is a little scare. But she go more fas'.
"Wa! Wa! What a sight she sec there! Poor Michel he pretty near done. She can't see his face no more for blood. She think he got no face now. Michel he see her come, and say to her loud as he can: 'Go way! Go way! You get hurt and John Gaviller give me hell!'
"Colina say not know what to do. Them two turn around so fas' she 'fraid to shoot. She run aroun' and aroun' them always looking for a chance. Bam-by she see the handle of Michel's knife in a hole in the snow. She grab it up. She watch her chance. Woof! She stick that bear between the neck and the shoulder!
"That is all!" said Poly. "Bear, him grunt and fall down. Stick his snoot in the snow. Michel crawl away. Colina is fall down too and cry lak a baby. For a little while all three are dead!
"Then Colina wash his wounds with clean snow, and tear up her petticoat for to mak' bandage. She put him on his snowshoes and drag him back where the dogs is. She bring him quick to the fort. In one week Michel is go to his traps same as ever. That is the story!"
"By God, there's a woman!" cried Peter. Ambrose said nothing.
When Poly Goussard reembarked in his dug-out a heavy constraint fell upon the two partners.
Ambrose dreaded to hear Peter call attention to the remarkable coincidence of Poly's story following so close upon their own talk together. He suspected that Peter would want to sit up and thrash the matter to conclusions.
At the bare idea of talking about it Ambrose felt as helpless and sullen as a convicted felon.
In this he underrated Peter's perceptions. Peter had lived in the woods for many years. He intuitively apprehended something of the confusion in the younger man's mind, and he was only anxious to let Ambrose understand that it was not necessary to say anything one way or the other.
But he overdid it a little, and when Ambrose saw that Peter was "on to him," as he would have said, he became still more hang-dog and perverse.
They parted at the door of the store. Peter went off to his family, while Ambrose closed the door of his own little shack behind him, with a long breath of relief.
Feeling as he did, it was torture to be obliged to support the gaze of another's eye, however kindly. So urgent was his need to be alone that he even turned his back on his dog. For a long time the poor beast softly scratched and whined at the closed door unheeded.
Ambrose was busy inside. As it began to grow dark he lit his lamp and carefully pinned a heavy shirt inside his window in lieu of a blind.
Since Peter and his family went to bed with the sun it would be hard to say whom he feared might spy on him. One listening at the door might well have wondered what the activity inside portended.
Later Ambrose opened the door and, putting the dog in, proceeded cautiously to the store. Satisfying himself from the sounds that issued through the connecting door that Peter and his family slept deeply, he lit a candle and quietly robbed the stock of what he required. Then he wrote a note and pinned it beside the store door.
Carrying the bundles back to his cabin, he packed a grub-box and bore it down to the water.
His preparations completed, he went to his shack to bid good-by to his four-footed pal. Job, instantly, comprehending that he was to be left behind, whimpered and nozzled so piteously that Ambrose's heart began to fail.
"I can't take you, old fel'!" he explained. "You're such a common-looking mutt. Of course, I know you're white clear through—but a lady would laugh at you until she knew you!"
Even as he said it his heart accused him of disloyalty. He suddenly changed his mind.
"Come on!" he whispered gruffly. "We'll chance our luck together. If you open your head I'll brain you! Wait here a minute."
Job understood perfectly. He crept down to the lake shore at his master's feet as quiet as a ghost. Seeing the loaded boat he hopped delightedly into his accustomed place in the bow.
During June it never becomes wholly dark in the latitude of Lake Miwasa. An exquisite dim twilight brooded over the wide water and the pine-walled shore. The stars sparkled faintly in an oxidized silver sea. There was no wind now, but the pines breathed like warm-blooded creatures.
Ambrose's breast hummed like a violin to the bow of night. The poetic feeling was there, though the expression was prosaic.
"By George, this is fine!" he murmured.
Job's curly tail thumped the gunwale in answer.
"I'm glad I brought you, old fel'," said Ambrose. "I expect I'd go clean off my head if didn't have any one to talk to!"
Job beat a tattoo on the side of the boat and wriggled and whined in his anxiety to reach his master.
"Steady there!" said Ambrose.
Presently he went on: "Three hundred miles! Six days for Poly to come with the current; nine days to go back! Fifteen days at the best! Anything might happen in that time. … Poly said no danger from any of the men there. But some one might come down the river! … If wishing could bring an aeroplane up north!"
After a silence: "I wish I could get my best suit pressed! … It's two years old, anyway. And she's just come in; she knows the styles. … Lord, I'll look like a regular roughneck!"
Next morning when Peter Minot threw open the door of the store he found the note pinned to the door-frame. It was brief and to the point:
DEAR PETE:
You said I ought to go by myself till I felt better. So I'm off. Don't expect me till you see me. Charge me with 50 lbs. flour, 18 lbs. bacon, 20 lbs. rice, 10 lbs. sugar, 5 lbs. prunes,½ lb. tea,½ lb. baking powder, and bag of salt. Please take care of my dog. So long! AD
P.S.—I'm taking the dog.
Peter, like all men slow to anger, lost his temper with startling effect. Tearing the note off the door and grinding it under foot, he cursed the runaway from a full heart.
Eva, hearing, hastily called the children indoors, and thrusting them behind her peeped into the store. Peter, purple in the face, was wildly brandishing his arms.
Eva closed the door very softly and gave the children bread and molasses to keep them quiet. Meanwhile the storm continued to rage.
"The young fool! To run off without a word! I'd have let him go gladly if he'd said anything—and given him a good man! But to go alone! He'll break an arm and die in the bush! And to leave me like this with the year's outfit due next week!
"I'll not see him again until cold weather—if I ever see him! Fifty pounds of flour—with his appetite! He'll starve to death if he doesn't drown himself first! He'll never get to Enterprise! Oh, the consummate young ass! Damn Poly Goussard and his romantic stories!"
CHAPTER III.
COLINA.
John Gaviller and Colina were at breakfast in the big clap-boarded villa at Fort Enterprise.
They were a good-looking pair, and at heart not dissimilar, though it must be taken into account that the same qualities manifest themselves differently in a man of affairs and a romantic, irresponsible young woman.
They were secretly proud of each other—and quarreled continually. Colina, by virtue of her reckless honesty, frequently got the better of her canny father.
"Well," he said, now with a gesture of surrender, "if you're determined to stay here, all right—but you must live differently."
At the word "must" an ominous gleam shot from under Colina's lashes.
"What's the matter with