night. He thought it time to 
 speak of what was weighing upon his mind. 
 
 "Listen to me. Marge," he said, pointing toward the red 
 mountain ahead of them. "Off there, you say, is the 
 Nest. What are we gouig to do when we arrive there?" 
 
 The little lines gathered between her eyes again as she 
 looked at him. 
 
 "Why— tell them," she said. 
 
 "Tell them what?" 
 
 "That you've come for me, and that we're going away, 
 SahetoatoinJ* 
 
 "And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you 
 cannot go?" 
 
 "We'll go anyway, Sakewawin,^* 
 
 "That's a pretty name you've given me," he mused, 
 thinking of something else. "I like it." 
 
 For the first time she blushed — ^blushed until her face 
 was like one of the wild roses in those prickly copses oi the 
 valley. 
 
 And then he added: 
 
 "You must not tell them tdo much — at first. Marge. 
 Remember that you were lost, and I found you. You 
 must give me time to get acquainted with Hauck and 
 Brokaw." 
 
 She nodded, but there was a moment's anxiety in her 
 eyes, and he saw for an instant the slightest quiver in her 
 throat. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE^. 225 
 
 **You won't — let them — keep me? No matter what 
 they say — ^you won't let them keep me?" 
 
 He jimiped up with a laugh and tilted her chin so that 
 he looTced straight into her eyes; and her faith filled them 
 again in a flood. 
 
 "No — ^you're going with me,** he promised. "Come, 
 I'm quite anxious to meet Hauck and the Red Brute!" 
 
 It seemed singular to David that they met no one in the 
 valley that day, and the girl's explanation that practically 
 all travel came from the north and west, and stopped at the 
 Nest, did not fully satisfy him. He still wondered why they 
 did not encounter one of the searching parties that must 
 have been sent out for her — until she told him that, since 
 Nisikoos died, she and Tara had gone quite frequently into 
 the mountains and remained all night, so that perhaps no 
 search had been made for her after all. Hauck had not 
 seemed to care. More frequently than otherwise he had 
 not missed her. Twice she had been away for two nights 
 and two days. It was only because Brokaw had given that 
 gold to Hauck that she had feared pursuit. If Hauck 
 had bought her . . . 
 
 She spoke of that possible sale as if she might have been 
 the merest sort of chattel. And then she startled him by 
 saying: 
 
 "I have known of those white men from the north buy- 
 ing Indian girls. I have seen them sold for whisky. 
 Ugh I " She shuddered. " Nisikoos and I overheard them 
 one night. Hauck was seUing a girl for a little sack of 
 gold — ^like that. Nisikoos held me more tightly than ever, 
 that night. I don't know why. She was terribly afraid 
 of that man — ^Hauck. Why did she live with him if she 
 
£26 THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 was afraid of him? Do you know? I wouldn't. I'd run 
 away." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't tell you, my child." 
 
 Her eyes turned on him suddenly. 
 
 "Why do you call me that— a child?" 
 
 "Because you're not a woman; because you're so very, 
 very young, and I'm so very old," he laughed. 
 
 For a long time after that she was silent as they travelled 
 steadily toward the red mountain. 
 
 They ate their dinner in the sombre shadow of it. Most 
 of the afternoon Marge rode her bear. It was sundoToa 
 when they stopped for their last meal. The Nest was stiU 
 three miles farther on, and the starsVere shining brilliantly 
 before they came to the little, wooded plain in the edge of 
 which Hauck had hidden away his. place of trade. Wh<m 
 they were some hmidred yards away they came over a 
 knoll and David saw the glow of fires. The girl stopped 
 suddenly and her hand caught his arm. He counted four 
 of those fires in the open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if 
 back in timber. Soimds came to them — the slow, hollow 
 booming of a tom-tom, and voices. They could see shad-' 
 ows moving. The girl's fingers were pinching David's arm. 
 
 "The Indians have come in," she whispered. 
 
 There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It was 
 not fear. He could see that she was puzzled, and that she 
 had not expected to find fires or those moving shadows. 
 Her eyes were steady and shining as she looked at him. 
 It seemed to him that she had grown taller, and more like 
 a woman, as they stood there. Something in her face 
 made him ask: 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 227 
 
 "Why have they come?" 
 
 "I don*t know," she said. 
 
 She started down the knoll straight for the fires. Tara 
 and Baree filed behind them. Beyond the glow of the 
 camp a dark bulk took shape against the blackness of the 
 forest. David guessed that it was the Nest. He made 
 out a deep, low building, unhghted so far as he could see. 
 Then they entered into the fireglow. Their appearance 
 produced a strange and instant quiet. The beating of the 
 tom-tom ceased. Voices died. Dark faces stared — and 
 that was all. There were about fifty of them about the 
 fires, David figiu^. And not a white man's face among 
 them. They were all Indians. A lean, night-eyed, 
 sinister-looking lot. He was conscious that they were 
 scrutinizing him more than they were the girl. He could 
 almost feel the prick of their eyes. With her head up, his 
 companion walked between the fires and beyond them, 
 looking neither to one side nor the other. They turned the 
 end of the huge log building and on this side it was glowing 
 dimly with light, and David faintly heard voices. The 
 girl passed swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calHng softly to 
 Tara. The bear followed her, a grotesque, slowly moving 
 hulk, and David waited. He heard the clink of a chain. 
 A moment later she returned to him. 
 
 "There is a light in Hauck's room," she said. "His 
 council room, he calls it — where he makes bargains. I 
 hope they are both there, Sahewawin — ^both Hauck and 
 Brokaw." She seized his hand, and held it tightly as she 
 led him deeper into darkness. "I wonder why so many 
 of the Indians are in? I did not know they were coming. 
 It is the wrong time of year for — ^a crowd like that!" 
 
228 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONEj 
 
 He felt the quiver in her voice. She was quite excited, 
 he knew. And yet not about the Indians, nor the strange- 
 ness of their presence. It was her triumph that made her 
 tremble in the darkness, a wonderful anticipation of the 
 greatest event that had ever happened in her life. She 
 hoped that Hauck and Brokaw were in that room! She 
 would confront them there, with him. That was it. She 
 felt her bondage — ^her prisonment — ^in this savage place 
 was ended; and she was eager to find them, and let them 
 know that she was no longer afraid, or alone — ^no longer 
 need obey or fear them. He felt the thrill of it in the hot, 
 fierce Httle clasp of her hand. He saw it glowing in her 
 eyes when they passed through the Ught of a wiudow. 
 Then they turned again, at the back of the building. 
 They paused at a door. Not a ray of light broke the 
 gloom here. The stars seemed to make the blackness 
 deeper. Her fingers tightened. 
 
 " You must be careful," he said. ** And — remember.'*' 
 
 "I wiU," she whispered. 
 
 It was his last warning. The door opened slowly, with 
 a creaking sound, and they entered into a long, gloomy 
 hall, illumined by a single oil lamp that sputtered and 
 smoked in its bracket on one of the walls. The hall gave 
 him an idea of the immensity of the buildiug. From the 
 far end of it, through a partly open door, came a reek of 
 tobacco smoke, and loud voices — a burst of coarse laughter, 
 a sudden volley of curses that died away in a still louder 
 roar of merriment. Some one closed the door from within. 
 The girl was staring toward the end of the hall, and 
 shuddering. 
 
 "That is the way it has been — growing worse and worse 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 229 
 
 since Nisikoos died," she said. "In there the white men 
 who come down from the north, drink, and gamble, and 
 quarrel. They are always quarrelling. This room is ours 
 — Nisikoos' and mine." She touched with her hand a 
 door near which they were standing. Then she pointed 
 to another. There were half a dozen doors up and down 
 the hall. "And that is Hauck's." 
 
 He threw off his pack, placed it on the floor, with his 
 rifle across it. When he straightened, the girl was listening 
 at the door of Hauck's room. Beckoning to him she 
 knocked on it lightly, and then opened it. David entered 
 close behind her. It was a rather large room — ^his one 
 impression as he crossed the threshold. In the centre of it 
 was a table, and over the table hung an oil lamp with a 
 tin reflector. In the light of this lamp sat two men. In 
 his first glance he made up his mind which was Hauck 
 and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who 
 was facing them as they entered — a man he could hate even 
 if he had never heard of him before. Big. Loose-shoul- 
 dered. A carnivorous-looking giant with a mottled, red- 
 dish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery 
 stare in them. Apparently the girl's knock had not been 
 heard, for it was a moment before the other man swung 
 slowly about in his chair so that he could see them. That 
 was Hauck. David knew it. He was almost a half 
 smaller than the other, with round, bullish shoulders, a 
 thick neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible 
 cruelty. He popped half out of his seat when he saw the 
 girl, and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a 
 snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was 
 Brokaw's face that held David's eyes. He was two thirds 
 
230 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 drunk. There was no doubt about it, if he was any sort of 
 Judge of that kind of imbecility. One of his thick, huge 
 hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck had evidently been 
 reading him something out of a ledger, a Post ledger, which 
 he held now in one hand. David was surprised at the 
 quiet and unemotional way in which the girl began speak- 
 ing. She said that she had wandered over into the other 
 vaUey and was lost when this stranger found her. He had 
 been good to her, and was on his way to the settlement 
 on the coast. His name was ... * 
 
 She got no further than that. Brokaw had taken his 
 devouring gaze from her and was staring at David. He 
 lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned over the table, a 
 new sort of surprise in his heavy coimtenance. He 
 stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow. 
 
 "McKenna!" 
 
 He was speaking directly at David — calling him by 
 name. There was as little doubt of that as of his drunken- 
 ness. There was also an unmistakable note of fellowship 
 in his voice. McKenna! David opened his mouth to 
 correct him when a second thought occurred to him in a 
 mildly inspirational way. Why not McKenna? The 
 girl was looking at him, a bit surprised, questioning him in 
 the directness of her gaze. He nodded, and smiled at 
 Brokaw. The giant came around the table, still holding 
 out his big, red hand. 
 
 "Mac! God! You don't mean to say you've for- 
 gotten . . ." 
 
 David took the hand. 
 
 "Brokaw!" he chanced. 
 
 The other's hand was as cold as a piece of beef. But it 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 231 
 
 possessed a crushing strength. Hauck was staring from 
 one to the other, and suddenly Brokaw turned to him, still 
 pumping David's hand. 
 
 "McKenna — that young devil of Kicking Horse, 
 Hauck! YouVe heard me speak of him. McKenna 
 
 The girl had backed to the door. She was pale. Her 
 eyes were shining, and she was looking straight at David 
 when Brokaw released his hand. 
 
 "Good-night, Sdkewawin 1" she said. 
 
 It was very distinct, that word — Sakewavnn I David 
 had never heard it come quite so clearly from her lips. 
 There was something of defiance and pride in her utter- 
 ance of it — and intentional and decisive emphasis to it. 
 She smiled at him as she went through the door, 
 and in that same breath Hauck had followed her. 
 They disappeared. When David turned he found Brokaw 
 backed against the table, his hands gripping the edge of it, 
 his face distorted by passion. It was a terrible face to 
 look into — to stand before, alone in that room — a face 
 filled with menace and murder. So sudden had been the 
 change in it that David was stunned for a moment. In 
 that space of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither uttered 
 a sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward, his great 
 hands clenched, and demanded in a hissing voice: 
 
 "What did she mean when she called you that — 
 Sakewamin ? What did she mean?** 
 
 It was not now the voice of a drunken man, but the 
 voice of a man ready to kill. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 5AKEWAWINI What did she mean when she 
 called you that?" 
 It was Brokaw's voice again, turning the words 
 round but repeating them. He made a step toward David, 
 his hands clenched more tightly and his whole hulk growing 
 tense. His eyes, blazing as if through a very thin film of 
 water — ^water that seemed to cling there by some strange 
 magic — ^were horrible, David thought. Sahewawin I A 
 pretty name for himself, he had told the girl — and here it 
 was raising the very devil with this drink-bloated colos- 
 sus. He guessed quickly. It was decidedly a matter of 
 guessing quickly and of making prompt and satisfactory 
 explanation — or, a throttling where he stood. His mind 
 worked like a race-horse. "Sakewawin" meant some- 
 thing that had enraged Brokaw. A jealous rage. A rage 
 that had filled his aqueous eyes with a lurid glare. So 
 David said, looking into them calmly, and with a little 
 feigned surprise: 
 
 ** Wasn't she speaking to you, Brokaw?" 
 
 It was a splendid shot. David scarcely knew why he 
 made it, except that he was moved by a powerful impulse 
 which just now he had not time to analyze. It was this 
 same impulse that had kept him from revealing himself 
 when Brokaw had mistaken him for someone else. Chance 
 had thrown a course of action into his way and he had ac- 
 
 £32 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 233 
 
 cepted it almost involuntarily. It had suddenly occurred 
 to him that he would give much to be alone with this half- 
 drunken man for a few hours — ^as McKenna. He might 
 last long enough in that disguise to discover things. But 
 not with Hauck watching him, for Hauck was four fifths 
 sober, and there was a depth to his cruel eyes which he did 
 not like. He watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. 
 The tenseness left his body, his hands unclenched slowly, 
 his heavy jaw relaxed — and David laughed softly. He 
 felt that he was out of deep water now. This fellow, half 
 fiUed with drink, was wonderfully credulous. And he was 
 sure that his watery eyes could not see very weU, though 
 his ears had heard distinctly. 
 
 "She was looking at you, Brokaw — straight at you — ; 
 when she said good-night,** he added. 
 
 "You siu-e — sure she said it to me, Mac?" 
 
 David nodded, even as his blood ran a little cold. 
 
 A leering grin of joy spread over Brokaw*s face. 
 
 "The— the Httle devil!" he said, gloatingly. 
 
 "What does it mean?" David asked. "Sakewaiein — 
 I had never heard it.'* He lied calmly, turning his head a 
 bit out of the light. 
 
 Brokaw stared at him a moment before answering. 
 
 "When a girl says that — ^it means — she belongs to you^* 
 he said. "In Indian it means — 'possession! Dam' . • . 
 of course you're right! She said it to me. She's mine. 
 She belongs to me. I own her. ' And I thought . . ." 
 
 He caught up the bottle and turned out half a glass of 
 liquor, swaying unsteadily: ^ 
 
 "Drink, Mac?'* 
 
 David shook his head. 
 
^34 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Not now. Let's go to your shack if you've got one* 
 Lots to talk about — old times — Kicking Horse, you know. 
 And this girl? I can't believe it! If it's true, you're a 
 lucky dog." 
 
 He was not thinking of consequences — of to-morrow. 
 To-night was all he asked for — alone with Brokaw. That 
 mountain of flesh, stupefied with Uquor, was no match for 
 him now. To-morrow he miglit hold the whip hand, if 
 Hauck did not return too soon. 
 
 "Lucky dog! Lucky dog!" He kept repeating that. 
 It was hke music in Brokaw's ears. And such a girl! An 
 angel! He couldn't believe it! Brokaw's face was like a 
 red fire in his exultation, his lustful joy, his great triumph. 
 He drank the liquor he had proffered David, and drank a 
 second time, rumbling in his thick chest like some kind of 
 animal. Of course she was an angel! Hadn't he, and 
 Hauck, and that woman who had died, made her grow into 
 an angel — ^just for him? She belonged to him. Always 
 had belonged to him, and he had waited a long time. If 
 she had ever called any other man that name — Sakewawin 
 — ^he would have killed him. Certain. Killed hrm dead. 
 This was the first time she had ever called him that. 
 Lucky dog? You bet he was. They'd go to his shack — 
 and talk. He drank a third time. He rolled heavily as 
 they entered the hall, David praying that they would not 
 meet Hauck. He had his victim. He was sure of him. 
 And the hall was empty. He picked up his gun and pack, 
 and held to Brokaw's arm as they went out into the night. 
 Brokaw staggered guidingly into a wall of darkness, talking 
 thickly about lucky dogs. They had gone perhaps a hun- 
 dred paces when he stopped suddenly, very close to some- 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 235 
 
 thing that looked to David Hke a section of tall fence 
 built of small trees. It was the cage. He jumped at that 
 conclusion before he could see it clearly in the clouded 
 starUght. From it there came a growling rumble, a deep 
 breath that was like air escaping from a pair of bellows, and 
 he saw faintly a huge, motionless shape beyond the 
 stripped and upright sapling trunks. 
 
 "Grizzly," said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on an 
 even balance. "Big bear-fight to-morrow, Mac. My 
 bear — ^her bear — a great fight! Everybody in to see it. 
 Nothing like a bear-fight, eh? S'prise her, won't it — 
 pretty little wench ! When she sees her bear fighting mine? 
 Betchu hundred dollars my bear kills Tara!" 
 
 "To-morrow," said David. "I'll bet to-morrow. 
 Where's the shack?" 
 
 He was anxious to reach that, and he hoped it was a 
 good distance away. He feared every moment that he 
 would hear Hauck's voice or his footsteps behind them, and 
 he knew that Hauck's presence would spoil everything. 
 Brokaw, in his cups, was talkative — almost garrulous. 
 Aheady he had explained the mystery of the cage, and the 
 Indians. The big fight was to take place in the cage, and 
 the Indians had come in to see it. He found himself 
 wondering, as they went through the darkness, how it had 
 all been kept from the girl, and why Brokaw should dc- 
 Kberately lower himseK still more in her esteem by allowing 
 the combat to occur. He asked him about it when they 
 entered the shack to which Brokaw guided him, and after 
 they had lighted a lamp. It was a small, gloomy, whisky- 
 smelling place. Brokaw went directly to a box nailed 
 against the wall and returned with a quart flask that re- 
 
236 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 sembled an army caHteen, and two tin cups. He sat 
 down at a small table, his bloated, red face in the light of 
 the lamp, that queer animal-like rumbling in his throat, as 
 he turned out the Hquor. David had heard porcupines 
 make something Uke the same sound. He pulled his hat 
 lower over his eyes to hide the gleam of them as Brokaw 
 told him what he and Hauck had planned. The bear in 
 the cage belonged to him — ^Brokaw. A big brute. Fierce. 
 A fighter. Hauck and he were going to bet on his bear 
 because it would surely kill Tara. Make a big clean-up, 
 they would. Tara was soft. Too easy Hving. And they 
 needed money because those scoundrels over on the coast 
 had failed to get in enough whisky for their trade. The 
 girl had almost spoiled their plans by going away with 
 Tara. And he — ^Mac — was a devil of a good fellow for 
 bringing her back! They'd puU off the fight to-morrow. 
 If the girl — ^that Uttle bird^devil that belonged to him— 
 didn't Uke it . . . 
 
 He brought the canteen down with a bang, and shoved 
 one of the cups across to David. 
 
 "Of course, she belongs to you," said David, encourag- 
 ingly* "but — confound you — ^I can't beUeve it, you old 
 dog! I can't believe it!" He leaned over and gave 
 Brokaw a jocular slap, forcing a laugh out of himself. 
 "She's too pretty for you. Prettiest kid I ever saw! 
 How did it happen? Eh? You — lucJcy — dog ! " 
 
 He was fairly trembling as he saw the red fire of satisfac- 
 tion, of gloating pleasure, deepen in Brokaw's face. ' 
 
 "She hasn't belonged to you very long, eh? " 
 
 "Long time, long time," replied Brokaw, pausing with 
 his cup half way to his mouth. " Years aga" 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 237 
 
 Suddenly he lowered the cup so forcefully that half 
 the liquor in it was spilled over the table. He thrust his 
 huge shoulders and red face toward David, and in an 
 instant there was a snarl on his thick lips. 
 
 "Hauck said she didn't," he growled. "What do you 
 think of that, Mac? — said she didn't belong to me any 
 more, an' I'd have to pay for her keep! Gawd, I did. I 
 gave him a lot of gold!" 
 
 "You were a fool," said David, trying to choke back his 
 eagerness. "A fool ! " 
 
 "I should have killed him, shouldn't I, Mac — Skilled 
 him an' took her? " cried Brokaw huskily, his passion rising 
 as he knotted his huge fists on the table. "Killed him 
 like you killed the Breed for that long-haired she-devU 
 over at Copper CHff!" 
 
 "I — don't — ^know," said David, slowly, praying that 
 he might not say the wrong thing now. "I don't know 
 what claim you had on her, Brokaw. K I knew . . ." 
 
 He waited. Brokaw did not seem altogether like a 
 drunken man now, and for a moment he feared that dis- 
 covery had come. He leaned over the table. The watery 
 film seemed to drop from his eyes for an instant and his 
 teeth gleamed wolfishly. David was glad the lamp chim- 
 ney was black with soot, and that the rim of his hat sha- 
 dowed his face, for it seemed to him that Brokaw's vision 
 had grown suddenly better. 
 
 "I should have killed him, an' took* her,*' repeated 
 Brokaw, his voice heavy with passion. "I should have 
 had her long ago, but Hauck's woman kept her from me. 
 She's been mine all along, ever since . ^ -- •'I, His mind 
 seemed to lag. He drew his hulking shoulders back 
 
238 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE 
 
 slowly. "But I'll have her tomorrow," he mumbled, 
 as if he had suddenly forgotten David and was talking to 
 himself. "To-morrow. Next day we'll start north. 
 Hauck can't say anything now. I've paid him. She's 
 mine — mine now — to-night! By . . ." 
 
 David shuddered at what he saw in the brute's revolting 
 face. It was the dawning of a sudden, terrible idea. To- 
 night! It blazed there in his eyes, grown watery again. 
 Quickly David turned out more liquor, and thrust one of 
 the cups into Brokaw's hand. The giant drank. His 
 body sank into piggish laxness. For a moment the danger 
 was past. David knew that time was precious. He must 
 force his hand. 
 
 "And if Hauck troubles you," he cried, striking the 
 table a blow with his fist, "I'll help you settle for him, 
 Brokaw! I'll do it for old time's sake. I'll do to him 
 what I did to the Breed. The girl's yours. She's be- 
 longed to you for a long time, eh? Tell me about it, 
 Brokaw — tell me before Hauck comes ! " 
 
 Could he never make that bloated fiend tell him what 
 he wanted to know.'' Brokaw stared at him stupidly, 
 and then all at once he started, as if some one had pricked 
 him into consciousness, and a slow grin began to spread 
 over his face. It was a reminiscent, horrible sort of leer, 
 not a smile — the expression of a man who gloats over a 
 revolting and unspeakable thing. 
 
 "She's mine — been mine ever since she was a baby," he 
 confided, leaning again over the table. "Good friend, 
 give her to me, Mac — good friend but a dam' fool," he 
 chuckled. He rubbed his huge hands together and turned 
 out more liquor. "Dam' fool!" he repeated. "Any 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 289 
 
 man's a dam* fool to turn down a pretty woman, eh, Mac? 
 An' she was pretty, he says. My girl's mother, you know. 
 She must have been pretty. It was off there — ^in the bush 
 country — years ago. The kid you brought in to-day was a 
 baby then — alone with her mother. Ho, ho! deuced easy 
 ' — deuced easy! But he was a dam' fool!" 
 
 He drank with incredible slowness, it seemed to David. 
 It was torture to watch him, with the fear, every instant, 
 that Hauck would come. 
 
 "What happened.''" he urged. 
 
 "Bucky — my friend — ^in love with that woman, O'- 
 Doone's wife," resumed Brokaw. "Dead crazy, Mac. 
 Crazier'n you were over the Breed's woman, only he 
 didn't have the nerve. Just moped around — ^waiting — 
 keeping out of O'Doone's way. Trapper, O'Doone was — 
 or a Company runner. Forgot which. Anyway he went 
 on a long trip, in winter, and got laid up with a broken leg 
 long way from home. Wife and baby alone, an' Bucky 
 sneaked up one day and found the woman sick with fever. 
 Out of her head! Dead out, Bucky says — an' my G«,wd! 
 If she didn't think he was her husband come back! That 
 easy, Mac — an' he lacked the nerve! Crazy in love with 
 her, he was, an' didn't dare play the part. Told me it was 
 conscience. Bah! it wasn't. He was afraid. Scared- 
 A fool. Then he said the fever must have touched him. 
 Ho, ho! it was funny. He was a scared fool. Wish Fd 
 been there, Mac; wish I had!" 
 
 His eyes half closed, gleaming in narrow, shining slits. 
 His chin dropped on his chest. David prodded him on. 
 
 "Bucky got her to run away with him," continued 
 Brokaw. "Her and the kid, while she was still out of her 
 
340 THE COURAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE , 
 
 Head. Bucky even got her to write a note, he said, telling 
 O'Doone she was sick of him an' was running away with 
 another man. Bucky didn't give his own name, of course. 
 An' the woman didn't know what she was doing. They 
 started west with the kid, and all the time Bucky was 
 afraid I He dragged the woman on a sledge, and snow 
 covered their trail. He hid in a cabin a hundred miles from 
 O'Doone's, an' it was there the woman come to her senses. 
 Gawd! it must have been exciting! Bucky says she was 
 like a mad woman, and that she ran screeching out into 
 the night, leaving the kid with him. He followed but 
 he couldn't find her. He waited, but she never came back. 
 A snow storm covered her trail. Then Bucky says he 
 went mad — ^the fool! He waited till spring, keeping that 
 kid, and then he made up his mind to get it back to Papa 
 O'Doone in some way. He sneaked back where the cabin 
 had been, and found nothing but char there. It had been 
 burned. Oh, the devil, but it was funny! And after all 
 this trouble he hadn't dared to take O'Doone's place with 
 the woman. Conscience? Bah! He was a fool. You 
 don't get a pretty woman like that very often, eh, Mac?" 
 Unsteadily he tilted the flask to turn himself out another 
 drink. His voice was thickening. David rejoiced when 
 he saw that the flask was empty. 
 
 "Dam'!" said Brokaw, shaking it. 
 
 "Go on," insisted David. "You haven't told me how 
 you came by the girl, Brokaw?" 
 
 The watery film was growing thicker over Brokaw's 
 eyes. He brought himself back to his story with an ap- 
 parent effort. 
 
 "Came west, Bucky did — ^with the kid," he went oiu 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE 0*DGONE «41 
 
 ** Struck my cabin, on the Mackenzie, a year later. Told 
 me all about it. Then one day he sneaked away and left 
 her with me, begging me to put her where she'd be safe. I 
 did. Gave her to Hauck's woman, and told her Bucky's 
 story. Later, Hauck came over here and built this place. 
 Three years ago I come down from the Yukon, and saw the 
 kid. Pretty? Gawd, she was! Almost a woman. And 
 she was mine. I told 'em so. Mebby the woman would 
 have cheated me, but I had Hauck on the hip because I 
 saw him kill a man when he was drunk — a white man from 
 Fort Mac Pherson. Helped him hide the body. And then — 
 oh, it was funny ! — ^I ran across Bucky ! He was living in a 
 shack a dozen miles from here, an' he didn't know Marge 
 was the O'Doone baby. I told him a big lie — told him 
 the kid died, an' that I'd heard the woman had killed 
 herself, and that O'Doone was in a lunatic asylum. Mebby 
 he did have a conscience, the fool! Guess he was a little 
 crazy himself. Went away soon after that. Never 
 heard of him since. An* I've been hanging round until 
 the girl was old enough to live with a man. Ain't 
 I done right, Mac? Don't she belong to me? An' to- 
 morrow . . ." 
 
 His head rolled. He recovered himself with an effort, 
 and leaned heavily against the table. His face was almost 
 barren of human expression. It was the face of a monster, 
 imlighted by reason, stripped of mind and soul. And 
 David, glaring into it across the table, questioned him 
 once more, even as he heard the crunch of footsteps out- 
 side, and knew that Hauck was coming — coming in all 
 probability to immask him in the part he had played. 
 But Hauck was too late. He was ready to fight now, and 
 
842 THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 as he held himself prepared for the struggle he asked that 
 question. 
 
 "And this man — Bucky; what was his other name, 
 Brokaw?" 
 
 Brokaw's thick lips moved, and then came kis voice, 
 in a husky whisper; 
 
 "Tavish!" 
 
CHAPTER XXn 
 
 THE next instant Hauck was at the open door. He 
 did not cross the threshold at once, but stood there 
 for perhaps twenty seconds — his gray, hard face 
 looking in on them with eyes in which there was a cold 
 and sinister glitter. Brokaw, with the fumes of liquoi 
 thick in his brain, tried to nod an invitation for him to 
 enter; his head rolled grotesquely and his voice was a croak. 
 David rose slowly to his feet, thrusting back his chair. 
 From contemplating Brokaw's sagging body, Hauck*s eyes 
 were levelled at him. And then his Hps parted. One would 
 not have called it a smile. It revealed to David a deadly 
 animosity which the man was trying to hide under the dis^ 
 guise oi that grin, and he knew that Hauck had dis- 
 covered that he was not McKenna. Swiftly David shot a 
 glance at Brokaw. The giant's head and shoulders lay 
 on the table, and he made a sudden daring effort to save a 
 little more time for himself. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said. "He's terribly dnmk." 
 
 Hauck nodded his head — ^he kept nodding it, that 
 cold glitter in his eyes, the steady, insinuating grin 
 still there. 
 
 "Yes, he's drunk," he said, his voice as hard as a rock. 
 ** Better come to the house. I've got a room for you. 
 There's only one bunk in here — ^McKenna." 
 
 He dragged out the name slowly, a bit tauntin^y it 
 
 243 
 
244 THE COURAGE OF MABGE 01XX)NE 
 
 seemed to David. And David laughed. Might as well 
 play his last card well, he thought. 
 
 "My name isn*t McKenna," he said. "It's David 
 Raine. He made a mistake, and he's so drunk I haven't 
 been able to explain." 
 
 Without answering, Hauck backed out of the door. It 
 was an invitation for David to follow. Again he carried 
 his pack and gun with him through the darkness, and 
 Hauck uttered not a word as they returned to the Nest. 
 The night was brighter now, and David could see Baree 
 close at his heels, following him as silently as a shadow. 
 The dog slunk out of sight when they came to the building. 
 They did not enter from the rear this time. Hauck led 
 the way to a door that opened into the big room from which 
 had come the sound of cursing and laughter a little before. 
 There were ten or a dozen men in that room, all white men, 
 and, upon entering, David was moved by a sudden sus- 
 picion that they were expecting him — that Hauck had 
 prepared them for his appearance. There was no liquor in 
 sight. If there had been bottles and glasses on the tables, 
 they had been cleared away — ^but no one had thought to 
 wipe away certain liquid stains that David saw shim- 
 mering wetly in the glow of the three big lamps hanging 
 from the ceiling. He looked the men over quickly as he 
 followed the free trader. Never, he thought, had he seen a 
 rougher or more unpleasant-looking lot. He caught more 
 than one eye filled with the glittering menace he had seen 
 in Hauck's. Not a man nodded at him, or spoke to him. 
 He passed close to one raw-boned individual, so close that 
 he brushed against him, and there was an unconcealed 
 and threatening animosity in this man's face as he glared 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE OTX)ONE 245 
 
 up at him. By the time he had passed through the room 
 his suspicion had become a conviction. Hauck had pur- 
 posely put him on parade, and there was a deep and sinister 
 significance in the attitude of these men. 
 
 They passed through the hall into which he and Marge 
 had entered from the opposite side of the Nest, and Hauck 
 paused at the door of a room almost opposite to the one 
 which the girl had said belonged to her. 
 . "This will be your room while you are our guest," he 
 said. The glitter in his eyes softened as he nodded at 
 David. He tried to speak a bit affably, but David felt 
 that his effort was rather unsuccessful. It failed to cover 
 the hard note in his voice and the curious twitch of his 
 upper lip — a snarl almost — as he forced a smile. "Make 
 yourself at home," he added. "We'll have breakfast in 
 the morning with my niece." He paused for a moment 
 and then said, looking keenly at David: "I suppose you 
 tried hard to make Brokaw understand he had made a 
 mistake, and that you wasn't McKenna? Brokaw is 
 a good fellow when he isn't drunk." 
 
 David was glad that he turned away without waiting 
 for an answer. He did not want to talk with Hauck 
 to-night. He wanted to turn over in his mind what he had 
 learned from Brokaw, and to-morrow act with the cool 
 judgment which was more or less characteristic of him. 
 He did not believe even now that there would be any- 
 thing melodramatic in the outcome of the affair. There 
 would be an impleasantness, of course; but when both 
 Hauck and Brokaw were confronted with a certain situa- 
 tion, and with the peculiarly significant facts which he now 
 held in his possession, he could not see how they would 
 
£46 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 be able to place any very great obstacle in the way of hw 
 determination to take Marge from the Nest. He did not 
 think of personal harm to himself, and as he entered his 
 room, where a lamp had been Hghted for him, his mind 
 had already begun to work on a plan of action. He would 
 compromise with them. In return for the loss of the girl 
 they should have his promise — ^his oath, if necessary — not 
 to reveal the secret of the traffic in which they were en- 
 gaged, or of that still more important affair between 
 Hauck and the white man from Fort Mac Pherson. He 
 was certain that, in his drunkenness, Brokaw had spoken 
 the truth, no matter what he might deny to-morrow. 
 They would not hazard an investigation, though to lose 
 the girl now, at the very threshold of his exultant realiza- 
 tion, would be like taking the earth from under Brokaw's 
 feet. In spite of the tenseness of the situation David 
 found himself chuckHng with satisfaction. It would be 
 impleasant — very — ^he repeated that assurance to himself; 
 but that self-preservation would be the first law of these 
 rascals he was equally positive, and he began thinking of 
 other things that just now were of more thrilling import 
 to him. 
 
 It was Tavish, then — that half -mad hermit in his mice- 
 infested cabin — ^who had been at the bottom of it all! 
 Tavish! The discovery did not amaze him profoimdly. 
 He had never been able to dissociate Tavish from the pic- 
 ture, unreasoning though he confessed himself to be, and 
 now that his mildly impossible conjectures had suddenly 
 developed into facts, he was not excited. It was another 
 thought — or other thoughts — that stirred him more deeply, 
 and brought a heat into his blood. His mind leaped back 
 
THE COURAGE OF MAUGE O'DOONE 247 
 
 to that scene of years ago, when Marge 0*Doone's mother 
 had run shrieking out in the storm of night to escape 
 Tavish. But she had not died I That was the thought that 
 burned in David's brain now. She had Uved. She had 
 searched for her husband — Michael O'Doone; a half- 
 mad wanderer of the forests at first, she may have been. 
 She had searched for years. And she was still searching 
 for him when he had met her that night on the Trans- 
 continental ! For it was she — Marge 0*Doone, the mother, 
 the wife, into whose dark, haunting eyes he had gazed from 
 out the sunless depths of his own despair! Her mother. 
 Alive. Seeking a Michael O'Doone — seeking — seeking 
 
 He was filled with a great desire to go at once to the 
 Girl and tell her this wonderful new fact that had come 
 into her life, and he found himself suddenly at the door of 
 his room, with his fingers on the latch. Standing there, 
 he shrugged his shoulders, laughing softly at himself as he 
 realized how absurdly sensational he was becoming all 
 at once. To-morrow would be time. He filled and 
 lighted his pipe, and in the whitish fumes of his tobacco he 
 could picture quite easily the gray, dead face of Tavish, 
 hanging at the end ef his meat rack. Pacing restlessly 
 back and forth across his room, he recalled the scenes of 
 that night, and of days and nights that had followed. 
 Brokaw had given him the key that was unlocking door 
 after door. "Guess he was a Httle crazy," Brokaw had 
 said, speaking of Tavish as he had last known him on the 
 Firepan. Crazy! Going mad! And at last he had 
 killed himself. Was it possible that a man of Tavish's 
 sort could be haimted for so long by spectres of the past? 
 
248 THE COURA.GE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 It seemed unreasonable. He thought of Father Roland 
 and of the mysterious room in the Chdteau, where he 
 worshipped at the shrine of a woman and a child who were 
 gone. 
 
 He clenched his hands, and stopped himself. What 
 had leapt into his mind was as startUng to his inner con- 
 sciousness as the imexpected flash of magne^um in a dark 
 room. It was unthinkable — ^impossible; and yet, follow- 
 ing it, he found himself face to face with question after 
 ^question which he made no effort to answer. He was 
 dazed for a moment as if by the terrific impact of a thing 
 which had neither weight nor form. Tavish, the woman, 
 the girl — ^Father Roland! Absurd. He shook himself, 
 literally shook himself, to get rid of that wildly impossible 
 idea. He drove his mind back to the photograph of the 
 girl — ^and the woman. How had she come into possession 
 of the picture which Brokaw had taken? What had 
 Nisikoos tried to say to Marge O'Doone in those last 
 moments when she was dying — ^whispered words which the 
 girl had not heard because she was crying, and her heart 
 was breaking? Did Nisikoos know that the mother was 
 alive? Had she sent the picture to her when she realized 
 that the end of her own time was drawing near? There 
 was something unreasonable in this too, but it was the 
 only solution that came to him. 
 
 He was still pacing his room when the creaking of the 
 door stopped him. It was opening slowly and steadily 
 and apparently with extreme caution. In another 
 moment Marge O'Doone stood inside. He had not seen 
 her face so white before. Her eyes were big and glowing 
 darkly — spools of quivering fear, of wild and imploring 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE |49 
 
 suppBcation. She ran to him, and clung to him with her 
 hands at his shoulders, her face close to his. 
 
 "Sakewatcin — dear Sakewawin — ^we must go; we must 
 hurry — ^to-night ! " 
 
 She was trembling, fairly shivering against him, with 
 one hand touching his face now, and he put his arms about 
 her gently. 
 
 "What is it, child?" he whispered, his heart choking 
 suddenly. " What has happened? " 
 
 " We must run away ! We must hurry ! " 
 
 At the touch of his arms she had relaxed against his 
 breast. The last of her courage seemed gone. She was 
 limp, and terrified, and was looking up at him in such a 
 strange way that he was filled with alarm. 
 
 "I didn't tell him anything," she whispered, as if afraid 
 he would not beHeve her. "I didn't tell him you weren't 
 that man — ^Mac — ^McKenna. He heard you and Brokaw 
 go when you passed my room. Then he went to the men. 
 I followed — and hstened. I heard him teUing them about 
 you — ^that you were a spy — that you belonged to the pro- 
 vincial police ..." 
 
 A sound in the hall interrupted her. She grew suddenly 
 tense in his arms, then sHpped from them and ran noise- 
 lessly to the door. There were shuflSing steps outside, a 
 i|r thick voice growUng imintelligibly. The soimds passed. 
 Marge O'Doone was whiter still when she faced David. 
 
 "Hauck — and Brokaw!" She stood there, with har 
 back to the door. "We must hurry, Sakewawin. We 
 must go — ^to-night!" 
 
 David looked at her. A spy? Police? Quite the first 
 thing for Hauck to suspect, of course. That law of self* 
 
 I 
 
250 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 preservation again — the same law that would compel them 
 to give up the girl to him to-morrow. He found himself 
 smiling at his frightened little companion, backed there 
 against the door, white as death. His calmness did not 
 reassure her. 
 
 "He said — ^you were a spy," she repeated, as if he must 
 understand what that meant. "They wanted to follow 
 you to Brokaw's cabin — ^and — ^and kill you!" 
 
 This was coming to the bottom of her fear with a ven- 
 geance. It sent a mild sort of a shiver through him, and 
 corroborated with rather disturbing emphasis what he had 
 seen in the men*s faces as he passed among them. 
 
 " And Hauck wouldn't let them? Wasthat it? " heasked. 
 
 She nodded, clutching a hand at her throat. 
 
 "He told them to do nothing until he saw Brokaw. He 
 wanted to be certain. And then . . ." 
 
 His amazing and smiling composure seemed to choke 
 back the words on her Ups. 
 
 "You must return to your room. Marge," he said 
 quickly. "Hauck has now seen Brokaw and there will be 
 no trouble such as you fear. I can promise you that. To- 
 morrow we will leave the Nest openly — ^and with Hauck's 
 and Brokaw's permission. But should they find you here 
 now — ^in my room — I am quite sure we should have im- 
 mediate trouble on our hands. IVe a great deal to tell 
 you — much that will make you glad, but I half expect 
 another visit from Hauck, and you must hurry to your 
 room." 
 
 He opened the door slightly, and Kstened. 
 
 "Good-night," he whispered, putting a hand for an 
 instant to her hair. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 251 
 
 "Good night, Sdkewawin,^^ 
 
 She hesitated for just a moment at the door^ and thenj 
 with the faintest sobbing breath, was gone. What won- 
 derful eyes she had! How they had looked at him in that 
 last moment! David's fingers were trembling a little as 
 he locked his door. There was a small mirror on the table 
 and he held it up to look at himself. He regarded his re- 
 flection with grim amusement. He was not beautiful. 
 The scrub of blond beard on his face gave him rather an 
 outlawish appearance. And the gray hair over his temples 
 had grown quite conspicuous of late, quite conspicuous 
 indeed. Heredity? Perhaps — but it was confoundedly 
 remindful of the fact that he was thirty-eight! 
 
 He went to bed, after placing the table against the door, 
 and his automatic under his pillow — absurd and unneces- 
 sary details of caution, he assured himself. And while 
 Marge O'Doone sat awake close to the door of her room 
 all night, with a little rifle that had belonged to Nisikoos 
 across her lap, David slept soundly in the amazing con- 
 fidence and philosopher of that perilous age — thirty-eight 1 
 
CHAPTER XXm 
 
 A SERIES of sounds that came to him at first like thft 
 booming of distant cannon roused David from his 
 slumber. He awoke to find broad day in his room 
 and a Ipiocking at his door. He began to dress, calling out 
 that he would open it in a moment, and was careful to 
 place the automatic in his pocket before he lifted the table 
 without a sound to its former position in the room. When 
 lie flimg open the door he was surprised to find Brokaw 
 standing there instead of Hauck. It was not the Brokaw 
 of last night. A few hours had produced a remarkabk 
 change in the man. One would not have thought that he 
 had been recently drunk. He was grinning and holding 
 out one of his huge hands as he looked into David's face. 
 • "Morning, Raine," he greeted affably. "Hauck sent 
 me to wake you up for the fun. You've got just time to 
 swallow your breakfast before we put on the big scrap — ■ 
 the scrap I told you about last night, when I was drunk. 
 Head-over-heels drunk, wasn't I? Took you for a friend 
 I knew. Funny. You don't look a dam' bit like him!" 
 David shook hands with him. In his first astonishment 
 Brokaw's manner appeared to him to be quite sincere, and 
 Lis voice to be filled with apology. This impression was gone 
 before he had dropped his hand, and he knew why Hauck's 
 partner had come. It was to get a good look at him — ^to 
 make sure that he was not McKenna; and it was also with 
 
 25(2 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE 0*DOONE 253 
 
 the strategic purpose of removing whatever suspicioMf 
 David might have by an outward show of friendship. For 
 this last bit of work Brokaw was crudely out of place 
 His eyes, like a bad dog's, could not conceal what lay be- 
 hind them — ^hatred, a deep and intense desire to grip the 
 throat of this man who had tricked him; and his grin was 
 forced, with a subdued sort of malevolence about it. 
 David smiled back. 
 
 "You were drunk," he said. "I had a deuce of a time 
 trying to make you understand that I wasn't McKenna." 
 
 That amazing he seemed for a moment to daze Brokaw. 
 David realized the audacity of it, and knew that Brokaw 
 would remember too well what had happened to believe 
 him. Its effect was what he was after, and if he had had a 
 doubt as to the motive of the other's visit that doubt dis- 
 appeared almost as quickly as he had spoken. The grin 
 went out of Brokaw's face, his jaws tightened, the red 
 came nearer to the surface in the bloodshot eyes. As 
 plainly as if he were giving voice to his thought he was 
 saying: "You he!" But he kept back the words, and as 
 David noted carelessly the slow clenching and unclenching 
 of his hands, he beHeved that Hauck was not very far 
 away, and that it was his warning and the fact that he was 
 possibly Ustening to them, that restrained Brokaw from 
 betraying himself completely. As it was, the grin returned 
 slowly into his face. 
 
 "Hauck says he's sorry he couldn't have breakfast with 
 you," he said. "Couldn't wait any longer. The Indian's 
 going to bring your breakfast here. You'd better hurry 
 if you want to see the fun." 
 
 With this he turned and walked heavily toward the 
 
254 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 end of the ball. David glanced across at the door of 
 Marge's room. It was elosed. TbiexL he looked at his 
 watch. It was almost nine o'clock! He felt Hke swearing 
 as he thought of what he had missed — ^that breakfast with 
 Hauck and the Girl. He would imdoubtedly have had an 
 opportunity of seeing Hauck alone for a Uttle while — a 
 quarter of an hour would have been enough; or he could 
 have settled the whole matter in Marge's presence. He 
 wondered where she was now. In her room? 
 
 Approaching footsteps caused him to draw back deeper 
 into his own and a moment later his promised breakfast 
 appeared, carried on a big Company keyakun, by an old 
 Indian woman — undoubtedly the woman that Marge 
 had told him about. She placed the huge plate on his 
 table and withdrew without either looking at him or utter- 
 it^ a sound. He ate hurriedly, and finished dressing him- 
 «^ after that. It was a quarter after nine when he went 
 into the hall. In passing Marge's door he knocked. 
 Th^^ came no response from within. He turned and 
 passed through the big room in which he had seen so many 
 unfriendly faces the night before. It was empty now. 
 Hie. stillness of the place began to fill him with uneasiness, 
 and he hurried out into the day. A low tumult of sound 
 was in the air, unintelhgible and yet thrilling. A dozen 
 steps brought him to the end of the building and he looked 
 toward the cage. For a space after that he spood without 
 moving, filled with a sudden, sickening horror as he reahzed 
 his helplessness in this moment. If he had not overslept, 
 if he had talked with Hauck, he might have prevented this 
 monstrous thing that was happening — ^he might have 
 demanded that T^:a be a part of their bargain. It was 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE ^5 
 
 too late now. An excited and yet strangely quiet crowd 
 was gathered about the cage — a crowd so tense and mo- 
 tionless that he knew the battle was on. A low, growling 
 roar came to him, and again he heard that tumult of 
 human voices, Uke a great gasp rising spontaneously out of 
 half a hundred throats, and in response to the sound he 
 gave a sudden cry of rage. Tara was aheady battUng 
 for his life — Tara, that great, big-souled brute who had 
 learned to follow his little mistress Uke a protecting dog, 
 and who had accepted him as a friend — Tara, grown soft 
 and lazy and unwarhke because of his voluntary slavery, 
 had been offered to the sacrifice which Brokaw had told 
 him was inevitable ! 
 
 And the Girl! Where was she? He was unconscious 
 of the fact that his hand was gripping hard at the automatic 
 in his pocket. For a space his brain burned red, seething 
 with a physical passion, a consuming anger which, in all 
 his life, had never been roused so terrifically within him. 
 He rushed forward and took his place in the thin circle of 
 watching men. He did not look at their faces. He did 
 not know whether he stood next to white men or Indians. 
 He did not see the blaze in their eyes, the joyous trembling 
 of their bodies, their silent, savage exultation in the 
 spectacle. 
 
 He was looking at the cage. 
 
 It was 20 feet square — ^built of small trees almost a foot 
 in diameter, with 18-inch spaces between — and out of it 
 came a sickening, grinding smash of jaws. The two beasts 
 were down, a ton of flesh and bone, in what seemed to him 
 to be a death embrace. For a moment he could not tell 
 which was Tara and which was Brokaw's grizzly. They 
 
^5Q THE COUKAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 separated in that same breath, gained their feet, and 
 stood facing each other. They must have been fighting f oi 
 some minutes. Tara's jaws were foaming with blood 
 and out of the throat of Brokaw's bear there rolled a 
 rumbling, snarling roar that was like the deep-chested 
 bellow of an angry bulL With that roar they came to- 
 gether again, Tara waiting stoBdly and with panting 
 sides for the rush of his enemy. It was hard for David 
 to see what was happening in that twisting contortioF 
 of huge bodies, but as they rolled heavily to one side 
 he saw a great red splash of blood where they had lain* 
 It looked as if some one had poured it there out of a 
 pail. 
 
 Suddenly a hand fell on his shoulder. He looked round. 
 Brokaw was leering at him. 
 
 "Great scrap, eh?" 
 
 There was a look in his red face that revealed the pitiless 
 savagery of a cat. David's clenched hand was as hard as 
 iron and his brain was filled with a wild desire to strike. 
 He fought to hold himself in. 
 
 " Where is — the Girl? " he demanded. 
 
 Brokaw's face revealed his hatred now, the taunting 
 triimaph of his power over this man who was a spy. He 
 bared his yellow teeth in an exultant grin. 
 
 "Tricked her," he snarled. "Tricked her — ^like you 
 tricked me! Got the Indian woman to steal her clothes, 
 an' she's up there in her room — ^alone — an' naked! An' 
 she won't have any clothes until I say so, for she's mine — 
 body and soul . . ." 
 
 David's clenched hand shot out, and in his blow was 
 not alone the cumulated force of ail his years of training 
 
THE COUKAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 257 
 
 but also of the one great impulse he had ever had to kill. 
 In that instant he wanted to strike a man dead — a red- 
 visaged monster, a fiend; and his blow sent Brokaw's huge 
 body reeling backward, his head twisted as if his neck 
 had been broken. He had not time to see what hap- 
 pened after that blow. He did not see Brokaw fall. A 
 piercing interruption — a scream that startled every drop 
 of blood in his body — ^turned him toward the cage. Ten 
 paces from him, standing at the inner edge of that circle 
 of astounded and petrified men, was the Girl! At first 
 he thought she was staiading naked there — naked under the 
 staring eyes of the fiends about him. Her white arms 
 gleamed bare, her shoulders and breast were bare, hei 
 s(iim, satiny body was naked to the waist, about which she 
 had drawn tightly — ^as if in a wild panic of haste — an old 
 and ragged skirt! It was the Indian woman's skirt. He 
 oiught the ghtter of beads on it, and for a moment he 
 siiared with the others, unable to move or cry out her name. 
 And then a breath of wind flung back her hair and he saw 
 her face the colour of marble. She was like a piece of 
 glistening statuary, without a quiver of life that his eyes 
 could see, without a movement, without a breath. Only 
 her hair moved, stirred by the air, flooded by the sun, 
 floating about her shoulders and down her bare back in a 
 lucent cloud of red and gold fires — ^and out of this she was 
 staring at the cage, stunned into that lifeless and un- 
 breathing posture of horror by what she saw. David did 
 Bot follow her eyes. He heard the growl and roar and 
 clashing jaws of the fighting beasts; they were down again; 
 one of the 6-inch trees that formed the bars of the cage 
 snapped like a walking stick as their great bodies lurched 
 
258 THE COUEAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 
 
 against it; the earth shook, the very air seemed to tremble 
 with the terrific force of the struggle— and only the Girl 
 was looking at that struggle. Every eye was on her now, 
 and David sprang suddenly forth from the circle of men, 
 calling her name. 
 
 Ten paces separated them; half that distance lay be- 
 tween the Girl and the cage. With the swiftness of an 
 arrow sprung from the bow she had leaped into life and 
 crossed that space. In a tenth part of a second David 
 would have been at her side. He was that tenth of a 
 second too late. A gleaming shaft, i^e had passed between 
 the bars and a tumult of horrified voices rose above the 
 roar of battle as the girl sprang at the beasts with her naked 
 hands. 
 
 Her voice came to David in a scream. 
 
 "Tara— Tara— Tara " 
 
 His brain reeled when he saw her down — down! — ^with 
 her little fists pummeUing at a great, shaggy head; and in 
 him there was the sickening weakness of a drunken man as 
 he squeezed through that 18-inch aperture and almost fell 
 at her side. He did not know that he had drawn his auto- 
 matic; he scarcely realized that as fast as his fingers could 
 press the trigger he was firing shot after shot, with the 
 muzzle of his pistol so close to the head of Tara*s enemy 
 that the reports of the weapon were deadened as if muffled 
 under a thick blanket. It was a heavy weapon. A 
 stream of lead burned its way into the grizzly's brain. 
 There were eleven shots and he fired them all in that wild, 
 blood-red frenzy; and when he stood up he had the girl 
 close in his arms, her naked l»^east throbbing pantingly 
 against him. The clasp of his hands against her warm 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 259 
 
 flesh cleared his head, and while Tara was rending at 
 the throat of his dying foe, David drew her swiftly out 
 of the cage and flung about her the Ught jacket he had 
 worn. 
 
 "Go to your room," he said. "Tara is safe. I will 
 see that no harm comes to him now." 
 
 The cordon of men separated for them as he led her 
 through. The crowd was so silent that they could hear 
 Tara's low throat-growling. And then, breaking that 
 silence in a savage cry, came Brokaw's voice. 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 He faced them, huge, terrible, quivering with rage. A 
 step behind him was Hauck, and there was no longer in his 
 face an effort to conceal his murderous intentions. Close 
 behind Hauck there gathered quickly his white-faced 
 whisky-mongers like a pack of wolves waiting for a lead- 
 cry. David expected that cry to come from Brokaw. 
 The Girl expected it, and she dung to David's shoulders, 
 her bloodless face turned to the danger. 
 
 It was Brokaw who gave the signal to the men. 
 
 "Clear out the cage!" he bellowed. "This danmed 
 spy has killed my bear and he's got to fight me! Do you 
 imderstand? Clear out the cage ! " 
 
 He thrust his head and bull shoulders forward until his 
 foul, hot breath touched their faces, and his red neck was 
 swollen like the neck of a cobra with the passion of his 
 jealousy and hatred. 
 
 "And in that fight — ^I'm going to kill you!" he 
 hissed. 
 
 It was Hauck who put his hands on the Girl. 
 
 "Go with him," whispered David, as her arms tightened 
 
260 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 about his shoulders. "You must go with him, Marge—* 
 if I am to have a chance ! " 
 
 Her face was against him. She was talking, low, swiftly, 
 for his ears alone — ^with Hauck already beginning to pull 
 her away. 
 
 "I will go to the house. When you see me at that win- 
 dow, fall on your face. I have a rifle — I will shoot him 
 dead — ^from the window . . ." 
 
 Perhaps Hauck heard. David wondered as he caught 
 the ghtter in his eyes when he drew the Girl away. He 
 heard the crash of the big gate to the cage, and Taj^a 
 ambled out and took his way slowly and Hmpingly towa):d 
 the edge of the forest. When he saw the Girl again, lie 
 was standing in the centre of the cage, his feet in a pool 
 of blood that smeared the ground. She was strugghng 
 with Hauck, struggling to break from him and get to tlie 
 house. And now he knew that Hauck had heard, and thiit 
 he would hold her there, and that her eyes would be (»n 
 him while Brokaw was killing him. For he knew that 
 Brokaw would fight to kill. It would not be a square 
 fight. It would be murder — ^if the chance came Brokaw's 
 way. The thought did not frighten him. He was growing 
 strangely calm in these moments. He realized the ad- 
 vantage of being unencumbered, and he stripped off his 
 shirt, and tightened his belt. And then Brokaw entered. 
 The giant had stripped himself to the waist, and he stood 
 for a moment looking at David, a monster with the lust of 
 murder in his eyes. It was frightfully unequal — this 
 combat. David felt it, he was blind if he did not see it, 
 and yet he was still unafraid. A great silence fell. Cut- 
 ting it like a knife came the Girl's voice: 
 
THE COUBAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 261 
 
 "Sakewamn — Sahewawin . . ." 
 
 A brutish growl rose out of Brokaw's chest. He had 
 heard that cry, and it stung him Uke an asp. 
 
 "To-night, she will be with me," he taunted .Oavi<i. and 
 lowered his head for battle. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 DAVID no longer saw the horde of faces beyond the 
 thick bars of the cage. His last glance, shot past 
 the lowered head and hulking shoulders of his giant 
 adversary, went to the Girl. He noticed that she had 
 ceased her struggHng and was looking toward him. After 
 that his eyes never left Brokaw's face. Until now it had 
 not seemed that Brokaw was so big and so powerful, and, 
 sizing up his enemy in that moment before the first rush, 
 he realized that his one hope was to keep him from using 
 his enormous strength at close quarters. A clinch would 
 be fatal. In Brokaw's arms he would be helpless; he was 
 conscious of an unpleasant thrill as he thought how easy it 
 would be for the other to break his back, or snap his neck, 
 if he gave him the opportunity. Science! What would 
 it avail him here, pitted against this mountain of flesh and 
 bone that looked as though it might stand the beating of 
 clubs without being conquered! His first blow returned 
 his confidence, even if it had wavered sHghtly. Brokaw 
 rushed. It was an easy attack to evade, and David's arm 
 shot out and his fist landed against Brokaw's head with a 
 sound that was like the crack of a whip. Hauck would 
 have gone down under that blow like a log. Brokaw 
 staggered. Even he realized that this was science — the 
 skill of the game — ^and he was grinning as he advanced 
 again. He could stand a hundred blows hke that — a grim 
 
 £62 
 
THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 263 
 
 and ferocious Achilles with but one vulnerable point, the 
 end of his jaw. David waited and w^atched for his oppor- 
 tunity as he gave ground slowly. Twice they circled 
 ftbout the blood-spattered arena, Brokaw following him 
 with Idsurely sureness, and yet delaying his attack as if in 
 that steady retreat of his victim he saw torture too satisfying 
 to put an end to at once. David measured his carelessness, 
 the slow almost unguarded movement of his great bcdy, 
 his unpreparedness for a cowp de main — and like a flash he 
 launched himself forward with all the weight of his body 
 behind his effort. 
 
 It missed the other's Jaw by two inches, that catapeltic 
 blow — striking him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow 
 teeth and smashing his thick Hps so that the blood sprang 
 out in a spray over his hairy chest, and as his head rocked 
 backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and a 
 second time missed the jaw with his right — ^but drenched 
 his clenched fist in blood. Out of Brokaw there came a 
 cry that was Uke the low roar of a beast; a cry that was the 
 most inhuman sound David had ever heard from a human 
 throat, and in an instant he found himself battUng not for 
 victory, not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but 
 for his life. Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to 
 madness, the ingenuity of his training alone saved him 
 from immediate extinction. How many times he struck 
 in the 120 seconds following his blow to .Brokaw's mouth 
 he could never have told. He was red with Brokaw's 
 blood. His face was warm with it. *His hands were as if 
 painted, so often did they reach with right and left to 
 Brokaw's gory visage. It was like striking at a monstrous 
 thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain 
 
264 THE COUIUGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but 
 an enormity that had strangely taken human form. Bro- 
 kaw had struck him once — only once — ^in those two min- 
 utes, but blows were not what he feared now. He was 
 beating himself to pieces, hterally beating himself to 
 pieces as a ship might have hammered itself against a reef, 
 and fighting with every breath to keep himself out of the 
 fatal clinch. His efforts were costing him more than they 
 were costing his antagonist. Twice he had reached his 
 jaw, twice Brokaw's head had rocked back on his shoulders 
 — and then he was there again, closing in on him, grinning, 
 dripping red to the soles of his feet, unconquerable. Was 
 there no fairness out there beyond the bars of the cage? 
 Were they all like the man he was fighting — devils? An 
 intermission — only half a minute. Enough to give him a 
 chance. The slow, invincible beast he was hammering 
 almost had him as his thoughts wandered. He only half 
 fended the sledge-hke blow that came straight for his face. 
 He ducked, swujig up his guard like hghtning, and was 
 saved from death by a miracle. That blow would have 
 crushed in his face — Skilled him. He knew it. Brokaw's 
 huge fist landed against the side of his head and grazed off 
 like a bullet that had struck the slanting surface of a rock. 
 Yet *the force of it was sufficient to send him crashing 
 against the bars — and doton. 
 
 In that moment he thanked God for Brokaw's slowness. 
 He had a clear recollection afterward of almost having 
 spoken the words as he lay dazed and helpless for an in- 
 finitesimal space of time. He expected Brokaw to end it 
 there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood from his face, 
 as if partly bhnded by it, while from beyond the cage there 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O^DOONE ^^ 
 
 came a swiftly growing rumble of voices. He heard a 
 scream. It was the scream — the agonized cry — of the 
 Girl, that brought him to his feet while Brokaw was still 
 wiping the hot flow from his dripping jaw. It was that 
 cry that cleared his brain, that called out to him in its 
 de^air that he miist win, that aU was lost for her as wdl as 
 for himself if he was vanquished — ^for Miore positively 
 than at any other time during the fight he felt now that 
 defeat would mean death. It had come to him definitely 
 in the savage outcry of joy when he was down. There 
 was to be no mercy. He had read the ominous decree. 
 And Brokaw . . . 
 
 He was Uke a madman as he came toward him again. 
 There was no longer the leer on his face. There was in his 
 battered and swollen countenance but one emotion. 
 Blood and hm-t could not hide it. It blamed hke fires in 
 his half-closed eyes. It was the desire to kill. The 
 passion which quenches ttself in the taking of life, and 
 every fibre in David's brain rose to meet it. He knew that 
 it was no longer a matter of blows on his part — it was like 
 the David of old facing Goliath with his bare hands. 
 Curiously the thought of Goliath came to him in these 
 flashing moments. Here, too, there must be trickery, 
 something unexpected, a deadly stratagem, and his brain 
 must work out his salvation quickly. Another two or 
 three minutes and it would be over one way or the other. 
 He made his decision. The tricks of his own art were in- 
 adequate, but there was still one hope — one last chance. 
 It was the so-called "knee-break" of the bush country, a 
 horrible thing, he had thought, when Father ttoland had 
 taught it to him. "Break your opponent's knees," the 
 
266 THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Missioner had said, "and you've got him." He had never 
 practised it. But he knew the method, and he remem- 
 bered the Little Missioner's words — "when he's straight 
 facing you, with all your weight, like a cannon ball!" 
 And suddenly he shot himself out like that, as Brokaw was 
 about to rush upon him — a hundred and sixty pounds of 
 solid flesh and bone against the joints of Brokaw's knees I 
 
 The shock dazed him. There was a sharp pain in his 
 left shoulder, and with that shock and pain he was con- 
 scious of a terrible cry as Brokaw crashed over him. He 
 was on his feet when Brokaw was on his knees. Whether 
 or not they were really broken he could not tell. With 
 all the strength in his body he sent his right again and 
 again to the bleeding jaw of his enemy. Brokaw reached 
 up and caught him in his huge arms, but that jaw was 
 there, unprotected, and David battered it as he might 
 have battered a rock with a hammer. A gasping cry rose 
 out of the giant's throat, his head sank backward — and 
 through a red fury, through blood that spattered up into 
 his face, David continued to strike until the arms relaxed 
 aWut him, and with a choking gurgle of blood in his throat, 
 Brokaw dropped back Kmply, as if dead. 
 
 And then David looked again beyond the bars. The 
 staring faces had drawn nearer to the cage, bewildered, 
 stupefied, disbelieving, Uke the faces of stone images. 
 For a space it was so quiet that it seemed to him they must 
 hear his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was 
 still in Brokaw's throat. The victor! He flung back his 
 shoulders and held up his head, though he had great desire 
 to stagger against one of the bars and rest. He could 
 see the Girl and Hauck — ^and now the girl was standing 
 
THE COURA.GE OF MARGE O'DOONE 267 
 
 alone, looking at him. She had seen him! She had seen 
 him beat that giant beast, and a great pride rose in his 
 breast and spread in a joyous Hght over his bloody face. 
 Suddenly he lifted his hand and waved it at her. In a 
 flash she was coming to him. She would have broken 
 her way through the cordon of men, but Hauck stopped 
 her. He had seen Hauck talking swiftly to two of the 
 white men. And now Hauck caught the girl and held her 
 back. David knew that he was dripping red and he was 
 glad that she came no nearer. Hauck was telling her to 
 go to the house?, and David nodded, and with a movement 
 of his hand made her imderstand that she must obey. 
 Not imtil he saw her going did he pick up his shirt and step 
 out among the men. Three or four of the whites went to 
 Brokaw. The rest stared at him still in that amazed 
 silence as he passed among them. He nodded and 
 smiled at them, as though beating Brokaw had not been 
 such a terrible task after all. He noticed there was 
 scarcely an expression in the faces of the Indians. And 
 then he found himself face to face with Hauck, and a step 
 or two behind Hauck were the two white men he had 
 talked to so hurriedly. One of them was the man David 
 had brushed against in passing through the big room. 
 There was a grin in his face now. There was a grin in 
 Hauck's face, and a grin in the face of the third man, 
 and to David's astonishment Hauck thrust out his 
 hand. 
 
 "Shake, Raine! I'd have bet a thousand to fifty you 
 were loser, but there wasn't a dollar going your way. A 
 great fight!" 
 
 He turned to the other two. 
 
268 THE COHRAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Take Raine to his room, boys. Help 'im wash up 
 I've got to see to Brokaw — an' this crowd." 
 
 David protested. He was all right. He needed onry 
 water and soap, both of which were in his room, but Hauck 
 insisted that it wasn't square, and wouldn't look right, if 
 he didn't have friends as well as Brokaw. Brokaw had 
 forced the affair so suddenly that none of them had had 
 time or thought to speak an encouraging or friendly word 
 before the fight. Langdon and Henry would go with him 
 now. He walked between the two to the Nest, and entered 
 his room with them. Langdon, the tall man who had 
 looked hatred at him last night, poured water into a tin 
 basin while Henry, the smaller man, closed his door. 
 They appeared quite companionable, especially Langdon. 
 
 "Didn't like you last night," he confessed frankly. 
 "Thought you was one of them damned poUce, nmning 
 yoiu" nose into our business mebby." 
 
 He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his 
 hand, and as David bent over the basin Henry was behind 
 him. He had drawn something from his pocket, and was 
 edging up close. As David dipped his hands in the water 
 he looJked up into Langdon's face, and he saw there a 
 strange and unexpected change — ^that deadly maKgnity 
 of last night. In that moment the object in Henry's hand 
 fell with terrific force on his head and he crumpled down 
 over the basin. He was conscious of a single agonizing 
 pain, Hke a hot iron thrust suddenly through him, and 
 then a great and engulfing pit of darkness closed about him. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 IN THAT chaotic night in which he was drifting, David 
 experienced neither pain nor very much of the sense 
 of life. And yet, without seeing or feeUng, he seemed 
 to be living. All was dead within him but that last 
 cons<3iousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have 
 been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years might 
 have passed in that dream. For a long time he seemed to 
 b<: sinking through the blackness; and then something 
 st^pped him, without jar or shock, and he was rising. 
 H(; could hear nothing at first. There was a vast silence 
 about him, a silence as deep and unbroken as the abysmal 
 pit in which he seemed to be floating. After that he felt 
 himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on 
 the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took 
 shape in his struggling brain — ^he was at sea; he was on a 
 «hip in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He 
 tried to call out, but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed 
 a long time before day broke, and then it was strange day. 
 Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shol 
 like flashes of wave-Uke lightning through the darkness, 
 and he began to feel, and to hear. A dozen hands seemed 
 holding him down until he could move neither arms nor 
 feet. He heard voices. There appeared to be many of 
 them at first, an unintelligible rumble of voices, and then 
 v«y swiftly they became two. 
 
270 THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 
 
 He opened his eyes. The first thing that he observed 
 was a bar of surJight against the eastern wall of his room. 
 That bit of sunhght was hke a magnet thrown there to 
 reassemble the faculties that had drifted away from him 
 in the dark night of his unconsciousness. It tried to tell 
 him, first of all, that it was afternoon — quite late in the 
 afternoon. He would have sensed that fact in another 
 moment or two, but something came between him and the 
 radiance flung by the westward slant of the sun. It was a 
 face, two faces — ^first Hauck*s and then Brokaw's! Yes, 
 Brokaw was there! Staring down at him. A fiend still. 
 And almost unrecognizable. He was no longer stripped, 
 and he was no longer bloody. His countenance was 
 swollen; his lips were raw, one eye was closed — ^but the 
 other gleamed Uke a devil's. David tried to sit up. He 
 managed with an effort, and balanced himself on the edge 
 of his cot. His head was dizzy, and he felt clumsy and 
 helpless as a stuffed bag. His hands were tied behind 
 him, and his feet were boimd. He thought Hauck looked 
 like an exultant gargoyle as he stood there with a horrible 
 grin on his face, and Brokaw . . . 
 
 It was Brokaw who bent over him, his thick fingers 
 knotting, his open eyes fairly livid. 
 
 "I'm glad you ain't dead, Raine." 
 
 His voice was husky, muffled by the swollen thickness 
 of his battered lip^s. 
 
 "Thanks," said David. The dizziness was leaving him, 
 but there was a steady pain in his head. He tried to smile. 
 "Thanks!" It was rather idiotic of him to say that. 
 Brokaw's hands were moving slowly toward his throat 
 when Hauck drew him back. 
 
THE COURA.GE OF MARGE O'DOONE 271 
 
 "I won't touch him — ^not now," he growled. "But 
 to-night— oh, God!" 
 
 His knuckles snapped. * 
 
 "You — ^liar! You — spy! You — ^sneak!" he cursed 
 through his broken teeth. David saw where they had 
 been — a cavity in that cruel, battered mouth. "And you 
 think, after that ..." 
 
 Again Hauck tried to draw him away. Brokaw flung 
 off his hands angrily. 
 
 "I won't touch him— but I'll Ull him, Hauck! The 
 devil take me body and soul if I don't! I want him to 
 know . . ." 
 
 "You're a fool!" cried Hauck. "Stop, or by Heaven! 
 
 Brokaw opened his mouth and laughed, and David saw 
 the havoc of his blows. 
 
 "You'll do whaiy Hauck? Nothing — that's what you'll 
 do! Ain't I told him you killed that na'po from Mac- 
 Pherson? Ain't I told him enough to set us both swing- 
 ing?" He bent over David until his breath struck his 
 face. "I'm glad you didn't die, Raine," he repeated, 
 "because I want to see you when you shuffle off. We're 
 only waiting for the Indians to go. Old Wapi starts with 
 his tribe at sunset. I'm sorry, but we can't get the heathen 
 away any earlier because he says it's good luck to start a 
 journey at sunset in the moulting moon. You'll start 
 yours a little later — as soon as they're out of sound of a 
 rifle shot. You can't trust Indians, eh? You made a hit 
 with old Wapi, and it wouldn't do to let him know we're 
 going to send you where you sent my bear. Eh — would 
 it?" 
 
272 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "You mean — ^you're going to murder me?" said David 
 
 "K standing you up against a tree and putting a bulled 
 through your heart is murder — yes," gloated Brokaw. 
 
 "Murder — " repeated David. 
 
 He seemed powerless to say more than that. An over 
 whelming dizziness was creeping over him, the pain wa** 
 splitting his head, and he swayed backward. He fought t< 
 recover himself, to hold himself up, but that returning 
 sickness reached from his brain to the pit of his stomach,, 
 and with a groan he sank face downward on the cot 
 Brokaw was still talking, but he could no longer under 
 stand his words. He heard Hauck's sharp voice, theij 
 retreating footsteps, the opening and closing of the door- 
 fighting all the time to keep himself from faUing off into 
 that black and bottomless pit again. It was many minutey 
 before he drew himself to a sitting posture on the edge of' 
 his cot, this time slowly and guardedly, so that he woul<? 
 not rouse the pain in his head. It was there. He coiilcf 
 feel it burning steadily and deeply, Uke one of his old-timt 
 headaches. 
 
 The bar of sunlight was gone from the wall, and through 
 the one small window in the west end of his room he saw 
 the fading light of day outside. It was morning when he 
 had fought Brokaw; it was now almost night. The wash* 
 basin was where it had fallen when Henry struck him* 
 He saw a red stain on the floor where he must have dropped. 
 Then again he looked at the window. It was rather oddly 
 out of place, so high up that one could not look in from tho 
 outside — a rectangular slit to let in light, and so narrow 
 that a man could not have wormed his way through it. 
 He had seen nothing particularly significant in its location 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 273 
 
 last night, or this morning, but now its meaning struck 
 him as forcibly as that of the pieces of habiche thong that 
 bound his wrists and ankles. A guest might be housed 
 in this room without suspicion and at the turn of a key 
 be made a prisoner. There was no way of escape imless 
 one broke down the heavy door or cut through the log 
 walls. 
 
 Gradually he was overcoming his sensation of sickness. 
 His head was clearing, and he began to breathe more 
 deeply. He tried to move his cramped arms. They were 
 mthout feeling, lifeless weights hung to his shoulders. 
 With an effort he thrust out his feet. And then — ^through 
 the window — there came to him a low, thriUing sound. 
 
 It was the muffled booniy boom, boom of a tom-tom. 
 
 Wapi and his Indians were going, and he heard now a 
 wreird and growing chant, a savage paean to the wild gods 
 «)f the Moulting Moon. A gasp rose in his throat. It was 
 almost a cry. His last hope was going — ^with Wapi and 
 iiis tribe! Would they help him if they knew? If he 
 ihouted? If he shrieked for them through that open 
 window? It was a mad thought, an impossible thought, 
 but it set his heart throbbing for a moment. And then — 
 suddenly — ^it seemed to stand still. A key rattled, turned; 
 ;;he door opened — and Marge O'Doone stood before him! 
 
 She was panting — sobbing, as if she had been running a 
 iong distance. She made no effort to speak, but dropped 
 at his feet and began sawing at the caribou babiche with a 
 ^nife. She had come prepared with that knife! He felt 
 whe bonds snap, and before either had spoken she was at 
 liis back, and his hands were free. They were like lead. 
 She dropped the knife then, and her hands were at his face 
 
274 THE COURAGE OF MAEGE O'DOONE 
 
 — dark with dry stain of blood, and over and over again 
 she was caUing him by the name she had given him — 
 Sakewaidn. And then the tribal chant of Wapi and his 
 people grew nearer and louder as they passed into the for- 
 est, and with a choking cry the Girl drew back from 
 David and stood facing him. 
 
 "I — must hurry," she said, swiftly. "Listen! They 
 are going ! Hauck or Brokaw will go as far as the lake with 
 Wapi, and the one who does not go will return here, ' See, 
 Sakewawin — I have brought you a knife ! When he comes 
 — ^you must kill him!" 
 
 The chanting voices had passed. The paean was 
 dying away in the direction of the forest. 
 
 He did not interrupt her. With hand clutched at her 
 breast she went on. 
 
 "I waited — until all were out there. They kept me in 
 my room and left Marcee — the old Indian woman — to 
 watch me. TVTien they were all out to see Wapi off, I 
 struck her over the head with the end of Nisikoos' rifte. 
 Maybe she is dead. Tara is out there. I know where to 
 find him when it is dark. I will make up a pack and within 
 an hour we must go. If Hauck comes to your room before 
 then, or Brokaw, kill him with the knife, Sakewawin! If 
 you don't — ^they will kill you!" 
 
 Her voice broke in a gasp that was Hke a sob. He 
 struggled to rise; stood swaying before her, his legs un- 
 steady as stilts under him. 
 
 "My gun. Marge — my pistol!" he demanded, trying to 
 reach out his arms. "If I had them now . . ." 
 
 "They must have taken them," she interrupted. "But 
 I have Nisikoos' rifle, Sakewavdn! Oh — I must hurry! 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 275 
 
 They won't come to my room, and Marcee is perhaps dead. 
 As soon as it is dark I will imlock your door. And if one of 
 them comes before then, you must kill him! You must! 
 You must!" 
 
 She backed to the door, and now she opened it, and was 
 gone. A key clicked in the lock again, he heard her swift 
 footsteps in the hall, and a second door opened and closed. 
 
 For a few minutes he stood without moving, a little 
 dazed by the suddenness with which she had left him. 
 She had not been in his room more than a minute or two. 
 She had been terribly frightened, terribly afraid of dis- 
 covery before her work was done. On the floor at his feet 
 lay the knife. Thai was why she had come, that was what 
 she had brought him! His blood began to tingle. He 
 could feel it resuming its course through his numbed legs 
 ^nd arms, and he leaned over slowly, half afraid that he 
 would lose his balance, and picked up the weapon. The 
 chanting of Wapi and his people was only a distant mur- 
 mur; through the high window came the sound of returning 
 voices — voices of white men. 
 
 There swept through him the wild thrill of the thought 
 that once more the fight was up to him. Marge 0*Doone 
 had done her part. She had struck down the Indian 
 woman Hauck had placed over her as a guard — ^had escaped 
 from her room, unbound him, and put a knife into his 
 hands. The rest was his fight. How long before Brokaw 
 or Hauck would come? Would they give him time to get 
 the blood running through his body again? Time to gain 
 strength to use his freedom — and the knife? He began 
 walking slowly across the room, pumping his arms up and 
 down. His strength returned quickly. He went to the 
 
276 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 pail of water and drank deeply with a consuming thirst. 
 The water refreshed him, and he paced back and foitb 
 more and more swiftly, mitil he was breathing steadily and 
 he could harden his muscles and knot his fists. He looked 
 at the knife. It was a horrible necessity — the burying of that 
 steel in a man's back, or his heart! Was there no other 
 way, he wondered? He began searching the room. Why 
 hadn't Marge brought him a club instead of a knife, or at 
 least a club along with the knife? To club a man doT^Ti,; 
 even when he was intent on murder, wasn't like letting out 
 his life in a gush of blood. 
 
 His eyes rested on the table, and in a moment he had 
 turned it over and was wrenching at one of the woodec 
 legs. It broke off with a sharp snap, and he held in hi^ 
 hand a weapon possessing many advantages over the knife 
 The latter he thrust into his belt with the handle just back 
 of his hip. Then he waited. 
 
 It was not for long. The western mountains had shut 
 out the last reflections of the sun. Gloom was beginning 
 to fill his room, and he numbered the minutes as he stood 
 with his ear close to the door, Ustening for a step, hopeful 
 that it would be the Girl's and not Hauck's or Brokaw's. 
 At last the step came, advancing from the end of the halL 
 It was a heavy step, and he drew a deep breath and 
 gripped the club. His heart gave a sudden, mighty throb 
 as the step stopped at his door. It was not pleasant to 
 think of what he was about to do, and yet he realized, as 
 ixe heard the key in the lock, that it was a grim and 
 terrible necessity. He was thankful there was only one. 
 He would not strike too hard — ^not in this cowardly way — 
 from ambush. Just enough to do the business sufficiently 
 
THE COUIUGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 277 
 
 well. It would be easy — quite. He raised his club in the 
 thickening dusk, and held his breath. 
 
 The door opened, and Hauck entered, and stood with 
 his back to David. Horrible! Strike a man like that — 
 and with a club! If he could use his hands, choke him, 
 give him at least a quarter chance. But it had to be done. 
 It was a sickening thing. Hauck went down without a 
 groan — so silently, so lifelessly that David thought he had 
 killed him. He knelt beside him for a few seconds and 
 made sure that his heart was beating before he rose to his 
 feet. He looked out into the hall. The lamps had not 
 been lighted — probably that was one of the old Indian 
 woman's duties. From the big room came a sound of 
 voices — ^and then, close to him, from the door across the 
 way, there came a small trembling voice: 
 
 "Hurry, Sakewavnn! Lock the door — and come!" 
 
 For another instant he dropped on his knees at Hauck's 
 aide. Yes it was there — ^in his pocket — a. revolver! He 
 possessed himself of the weapon with an exclamation of 
 joy, locked the door, and ran across the hall. The Girl 
 opened her door for him, and closed it behind him as he 
 sprang into her room. The first object he noticed was the 
 Indian woman. She was lying on a cot, and her black 
 eyes were levelled at them Uke the eyes of a snake. She 
 was trussed up so securely, and was gagged so thorough- 
 ly that he could not restrain a laugh as he bent over her. 
 
 "Splendid!" he cried softly. "You're a httle brick. 
 Marge — ^you surely are! And now — what?" 
 
 With his revolver in his hand, and the Girl trembling 
 under his arm, he felt a ridiculous desire to shout out at 
 the top of his voice to his enemies letting them know that 
 
278 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 lie was again ready to fight. In the gloom the Girl's eyes 
 shone hke stars. 
 
 "Who — was it?" she whispered. 
 
 "Hauck." 
 
 "Then it was Brokaw who went with Wapi. Langdon 
 and Henry went with him. It is less than two miles to 
 the lake, and they will be returning soon. We must hurry ! 
 Look — ^it is growing dark!" 
 
 She ran from his arms to the window and he followed 
 her. 
 
 "In — ^fifteen minutes — ^we will go, Sakewamru Tara 
 is out there in the edge of the spruce." Her hand pinched 
 his arm. "Did you — kill him.'^" she breathed. 
 
 "No. I broke off a leg from the table and stunned 
 him." 
 
 "I'm glad," she said, and snuggled close to him shiver- 
 ingly. "I'm glad, Sakewaiuin" 
 
 In the darkness that was gathering about them it was 
 impossible for him not to take her in his arms. He held 
 her close, bowing his head so that for an instant her warm 
 face touched his own; and in those moments while they 
 waited for the gloom to thicken he told her in a low voice 
 what he had learned from Brokaw. She grew tense against 
 him as he continued, and when he assured her he no longer 
 had a doubt her mother was aUve, and that she was the 
 woman he had met on the coach, a cry rose out of her 
 breast. She was about to speak when loud footsteps in the 
 hall made her catch her breath, and her fingers clung more 
 tightly at his shoulders. 
 
 "It is time," she whispered. "We must go!" 
 
 She ran from him quickly and from under the cot where 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 279 
 
 the Indian lay dragged forth a pack. He could not see 
 plainly what she was doing now. In a moment she had 
 put a rifle in his hands. 
 
 "It belonged to Nisikoos," she said. "There are six 
 shots in it, and here are all the cartridges I have." 
 
 He took them in his hand and counted them as he 
 dropped them into his pocket. There were eleven in all, 
 including the six in the chamber. "Thirty-twos," he 
 thought, as he seized them up with his fingers. "Good 
 for partridges — and short range at men!" He said, 
 aloud: "If we could get my rifle. Marge . . ." 
 
 "They have taken it," she told him again. "But we 
 shall not need it. Salcewatvin," she added, as if his voice 
 had revealed to her the thought in his mind; "I know of a 
 mountain that is all rock — not so far off as the one Tara 
 and I climbed — and if we can reach that they will not be 
 able to trail us. If they should find us . . ." 
 
 She was opening the window. 
 
 "What then?" he asked. 
 
 "Nisikoos once killed a bear with that gun," she replied. 
 
 The window was open, and she was waiting. They 
 thrust out their heads and listened, and when he had as- 
 sured himseK that all was clear he dropped out the pack. 
 He lifted Marge down then and followed her. As his feet 
 struck the ground the slight shock sent a pain through his 
 head that wrung a low cry from him, and for a moment he 
 leaned with his back against the wall, almost overcome 
 again by the sickening dizziness. It was not so dark that 
 the Girl did not see the sudden change in him. Her eyes 
 filled with alarm. 
 
 "A little dizzy," he explained, trying to smile at her. 
 
280 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "They gave me a pretty hard crack on the head. Marge. 
 This air will set me right — soon." 
 
 He picked up the pack and followed her. In the edge of 
 the spruce a hundred yards from the Nest, Tara had been 
 lying all the afternoon, nursing his wounds. 
 
 "I could see him from my window," whispered Marge. 
 
 She went straight to him and began talking to him in a 
 low voice. Out of the darkness behind Tara came a 
 growl. 
 
 "Baree, by thunder!" muttered David in amazement. 
 "He's made up with the bear, Marge ! What do you thinlf 
 of that?" 
 
 At the sound of his voice Baree came to him and flat- 
 tened himself at his feet. David laid a hand on his head. 
 
 "Boy!" he whispered softly. "And they said you were 
 an outlaw, and would join the wolves . . ." 
 
 He saw the dark bulk of Tara rising out of the gloom, 
 and the Girl was at his side. 
 
 "We are ready, Sakewavnn." 
 
 He spoke to her the thought that had been shaping 
 itself in his mind. 
 
 "Why wouldn't it be better to join Wapi and hi? 
 Indians?" he asked, remembering Brokaw's words. 
 
 "Because — they are afraid of Hauck," she replied 
 quickly. "There is but one way, Sahewaimn — ^to follow a 
 narrow trail Tara and I have made, close to the foot of the 
 range, until we come to the rock mountain. Shall we risk 
 the bundle on Tara's back?" 
 
 "It is Kght. I will carry it." 
 
 "Then give me your hand, Sakewamn,** 
 
 There was again in her voice the joyous thrill of freedom 
 
THE COUKAGE OF MAEGE DOONE 281 
 
 and of confidence; he could hear for a moment the wild 
 throb of her heart in its exultation at their escape, and with 
 her warm httle hand she gripped his fingers firmly and 
 guided him into a sea of darkness. The forest shut them 
 in. Not a ray fell upon them from out of the pale sky 
 wh^e the stars were beginning to gUmmer faintly. Be- 
 hind them he could hear the heavy, padded footfall of the 
 big grizzly, and he knew that Baree was very near. After 
 a Uttle the Girl said, still in a whisper: 
 
 "Does your head hurt you now, Sdkewawin ?*' 
 
 "A bit." 
 
 The trail was widening. It was quite smooth for a 
 space, but black. 
 
 She pressed his fingers. 
 
 "I beheve all you have told me," she said, as if making 
 a confession. " After you came to me in the cage — ^and the 
 fight — I believed. You must have loved me a great deal 
 to risk aU that for me." 
 
 "Yes, a great deal, my child," he answered. 
 
 Why did that dizziness persist in his head, he wondered? 
 For a moment he felt as if he were falling. 
 
 "A very great deal," he added, trying to walk steadily 
 at her side, his own voice sounding unreal and at a great 
 distance from him. "You see — my child — I didn't have 
 anything to love but your picture . . ." 
 
 What a fool he was to try and make himself heard 
 above the roaring in his head! His words seemed to him 
 whispers coming across a great space. And the bundle on 
 his shoulders was like a crushing weight bearing him down! 
 The voice at his side was growing fainter. It was saying 
 things which afterward he could not remember, but he 
 
282 THE COURAGE OF IMARGE O'DOONE 
 
 knew that it was talking about the woman he had said was 
 her mother, and that he was answering it while weights of 
 lead were dragging at his feet. Then suddenly, he had 
 stepped over the edge of the world and was floating in that 
 vast, black chaos again. The voice did not leave him. 
 He could hear it sobbing, entreating him, urging him to do 
 something which he could not understand; and when at 
 last he did begin to comprehend it he knew also that he was 
 no longer walking with weights at his feet and a burden on 
 his shoulders, but was on the ground. His head was on 
 her breast, and she was no longer speaking to him, but was 
 crying Hke a child with a heart utterly broken. The 
 deathly sickness was gone as quickly as it had stricken 
 him, and he struggled upward, with her arms helping him. 
 
 "You are hurt — ^hurt — " he heard her moaning. "If I 
 can only get you on Tara, Sahewavdn, on Tara's back — ■ 
 there — ^astep . . ." and he knew that was what she had 
 been saying over and over again, urging him to help him- 
 self if he could, so that she could get him to Tara. He 
 reached out his hand and buried it in the thick hair of the 
 grizzly, and he tried to speak laughingly so that she would 
 not know his fears. 
 
 "One is often dizzy — ^like that — after a blow," he said, 
 "I guess — I can walk now." 
 
 "No, no, you must ride Tara," she insisted. "You are 
 hurt — and you must ride Tara, SaJcewaioin, You must!" 
 
 She was lifting at his arms with all her strength, her 
 breath hot and panting in his face, and Tara stood without 
 moving a muscle of his giant body, as if he, too, were urging 
 upon him in this dumb manner the necessity of obeying 
 bis mistress. Even then David would have remonstrated 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 283 
 
 but he felt once more that appaUing sickness creeping over 
 him, and he raised himself slowly astride the grizzly's 
 broad back. The Girl picked up the bundle and rifle and 
 Tara followed her through the darkness. To David the 
 beast's great back seemed a wonderfully safe and com- 
 fortable place, and he leaned forward with his fingers 
 clutched deeply in the long hair of the ruff about the bear's 
 bulking shoulders. 
 
 The Girl called back to him softly: 
 
 "You are all right, Sakewawin .^" 
 
 "Yes, it is so comfortable that I feel I may fall asleep," 
 he replied. 
 
 Out in the starlight she would have seen his drooping 
 head, and his words would have had a different meaning for 
 her. He was fighting with himself desperately, and in his 
 heart was a great fear. He must be badly hurt, he thought. 
 There came to him a distorted but vivid vision of an 
 Indian hurt in the head, whom he and Father Roland had 
 tried to save. Without a surgeon it had been impossible. 
 The Indian had died, and he had had those same spells of 
 sickness, the sickness that was creeping over him again in 
 spite of his efforts to fight it off. He had no very clear 
 notion of the movement of Tara's body under him, but he 
 knew that he was holding on grimly, and that every little 
 while the Girl called back to him, and he replied. Then 
 came the time when he failed to answer, and for a space 
 the rocking motion under him ceased and the Girl's voice 
 was very near to him. Afterward motion resimied. It 
 seemed to him that he was travelling a great distance. 
 Altogether too far without a halt for sleep, or at 
 least a rest. He was conscious of a dbsire to voice pro- 
 
284 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 test — and all the time his fingers were clasped in Tara's 
 mane in a sort of death grip. 
 
 In her breast Marge's heart was beating Hke a hunted 
 thing, and over and over again she sobbed out a broken 
 prayer as she guided Tara and his burden through the 
 night. From the forest into the starlit open; from the 
 open into the thick gloom of forest again — into and out of 
 starhght and darkness, following that trail down the valley. 
 She was no longer thinking of the rock mountain, for it 
 would be impossible now to cUmb over the range into the 
 other valley. She was heading for a cabin. An old and 
 abandoned cabin, where they could hide. She tried to 
 tell David about it, many days after they had begun that 
 journey it seemed to him. 
 
 "Only a little longer, Sakewawiriy^ she cried, with her 
 arm about him and her hps close to his bent head. " Only 
 a little longer! They will not think to search for us there, 
 and you can sleep — sleep . . ." 
 
 Her voice drifted away from him Uke a low mm*mur in 
 the tree tops — and his fingers still clung in that death-grip 
 in the mane at Tara's neck. 
 
 And still many other days later they came to the cabin. 
 It was amazing to him that the Girl should say: 
 
 "We are only five miles from the Nest, Sakewavdn, but 
 they will not hunt for us here. They will think we have 
 gone farther — or over the mountains!" 
 
 She was putting cold water to his face, and now that 
 there was no longer the rolling motion under him he was 
 not quite so dizzy. She had unrolled the bundle and had 
 spread out a blanket, and when he stretched himself out on 
 this a sense of vast relief came over him. In his confused 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'BOONE ^5 
 
 consciousness two or three things stood out with rather 
 odd clearness before he closed his eyes, and the last was a 
 vision of the Girl's face bending over him, and of her starry 
 eyes loddng down at him, and of her voice urging him 
 gently: 
 
 "Try to sleep, SaJcewaioin — ^try to sleep . . .'* 
 It was many hours later when he awoke. Hands seemed 
 to be dragging him forcibly out of a place in which he 
 was very comfortable, and which he did not want to leave, 
 and a voice was accompanying the hands with an annoying 
 insistency — a voice which was growing more and more 
 faimliar to him as his sleeping senses were roused. He 
 opened his eyes. It was day, and Marge was on her knees 
 at his side, tugging at his breast with her hands and staring 
 wildly into his face. 
 
 "Wake, SaJcewamn — wake, wake!" he heard her crying. 
 "Oh, my God, you must wake! Sahewawin — Sdkewawin 
 — they have found our trail — and I can see them coming 
 up the valley!" 
 
CHAPTEE XXVI 
 
 SCARCELY had David sensed the Girl's words of 
 warning than he was on his feet. And now, when 
 he s^w her, he thanked God that his head was clear, 
 and that he could fight. Even yesterday, when she had 
 stood before the fighting bears, and he had fought Brokaw, 
 she had not been whiter than she was now. Her face told 
 him of their danger before he had seen it with his owr 
 eyes. It told him that their peril was appallingly near 
 and there was no chance of escaping it. He saw for the 
 first time that his bed on the ground had been close to the 
 wall of an old cabin which was in a Httle dip in the sloping 
 face of the moimtain. Before he could take in more, or 
 discover a visible sign of their enemies. Marge had caught 
 his hand and was drawing him to the end of the shack. 
 She did not speak as she pointed downward. In the edge 
 of the vaUeyj just beginning the ascent, were eight or ten 
 meUo He could not determine their exact number for as 
 he looked they were already disappearing under the face 
 of the lower dip in the mountain. They were not more 
 than four or five hundred yards away. It would take 
 them a matter of twenty minutes to make the ascent to the 
 cabin. 
 
 He looked at Marge. Despairingly she pointed to the 
 mountain behind them. For a quarter of a mile it was a 
 sheer wall of red sandstone. Their one way of flight 
 
 286 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 287 
 
 lay downward, practically into the faces of their en- 
 emies. 
 
 "I was going to rouse you before it was light, Sake- 
 toavdn" she etplained in a voice that was dead with hope- 
 lessness. "lAept awake for hours, and then I fell asleep. 
 Baree awakened me, and now — it is too late." 
 
 "Yes, too late to run /" said David. 
 
 A flash of fire leaped into her eyes. 
 
 "You mean ..." 
 
 "We can fight!" he cried. "Good God, Marge— if 
 only I had my own rifle now!" He thrust a hand into 
 his pocket and drew forth the cartridges she had given 
 him. "Thirty-twos! And only eleven of them! It's got 
 to be a short range for us. We can't put up a running 
 fight for they'd keep out of range of this Httle pea-shooter 
 and fill me as full of holes as a sieve ! " 
 
 She was tugging at his arm. 
 
 "The cabin, Sakewaidn !" she exclaimed with sudden 
 irspiration. "It has a strong bar at the door, and the 
 clay has fallen in places from between the logs leaving 
 openings through which you can shoot!" 
 
 He was examining Nisikoos' rifle. 
 
 "At 150 yards it should be good for a man," he said. 
 "You get Tara and the pack inside. Marge. I'm going to 
 try to get two or three of our friends as they come up ove^ 
 the knoll down there. They won't be looking for bullets 
 thus early in the game and I'll have them at a disadvantage. 
 If I'm lucky enough to get Hauck and Brokaw . . ." 
 
 His eyes had selected a big rock twenty yards from the 
 cabin from which he could overlook the slope to the first 
 dip below them, and as Marge darted from him to get 
 
^88 THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Tara into the cabin he crouched behind the boulder and 
 waited. He figured that it was not more than 150 yards to 
 the point where their pursuers would first appear, and he 
 made up his mind that he would wait imtil they were 
 nearer than that before he opened fire. Not one of those 
 eleven precious cartridges must be wasted, for he could 
 count on Hauck's revolver only at close quarters. It was 
 no longer a time for doubt or indecision. Brokaw and 
 Hauck were dehberately pushing the fight to a finish, and 
 not to beat them meant death for himself and a fate for 
 the Girl which made him grip his rifle more tightly as he 
 waited. He looked behind him and saw Marge leading 
 Tara into the cabin. Baree had crept up beside htm and 
 lay flat on the ground close to the rock. A moment or two 
 later the Girl reappeared and ran across the narrow open 
 space to David, and crouched down close to him. 
 
 "You must go into the cabin, Marge," he remonstrated. 
 "They will probably begin shooting . . ." 
 
 "I*m going to stay with you, Sakewamn." 
 
 Her face was no longer white. A flush had risen into 
 her cheeks, her eyes shone as she looked at him — and she 
 smiled. A child! His heart rose chokingly in his throat. 
 Her face was close to his, and she whispered, 
 
 "Last night I kissed you, Sakewawin. I thought you 
 were dying. Before you, I have kissed Nisikoos. Never 
 any one else." 
 
 Why did she say that, with that wonderful glow in her 
 eyes? Couldn't be that she saw death climbing up the 
 mountain.^ Was it because she wanted him to know — 
 before that? A child! 
 
 She whispered again: 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 289 
 
 •^ And you — ^have never kissed me, Sdkewawin, Why? " 
 
 Slowly he drew her to him, until her head lay against 
 his breast, her shining eyes and parted lips turned up to 
 him, and he kissed her on the mouth. A wild flood of 
 colour rushed into her face and her arms crept up about 
 his shoulders. The glory of her radiant hair covered his 
 breast. He buried his face in it, and for a moment crushed 
 her so close that she did not breathe. And then again he 
 kissed her mouth, not once but a dozen times, and then 
 held her back from him and looked into her face that was 
 no longer the face of a child, but of a woman. 
 
 "'Because . . ." he began, and stopped. 
 
 fJaree was growUng. David peered down the slope. 
 
 ""They are coming! " he said. "Marge, you must creep 
 back to the cabin!" 
 
 "*! am going to stay with you, Sakewawin. See, I will 
 flatten myself out hke this — with Baree." 
 
 She snuggled herself down against the rock and again 
 David peered from his ambush. Their pursuers were well 
 over the crest of the dip, and he counted nine. They were 
 advancing in a group and he saw that both Hauck and 
 Brokaw were in the rear and that they were using staffs 
 in their toil upward, and did not carry rifles. The re- 
 maining seven were armed, and were headed by Langdon, 
 who was fifteen or twenty yards in advance of his com- 
 panions. David made up his mind quickly to take Lang- 
 don first, and to follow up with others who carried rifles. 
 Hauck and Brokaw, unarmed with guns, were least dan- 
 gerous just at present. He would get Brokaw with his 
 fifth shot — the sixth if he made a miss with the fifth. 
 
 A thin strip of shale marked his 100-yard dead-line, and 
 
290 THE COUEAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 the instant Langdon set his foot on this David fired. 
 He was scarcely conscious of the yell of defiance that rang 
 from his hps as Langdon whirled in his tracks and pitched 
 down among the men behind him. He rose up boldly 
 from behind the rock and fired again. In that huddled 
 and astonished mass he could not miss. A shriek came 
 up to him. He fired a third time, and he heard a joyous 
 cry of triumph beside him as their enemies rushed for 
 safety toward the dip from which they had just chmbed, 
 A fourth shot, and he picked out Brokaw. Twice he 
 missed! His gun was empty when Brokaw lunged out of 
 view. Langdon remained an inanimate blotch on the 
 strip of shale. A few steps below him was a second body. 
 A third man was dragging himseK on hands and knees over 
 the crest of the coulee. Three — ^with six shots! And he 
 liad missed Brokaw! Liwardly David groaned as he 
 caught the Girl by the arm and hurried with her into the 
 cabin, followed by Baree. 
 
 They were not a moment too soon. From over the edge 
 of the coulee came a fusillade of shots from the heavy- 
 cahbre weapons of the mountain men that sent out sparks 
 of fire from the rock. 
 
 As he thrust the remaining five cartridges into the cham- 
 ber of Nisikoos* rifle, David looked about the cabin. In 
 one of the farther corners the huge grizzly sat on hi^ 
 quarters as motionless as if stuffed. In the centre of the 
 single room was an old box stove partly fallen to pieces. 
 That was all. Marge had dropped the sapling bar across 
 the door, and stood with her back against it. There was 
 no window, and the closing of the door had shut out most 
 of the light. He could see that she was breathing quickly. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 291 
 
 and the wonderful light that had come into her eyes behind 
 the rock was still glowing at him in the half gloom. It gave 
 him fresh confidence to see her standing like that, looking 
 at him in that way, telling him without words that a thing 
 had come into her life which had lifted her above fear. 
 He went to her and took her in his arms again, and again 
 he kissed her sweet mouth, and felt her heart beating 
 against him, and the warm thrill of her arms clinging to 
 him. 
 
 A splintering crash sent him reeUngfback into the 
 centre of the cabin with Marge in his arms. The crash 
 had come simultaneously with the report of a rifle, and 
 both saw where the bullet had passed through the door 
 six inches above David's head, carrying a splinter as large 
 as his arm with it. He had not thought of the door. 
 It was the cabin's vulnerable point, and he sprang out 
 of line with it as a second bullet crashed through and 
 buried itself in the log wall at their backs. Baree growled. 
 A low rumble rose in Tara's throat, but he did not move. 
 
 In each of the f oiu* log walls were the open chinks which 
 Marge had tald him about, and he sprang to one of these 
 apertures that was wide enough to let the barrel of his 
 rifle through and looked in the direction from which the 
 two shots had come. He was in time to catch a movement 
 among the rocks on the side of the mountain about two 
 hundred yards away, and a third shot tore its way through 
 the door, glanced from the steel top of the stove, and struck 
 like a club two feet over Tara's back. There were two 
 men up there among the rocks, and their first shots were 
 followed by a steady bombardment that fairly riddled the 
 door. David could see their heads and shoulders and 
 
292 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 the gleam and faint puffs of their rifles, but he held his 
 fire. Where were the other four, he wondered? Without 
 doubt Hauck and Brokaw were now armed with the rifles 
 of the men who had fallen, so he had six to deal with. 
 Cautiously he thrust the muzzle of his rifle through the 
 crack, and watched his chance, aiming a foot and a half 
 above the spot where a j>air of shoulders and a head would 
 appear in a moment. His chance came, and he fired. 
 The head and shoulders disappeared, and exultantly he 
 swung his rifle a Httle to the right and sent another shot 
 as the second man exposed himself. He, too, disappeared, 
 and David's heart was thumping wildly in the thought that 
 his bullets had reached their marks when both heads ap- 
 j>eared again and a hail of lead spattered against the cabin. 
 The men among the rocks were no longer aiming at the 
 door, but at the spot from which he had fired, and a bullet 
 ripped through so close that a spHnter stung his face, and 
 he felt the quick warm flow of blood down his cheek. 
 When the Girl saw it her face went as white as death. 
 
 "I can't get them with this rifle. Marge," he groaned 
 "It's wild— wild as a hawk! Good God! . . ." 
 
 A crash of fire had come from behind the cabin, and 
 another bullet, finding one of the gaping cracks, passed 
 between them with a sound like the buzz of a monster 
 bee. With a sudden cry he caught her in his arms and 
 held her tight, as if in his embrace he would shield her. 
 
 "Is it possible — they would kill you to get me?" 
 
 He loosed his hold of her, sprang to the broken stove, 
 and began dragging it out of the line of fire that came 
 through the door. The Girl saw his peril and sprang to 
 help him. He had no time to urge her back. In ten 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 293 
 
 rSeconds he had the stove close to the wall, and almost 
 forcibly he made her crouch down behind it. 
 
 "If you expose yourself for one second I swear to 
 Heaven I'll stand up there against the door until I*m shot ! " 
 he threatened. ** I will, so help me God ! '* 
 
 His brain was afire. He was no longer cool or self- 
 possessed. He was blind with a wild rage, with a mad 
 desire to reach in some way, with his vengeance, the human 
 beasts who were bent on his death even if it was to be 
 gained at the sacrifice of the Girl. He rushed to the side 
 of the cabin from which the fresh attack had come, and 
 glared through one of the embrasures between the logs. 
 He was close to Tara, and he heard the low, steady thunder 
 that came out of the grizzly's chest. His enemies were 
 near on this side. Their fire came from the rocks not more 
 than a hundred yards away, and all at once, in the heat of 
 the great passion that possessed him now, he became 
 suddenly aware that they knew the only weapon he pos- 
 sessed was Nisikoos' little rifle — and Hauck's revolver. 
 Probably they knew also how limited his ammunition was. 
 And they were exposing themselves. Why should he save 
 his last three shots? When they were gone and he no 
 longer answered their fire they would rush the cabin, beat 
 in the door, and then — ^the revolver! With that he would 
 tear out their hearts as they entered. He saw Hauck, 
 fired and missed. A man stood up within seventy yards 
 of the cabin a moment later, firing as fast as he could pump 
 the lever of his gun, and David drove one of Nisikoos' 
 partridge-kniers straight into his chest. He fired a second 
 time at Hauck — another miss ! Then he flung the useless 
 rifle to the floor as he sprang back to !Marge. 
 
294 THE COURAGE OF MARGE OT>OONE 
 
 "Got one. Five left. Now — damn 'em — ^let them 
 eome!" 
 
 He drew Hauck's revolver. A bullet flew througli one 
 of the cracks, and they heard the soft thud of it as it 
 struck Tara. The growl in the grizzly's throat burst 
 forth in a roar of thunder. The terrible sound shook the 
 cabin, but Tara still made no movement, except now to 
 swing his head with open, drooUng jaws. In response to 
 that cry oi animal rage and pain a snarl had come from 
 Baree. He had slunk close to Tara. 
 
 "Didn't hurt him much,*' said David, with the fingers 
 of his free hand crumpling the Girl's hair. "They'll stop 
 shooting in a minute or two, and then . . ." 
 
 Straight into his eyes from that farther waU a splinter 
 hurled itself at him with a hissing sound like the plunge of 
 hot iron into water. He had a lightning inpression of 
 seeing the bullet as it tore through the clay between two of 
 the logs; he knew that he was struck, and yet he felt no 
 pain. His mind was acutely alive, yet he could not speak. 
 His words had been cut oflP, his tongue was powerless — it 
 was like a shock that had paralyzed him. Even the Girl 
 did not know for a moment or two that he was hit. The 
 thud of his revolver on the floor filled her eyes with the 
 first horror of imderstanding, and she sprang to his side as 
 he swayed hke a drunken man toward Tara. He sank 
 down on the floor a few feet from the grizzly, and he heard 
 the Girl moaning over him and calling him by name. The 
 numbness left him, slowly he raised a hand to his chin, 
 filled with a terrible fear. It was there — his jaw, hard, 
 unsmashed, but wet with blood. He thought the bullet 
 had struck him there. 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 295 
 
 "A knockout," were the first words, spoken slowly and 
 thickly, but witJi a great gasp of rehef . "A splinter hit me 
 on the jaw . . . I'm all right . . .'* 
 
 He sat up dizzily, with the Girl's arm about him. In 
 the three or four minutes of forgetfulness neither had 
 noticed that the firing had ceased. Now there came a 
 tremendous blow at the door. It shook the cabin. A 
 second blow, a third — and the decaying saplings were 
 cpashing inward! David struggled to rise, fell back, and 
 pointed to the revolver 
 
 "Quick — the revolver!" 
 
 Marge sprang to it. The door crashed inward as she 
 picked it up, and scarcely had she faced about when their 
 enemies were rushing in, with Henry and Hauck in their 
 lead, and Brokaw just behind them. With a last effort 
 David fought to gain his feet. He heard a single shot 
 from the revolver, and then, as he rose staggeringly, he saw 
 Marge fighting in Brokaw's arms. Hauck came for him, 
 the demon of murder in his face, and as they went down he 
 heard scream after scream come from the Girl's lips, and in 
 that scream the agonizing call of " Tara ! Tara ! Tara /" 
 Over him he heard a sudden roar, the rush of a great 
 body — and with that thunder of Tara's rage and vengeance 
 there mingled a hideous, wolfish snarl from Baree. He 
 could see nothing. Hauck's hands were at his throat. 
 
 But the screams continued, and above them came now 
 the cries of men — cries of horror, of agony, of death; and as 
 Hauck's fingers loosened at his neck he heard with the 
 snarling and roaring and tumult the crushing of great jaws 
 and the thud of bodies. Hauck was rising, his face 
 blanched with a strange terror. He was half up when a 
 
296 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 gaunt, lithe body shot at him Uke a stone flung from a 
 catapult and Baree's inch-long fangs sank into his thick 
 throat and tore his head haK from his body in one savage, 
 snarling snap of the jaws. David raised himself and 
 through the horror of what he saw the Girl ran to him — 
 unharmed — and clasped her arms about him, her hps 
 sobbing all the time— " Tara— ram— Tara . . ." He 
 turned her face to his breast, and held it there. It was 
 ghastly. Henry was dead. Hauck was dead. And Bro- 
 kaw was dead — a, thousand times dead — ^with the grizzly 
 tearing his huge body into pieces. 
 
 Through that pit of death David stumbled with the 
 Girl. The fresh air struck their faces. The sun of day 
 fell upon them. The green grass and the flowers of the 
 mountain were under their feet. They looked down the 
 slope, and saw, disappearing over the crest of the covUe, 
 two men who were running for their lives. 
 
CHAPTER XXVn 
 
 IT MAY have been five minutes that David held the 
 Girl in his arms, staring down into the sunlit valley 
 into which the last two of Hauck's men had fled, and 
 during that time he did not speak, and he heard only her 
 steady sobbing. He drew into his lungs deep breaths of 
 the invigorating air, and he felt himself growing stronger 
 as the GirFs body became heavier in his embrace, and her 
 arms relaxed and slipped down from his shoulders. He 
 raised her face. There were no tears in her eyes, but she 
 was still moaning a little, and her lips were quivering Uke a 
 crying child's. He bent his head and kissed them, and she 
 caught her breath pantingly as she looked at him with eyes 
 which were limpid pools of blue out of which her terror was 
 slowly dying away. She whispered his name. In her 
 look and in that whisper there was unutterable adoration. 
 It was for him she had been afraid. She was looking at 
 him now as one saved to her from the dead, and for a mo- 
 ment he strained her still closer, and as he crushed his face 
 to hers he felt the warm, sweet caress of her lips, and the 
 thrilling pressure of her hands, at his blood-stained cheeks. 
 A sound from behind made him turn his head, and fifty 
 feet away he saw the big grizzly ambling cumbrously from 
 the cabin. They could hear him growling as he stood in 
 the sunshine, his head swinging slowly from side to side 
 like a huge pendulum — ^in his throat the last echcdopf 
 
 297 
 
298 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 of that ferocious rage and hate that had destroyed their 
 enemies. And in the same moment Baree stood in the 
 doorway, his lips drawn back and his fangs gleaming, as if 
 he expected other enemies to face him. 
 
 Quickly David led Marge beyond the boulder from be* 
 hind which he had opened the fight, and drew her down 
 with him into a soft carpet of grass, thick with the blue of 
 wild violets, with the big rock shutting out the cabm from 
 their vision. 
 
 "Rest here, httle comrade," he said, his voice low and 
 trembhng with his worship of her, hds hands stroking back 
 her wonderful hair. " I mu^ return to the cabin. Then — 
 we will go." 
 
 "Go!" 
 
 She repeated the word in the strangest, softest whisper he 
 had ever heard, as if in it all at once she saw the sun and 
 stars, the day and night, of her whole life. She looked 
 from his face down into the valley, and into his face 
 again. 
 
 "We — ^will go," she repeated, as he rose to his feet. 
 
 She shivered when he left her, shuddered with a terrible 
 little cry which she tried to choke back even as she visioned 
 the first glow of that wonderful new Ufe that was dawning 
 for her. David knew why. He left her without looking 
 down into her eyes again, anxious to have these last terrible 
 minutes over. At the open door of the cabin he hesitated, 
 a httle sick at what he knew he would see. And yet, after 
 all, it was no worse than it should be; it was justice. He 
 told himself this as he stepped inside. 
 
 He tried not to look too closely, but the sight, after a 
 moment, fascinated him. If it had not been for the differ- 
 
THE GOUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 299 
 
 eaace in their size he could not have told which was Hauck 
 and which was Brokaw, for even on Hauck, Tara had 
 vented his rage after Baree had killed him. Neither bore 
 very much the semblance of a man just now — ^it seemed 
 incredible that claw and fang could have worked such 
 destruction, and he went suddenly back to the door to see 
 that the Girl was not following him. Then he looked 
 again. Henry lay at his feet across the fallen sapHngs of 
 the battered door, his head twisted completely under him — 
 or gone. It was Henry's rifle he picked up. He searched 
 for cartridges then. It was a sickening task. He found 
 nearly fifty of them on the three, and went out with the 
 pack and the rifle. He put the pack over his shoulders 
 before he returned to the rock, and paused only for a mo- 
 ment, when he rejoined the Girl. With her hand in his he 
 struck down into the valley. 
 
 "A great justice has overtaken them," he said, and that 
 was all he told her about the cabin, and she asked him no 
 questions. 
 
 At the edge of the green meadows they stopped where a 
 trickle of water from the mountain tops had formed a deep 
 pool. David followed this trickle a Uttle up the couUe it 
 had worn in the course of ages, found a sheltered spot, and 
 stripped himself. To the waist he was covered with the 
 fitain and grime of battle. In the open pool Marge bathed 
 her face and arms, and then sat down to finish her toilet 
 with David's comb and brush. When he returned to her 
 she was a radiant glory, hidden to her waist in the gold and 
 brown fires of her disentangled hair. It was wonderful. 
 He stood a step off and looked at her, his heart filled with a 
 wonderful joy, his Hps silent. The thought surged upon 
 
300 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 him now in an overmastering moment of exultation that 
 she belonged to him, not for to-day, or to-morrow, but for 
 all time; that the mountains had given her to him; that 
 among the flowers and the wild things that "great, good 
 God," of whom Father Roland had spoken so often, had 
 created her for him; and that she had been waiting for him 
 here, pure as the wild violets under his feet. She did not 
 see him for a space, and he watched her as she ran out her 
 glowing tresses under the strokes of his brush. 
 
 And once — ages ago it seemed to him now — he had 
 thought that another woman was beautiful, and that an- 
 other woman's glory was her hair! He felt his hetirt 
 singing. She had not been like this. No. Worlds sepa- 
 rated those two — ^that woman and this God-crowned httle 
 mountain flower who had come into his heart like the 
 breath of a new life, opening for him new visions that 
 reached even beyond the blue skies. And he wondered 
 that she should love him. She looked up suddenly and 
 saw him standing there. Love? Had he in all his life 
 dreamed of the look that, was in her face now.^ It made 
 his heart choke him. He held open his arms, silently, as 
 she rose to her feet, and she came to him in all that burn- 
 ished glory of her unbound hair; and he held her close in 
 his arms, Kissing her soft Hps, her flushed cheeks, her blue 
 eyes, the warm sweetness of her hair. And her Hps kissed 
 hvm. He looked out over the valley. His eyes were open 
 to its beauty, but he did not see; a vision was rising before 
 him, and his soul was breathing a prayer of gratitude to 
 the Missioner's God, to the God of the totem-worshippers 
 over the ranges, to the God of all things. It may be that 
 the Girl sensed his voiceless exaltation, for up through the 
 
THE COURAGE OP MARGE O^DOONE 301 
 
 soft billows of her hair that lay crumpled on his breast she 
 whispered: 
 
 "You love me a great deal, my Sakewavdn ?" 
 
 "More than life," he replied. 
 
 Her voice roused him. For a few moments he had for- 
 gotten the cabin, had forgotten that Brokaw and Hauck 
 had existed, and that they were now dead. He held her 
 back from him, looking into her face out of which all fear 
 and horror had gone in its great happiness; a face filled 
 with the joyous colour sent surging there by the wild 
 beating of her heart, eyes confessing their adoration with- 
 out shame, without concealment, without a droop of the 
 long lashes behind which they might have hidden. It was, 
 wonderful, that love shining straight out of their blue, mar- 
 vellous depths! 
 
 "We must go now," he said, forcing himself to break the 
 spell. " Two have escaped, Marge. It is possible, if there 
 are others at the Nest . . ." 
 
 His words brought her back to the thing they had passed 
 through. She glanced in a startled way over the valley, 
 then shook her head. 
 
 "There are two others," she said. "But they will not 
 follow us, Sakewavdn. If they should, we shall be over 
 the mountain." 
 
 She braided her hair as he adjusted his pack. His 
 heart was Uke a boy's. He laughed at her in joyous dis- 
 approval. 
 
 "I like to see it — ^unbound," he said. "It is beautiful. 
 Glorious." 
 
 It seemed to him that all the blood in her body leaped 
 into her face at his words. 
 
302 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 "Then — ^I will leave it that way," she cried softly^ luer 
 words trembling with happiness and her fingers workii^g 
 swiftly in the silken plaits of her braid. Unconfined, h<ir 
 hair shimmered about her again. And then, as they were 
 about to set off, she ran up to him with a little cry, and 
 without touching him with her hands raised her face to 
 his. 
 
 "Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me, my Sahewamn /" 
 
 It was noon when they stood under the topmost cra/S'3 
 of the southward range, and under them they saw on-ce 
 more the green valley, with its silvery stream, in whi\?h 
 they had met that first day beside the great rock, it 
 seemed to them both a long time ago, and the vall^^y 
 was like a friend smiling up at them its welcome and 'iis 
 gladness that they had at last returned. Its drone v>f 
 running waters, the whispering music of the air, and the 
 piping cries of the marmots sunning themselves far belo\7, 
 came up to them faintly as they rested, and as the Girl 
 sat in the circle of David's arm, with her head against his 
 breast, she pointed off through the blue haze miles to the 
 eastward. 
 
 "Are we going that way?" she asked. 
 
 He had been thinking as they had climbed up the moun- 
 tain. Off there, where she was pointing, were his friends, 
 and hers; between them and that wandering tribe of the 
 totem people on the Kwadocha there were no human beings. 
 Nothing but the unbroken peace of the mountains, in 
 which they were safe. He had ceased to fear their im- 
 mensity — ^was no longer disturbed by the thought that in 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 303 
 
 their vast and trackless solitude he might lose himself 
 forever. After what had passed, their gleaming peaks 
 were beckoning to him, and he was confident that he could 
 find his way back to the Finley and down to Hudson's 
 Hope. What a surprise it would be to Father Roland 
 when they dropped in on him some day, he and Marge! 
 His heart beat excitedly as he told her about it, described 
 the great distance they must travel, and what a wonderful 
 journey it would be, with that glorious country at the end 
 of it . . . "We'll find your mother, then," he whis- 
 pered. They talked a great deal about her mother and 
 Father Roland as they made their way down into the 
 valley, and whenever they stopped to rest she had new 
 questions to ask, and each time there was that trembling 
 doubt in her voice. "I wonder whether it's true** And 
 each time he assured her that it was. 
 
 "I have been thinking that it was Nisikoos who sent 
 to her that picture you wanted to destroy," he said once. 
 "Nisikoos must have known." 
 
 "Then why didn't she tell me?" she flashed. 
 
 "Because, it may be that she didn't want to lose you — 
 and that she didn't send the picture until she knew that 
 she was not going to live very long." 
 
 The girl's eyes darkened, and then — slowly — there came 
 back the softer glow into them. 
 
 "I loved — ^Nisikoos," she said. 
 
 It was sunset when they began making their first 
 camp in a cedar thicket, where David shot a porcupine for 
 Tara and Baree. After their supper they sat for a while 
 in the glow of the stars, and after that Marge snuggled 
 down in her cedar bed and went to sleep. But before she 
 
304 THE COUKAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 closed her eyes she put her arms about his neck and kissed 
 him good-night. For a long time after that he sat awake, 
 thinking of the wonderful dream he had dreamed all his 
 life, and which at last had come true. 
 
 Day after day they travelled steadily into the east and 
 south. The mountains swallowed them, and their feet 
 trod the grass of many strange valleys. Strange — and yet 
 now and then David saw something he had seen once 
 before, and he knew that he had not lost the trail. They 
 travelled slowly, for there was no longer need of haste; 
 and in that land of plenty there was more of pleasure than 
 inconvenience in their foraging for what they ate. In her 
 haste in making up the contents of the pack Marge had 
 seized what first came to her hands in the way of provisions, 
 and fortunately the main part of their stock was a 20-pound 
 sack of oatmeal. Of this they made bannock and cakes. 
 The country was full of game. In the valleys the black 
 currants and wild raspberries were ripening lusciously, 
 and now and then in the pools of the lower valleys David 
 would shoot fish. Both Tara and Baree began to grow 
 fat, and with quiet joy David noticed that each day added 
 to the wonderful beauty and happiness in the GirFs face, 
 and it seemed to him that her love was enveloping him 
 more and more, and there never was a moment now that 
 he could not see the glow of it in her eyes. It thrilled him 
 that she did not want him out of her presence for more 
 than a few minutes at a time. He loved to fondle her hair, 
 and she had a sweet habit of running her fingers through 
 his own, and telHng him each time how she loved it ^- 
 
THE COURAGE OF IVIARGE O'DOONE 305 
 
 oftuse it was a little gray; and she had a still sweeter way 
 of holding one of his hands in hers when she was sitting 
 beside him, and pressing it now and then to her soft lips. 
 
 They had been ten days in the mountains when, one 
 evening, sitting beside him in this way, she said, with that 
 adorable and almost childish ingenuousness which he 
 loved in her: 
 
 "It will be nice to have Father Roland marry us, 
 Sakewavnn I^' And before he could answer, she added: 
 **I will keep house for you two at the Chateau." 
 
 He had been thinking a great deal about it. 
 
 "But if your mother should live down there — ^among the 
 cities?" he asked. 
 
 She shivered a Uttle, and nestled to him. 
 
 "I wouldn't like it, Sakewawin — not for long. I love 
 fhis — ^the forest, the mountains, the skies." And then 
 suddenly she caught herself, and added quickly: "But 
 anywhere — anywhere — ^if you are there, Sakewawin 1 " 
 
 "I too, love the forests, the mountains, and the skies," 
 he whispered. "We will have them with us always, Httle 
 comrade." 
 
 It was the fourteenth day when they descended the 
 eastern slopes of the Divide, and he knew that they were 
 not far from the Kwadocha and the Finley. Their fif- 
 teenth night they camped where he and the Butterfly's 
 lover had built a noonday fire; and this night, though it was 
 warm and glorious with a full moon, the Girl was pos- 
 sessed of a desire to have a fire of their own, and she 
 helped to add fuel to it until the flames leaped high up into 
 the shadows of the spruce, and drove them far back with 
 its heat. David was content to sit and smoke his pipe 
 
306 THE COUBAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 while he watched her flit here and there after stiH moie 
 fuel, now a shadow in the darkness, and then again in 
 the full fireglow. After a time she grew tired and nestled 
 down beside him, spreading her hair over his breast and 
 about his face in the way she knew he loved, and for an 
 hour after that they talked in whispering voices that 
 trembled with their happiness. When at last she went to 
 bed, and fell asleep, he walked a Uttle way out into the 
 clear moonlight and sat down to smoke and listen to the 
 murmur of the valley, his heart too full for sleep. Sud- 
 denly he was startled by a voice. 
 
 "David!" 
 
 He sprang up. From the shadow of a dwarf spruce half 
 a dozen paces from him had stepped the figure of a man. 
 He stood with bared head, the light of the moon streaming 
 down upon him, and out of David's breast rose a strange 
 cry, as if it were a spirit he saw, and not a man. 
 
 "David!" 
 
 "My God— Father Roland!" 
 
 They sprang across the little space between them, and 
 their hands clasped. David could not speak. Before 
 he found his voice, the Missioner was saying: 
 
 "I saw the fire, David, and I stole up quietly to see who 
 it was. We are camped down there not more than a quarter 
 of a mile. Come! I want you to see . . ." 
 
 He stopped. He was excited. And to David his face 
 seemed many years younger there in the moonlight, and 
 he walked with the spring of youth as he caught his arm 
 and started down the valley. A strange force held David 
 silent, an indefinable feeling that something tremendous 
 and unexpected was impending. He heard the othex's 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 307 
 
 quick breath, caught the glow in his eyes, and his heart was 
 thrilled. They walked so swiftly that it seemed to him 
 ojily a few moments when they came to a little clump of 
 low trees, and into these Father Roland led David by the 
 hand, treading Hghtly now. 
 
 In another moment they stood beside someone who was 
 sleeping. Father Roland pointed down, and spoke no 
 word. 
 
 It was a woman. The moonhght fell upon her, and 
 shinunered in the thick masses of dark hair that streamed 
 about her, concealing her face. David choked. It was 
 his heart in his throat. He bent down. Gently he lifted 
 the heavy tresses, and stared into the sleeping face that 
 was under them — the face of the woman he had met that 
 night on the Transcontinental! 
 
 Over him he heard a gentle whisper. 
 
 "My wife, David!" 
 
 He staggered back, and clutched Father Roland by the 
 shoulders, and his voice was almost sobbing in its excite- 
 ment as he cried, whispeidngly: 
 
 "Then you — ^you are Michael O'Doone — ^the father of 
 Marge — and Tavish — ^Tavish . . .'* 
 
 His voice broke. The Missioner's face had gone white. 
 They went back into the moonlight again, so that they 
 should not awaken the woman. 
 
 Out there, so close that they seemed to be in each other's 
 arms, the stories were told, David's first — ^briefly, swiftly; 
 and when Michael O'Doone learned that his daughter was 
 in David's camp, he bowed his face in his hands and 
 
$08 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 David heard him giving thanks to his God. And then he, 
 also, told what had happened — ^briefly, too, for the minutes 
 of this night were too precious to lose. In his madness 
 Tavish had believed that his punishment was near — 
 believed that the chance which had taken him so near to the 
 home of the man whose life he had destroyed was his last 
 great warning, and before kilHng himself he had written 
 out fully his confession for Michael 0*Doone, and had 
 sworn to the innocence of the woman whom he had stolen 
 away. 
 
 *^And even as he was destroying himself, God's hand 
 was guiding my Margaret to me," explained the Mis- 
 jsioner. "All those years she had been seeking for me, 
 and at last she learned at Nelson House about Fathet 
 Roland, whose real name no man knew. And at almost 
 that same time, at Le Pas, there came to her the photo- 
 graph you found on the train, with a letter saying our 
 little girl was alive at this place you call the Nest. Hauck'a 
 wife sent the letter and picture to the Royal Northwest 
 Mounted PoUce, and it was sent from inspector to in- 
 spector, until it found her at Le Pas. She came to the 
 Chateau. We were gone — with you. She followed, and 
 we met as Metoosin and I were returning. We did not go 
 back to the Chateau. We turned about and followed 
 your trail, to seek our daughter. And now . . ." 
 
 Out of the shadow of the trees there broke upon them 
 suddenly the anxious voice of the woman. 
 
 "Napao ! where are you?" 
 
 "Dear God, it is the old, sweet name she called me so 
 many years ago," whispered Michael O'Doone. "She 
 is awake- Comjel" 
 
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 300 
 
 David held him back a moment. 
 
 "I will go to Marge," he said quickly. "I will wake 
 her. And you — bring her mother. Understand, dear 
 Father? Bring her up there, where Marge is sleep-* 
 ing . . ." 
 
 The voice came again: 
 
 ** Napoo — Napoo /" 
 
 "I am coming; I am coming!" cried the Missioner. 
 
 He turned to David. 
 
 "Yes — I will bring her — up there — to your camp." 
 
 And as David hurried away, he heard the sweet voice 
 «aying: 
 
 "You must not leave me alone, Napao — ^never, never, 
 never, so long as we live . . ." 
 
 On his knees, beside the Girl, David waited many min- 
 utes while he gained his breath. With his two hands he 
 crumpled her hair; and then, after a httle, he kissed her 
 mouth, and then her eyes; and she moved, and he caught 
 the sleepy whisper of his name. 
 
 "Wake," he cried softly. "Wake, Uttle comrade!" 
 
 Her arms rose up out of her dream of him and encircled 
 his neck. 
 
 "Sakewaioin," she murmured. "Is it morning?" 
 
 He gathered her in his arms. 
 
 "Yes, a glorious day, little comrade. Wake!" 
 
 THE END 
 
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S. 
 
 STORIES OF ADVENTURE 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grossat & Dunlap's list. 
 
 THE RIVER'S END 
 
 A story of the Royal Mounted Police. 
 THE GOLDEN SNARE 
 
 Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland. 
 NOMADS OF THE NORTH 
 
 The story of a bear-cub and a dog. 
 
 KAZAN 
 
 The tale of a "quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky" torn 
 between the call of the human and his wild mate. 
 
 BAREE, SON OF KAZAN 
 
 The story of the son of the blind Grey "Wolf and the gallant part 
 he played in the lives of a man and a woman. 
 
 THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM 
 
 The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his 
 battle with Captain Plum. 
 
 THE DANGER TRAIL 
 
 A tale of love, Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the North. 
 THE HUNTED WOMAN 
 
 A tale of a great fight in the '* valley of gold " for a woman. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH 
 
 The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness 
 is blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. 
 
 THE GRIZZLY KING 
 
 The story of Thor, the big grizzly. 
 ISOBEL 
 
 A love story of the Par North. 
 THE WOLF HUNTERS 
 
 A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. 
 THE GOLD HUNTERS 
 
 The story of adventiu*e in the Hudson Bay wilds. 
 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women, 
 
 BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY 
 
 A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made 
 from this book. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
ZANE GREY^S NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Brosset & Dunlap's list. 
 
 THE MAN OF THE FOREST 
 
 THE DESERT OF WHEAT 
 
 THE U. P. TRAIL 
 
 WILDFIRE 
 
 THE BORDER LEGION 
 
 THE RAINBOW TRAIL 
 
 THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE 
 
 THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS 
 
 THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN 
 
 THE LONE STAR RANGER 
 
 DESERT GOLD 
 
 BETTY ZANE 
 
 LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS 
 
 The life story of ' ' Buffalo Bill * ' by his sister Helen Cody 
 Wetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey. 
 
 ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS 
 
 KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE 
 THE YOUNG LION HUNTER 
 THE YOUNG FORESTER 
 THE YOUNG PITCHER 
 THE SHORT STOP 
 
 THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER 
 BASEBALL STORIES 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
EDGAR RICE BURROUGH'S 
 NOVELS 
 
 May be had wtiertver books are sold. Ask for firosset & Duwlap't list 
 
 TARZAN THE UNTAMED 
 
 Tells of Tarzan's return to the life of the ape-man in 
 his search for vengeance on those who took from him his 
 wife and home. 
 
 JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN 
 
 Records the many wonderful exploits by which Tarzan 
 proves his right to ape kingship. 
 
 A PRINCESS OF MARS 
 
 Forty-three million miles from the earth — a succession 
 of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction. 
 John Carter, American, finds himself on the planet Mars, 
 battling for a beautiful woman, with the Green Men of 
 Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, mounted on 
 horses like dragons. 
 
 THE GODS OF MARS 
 
 Continuing John Carter* s adventures on the Planet Mars, 
 in which he does battle against the ferocious **plant men," 
 creatures whose mighty tails swished their victims to instant 
 death, and defies Issus, the terrible Goddess of Death, 
 whom all Mars worships and reveres. 
 
 THE WARLORD OF MARS 
 
 Old acquaintances, made in the two other stories, reap- 
 pear, Tars Tarkas, Tardos Mors and others. There is a 
 happy ending to the story in the union of the Warlord, 
 the title conferred upon John Carter, with Dejah Thoris. 
 
 THUVIA, MAID OF MARS 
 
 The fourth volume of the series. The story centers 
 around the adventures of Carthoris, the son of John Car- 
 ter and Thuvia, daughter of a Martian Emperor. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNMP^ Pubushers, NEW YORK 
 
FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S 
 NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold] Ask for Grosset & Duniap'riist 
 
 THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER 
 
 A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, beheving she 
 had lost her lover, enters a convent. He returns, and io- 
 teresting developments follow. 
 
 THE UPAS TREE 
 
 A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful 
 author and his wife. 
 
 THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE 
 
 The story of a seven day courtship, in which the dis- 
 crepancy in ages vanished into insignificance before the 
 convincing demonstration of abiding love. 
 
 THE ROSARY 
 
 The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty 
 above all else in the world, but who, when blinded through 
 an accident, gains life's greatest happiness. A rare story 
 of the great passion of two real people superbly capable of 
 love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward. 
 
 THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE 
 
 The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the 
 death of a husband who never understood her, meets a fine, 
 clean young chap who is ignorant of her title and they fall 
 deeply in love with each other. When he learns her real 
 identity a situation of singular power is developed. 
 
 THE BROKEN HALO 
 
 The story of a young man whose religious belief was 
 shattered in childhood and restored to him by the little 
 white lady, many years older than himself, to whom he is 
 passionately devoted. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR 
 
 The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for 
 Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her 
 fulfill the conditions of her uncle's will, and how they finally 
 come to love each other and are reunited after experiences 
 that soften and purify. 
 
 Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, Nev7 York 
 
ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 THE LAMP IN THE DESERT 
 
 The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and 
 tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through 
 all sorts of tribulations to final happiness. 
 
 GREATHEART 
 
 The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals 
 a noble soul. 
 
 THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE 
 
 A hero who worked to win even when there was only 
 a hundredth chance." 
 
 THE SWINDLER 
 
 The story of a **bad nian's*' soul revealed by a 
 •Toman's faith. 
 
 THE TIDAL WAVE 
 
 Tales of love and of women who learned to know the 
 true from the false. 
 
 THE SAFETY CURTAIN 
 
 A very vivid love story of India. The volume also 
 contains four other long stories of equal interest. 
 
 Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 
 
ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS 
 
 May tm had wlwvaf booR» art sold. Ask for Crotset & Duplap't lirt. 
 
 JUST DAVID 
 
 The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to 
 fill in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he 
 is left. 
 
 THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING 
 
 A compelling romance of love and marriage. 
 
 OH, MONEY ! MONEY ! 
 
 Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the disposi- 
 tions of his relatives, sends them each a check for $100,- 
 000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to 
 watch the result of his experiment. 
 
 SIX STAR RANCH 
 
 A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their sum- 
 mer on Six Star Ranch. 
 
 DAWN 
 
 The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him 
 through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by 
 dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers. 
 
 ACROSS THE YEARS 
 
 Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. 
 Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done. 
 
 THE TANGLED THREADS 
 
 In these stories we find the concentrated charm and 
 tenderness of all her other books. 
 
 THE TIE THAT BINDS 
 
 Intensely V«uman stories told with Mrs. Porter's won- 
 derful talent for warm and vivid character drawing. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUI 
 
 \'6i^ 
 
 MAR 271941 
 
 SEP 17 1941 M 
 
 tBjj. 
 
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IB 3248 
 
 912701 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY