punishments, for His dear sake."

"Bring up the little bag with the tea and a kettle of water," he called
the next instant to his boatmen; "not forgetting the haunch of cariboo
and the mixing-pan."

When his men, converts by his own hand, had gained the bank, the trio
fell to their knees, hands and backs burdened with camp equipage, and
offered up thanks for their passage through the wilderness and their safe
arrival. Hay Stockard looked upon the function with sneering
disapproval, the romance and solemnity of it lost to his matter-of-fact
soul. Baptiste the Red, still gazing across, recognized the familiar
postures, and remembered the girl who had shared his star-roofed couch in
the hills and forests, and the woman-child who lay somewhere by bleak
Hudson's Bay.



III


"Confound it, Baptiste, couldn't think of it. Not for a moment. Grant
that this man is a fool and of small use in the nature of things, but
still, you know, I can't give him up."

Hay Stockard paused, striving to put into speech the rude ethics of his
heart.

"He's worried me, Baptiste, in the past and now, and caused me all manner
of troubles; but can't you see, he's my own breed--white--and--and--why,