father, doing what was required of him, and that well.
He was spare and wrinkled as an old Indian, and there
was hardly an unscarred inch in his body, having been
charged by buffaloes, clawed by bears and otherwise
resented by wild animals.

"Rory," said the girl after a pause, and the softness of
her voice was something to conjure with, "what do you
think? Are the half-breeds and Indians going to interfere
with us if they do rise?"

"Thar be good Injuns and bad Injuns," said Rory doggedly,"
but more bad nor good. The Injun's a queer animile when
he's on the war-path; he's like Pepin Quesnelle's tame
b'ar at Medicine Hat that one day chawed up Pepin, who
had been like a father to 'im, 'cos he wouldn't go stares
wid a dose of castor-oil he was a-swallerin' for the good
of his health. You see, the b'ar an' Pepin used allus
to go whacks like."

The girl laughed, but still she was uneasy in her mind.
She mechanically watched the tidy half-breed woman and
the elderly Scotchwoman who had been her mother's servant
in the old Ontario days, as the two silently went on, at
the far end of the long room, with the folding and putting
away of linen. Her eyes wandered with an unwonted
wistfulness over the picturesque brown slabs of pine that
constituted the walls, the heavy, rudely-dressed tie-beams
of the roof over which were stacked various trim bundles
of dried herbs, roots and furs, and from which hung