knew me and feared my rivalry, these traders of the Company. No district
of the far North but has felt the influence of my bartering. The traders
of all districts--Fort au Liard, Lapierre's House, Fort Rae, Ile à la
Crosse, Portage la Loche, Lac la Biche, Jasper's House, the House of the
Touchwood Hills--all these, and many more, have heard of Ned Trent."

"Your father--you knew him well?"

"No, but I remember him--a tall, dark man, with a smile always in his
eyes and a laugh on his lips. I was brought up at a school in Winnipeg
under a priest. Two or three times in the year my father used to
appear for a few days. I remember well the last time I saw him. I was
about thirteen years old. 'You are growing to be a man,' said he;
'next year we will go out on the trail.' I never saw him again."

"What happened?"

"Oh, he was just killed," replied Ned Trent, bitterly.

The girl laid her hand on his arm with an appealing little gesture.

"I am so sorry," said she.

"I have no portrait of him," continued the Free Trader, after an
instant. "No gift from his hands; nothing at all of his but this."

He showed her an ordinary little silver match-safe such as men use in
the North country.

"They brought that to me at the last--the Indians who came to tell my