cloak of winter, and men of the H. B. C. came to relieve Fort o' God, and
entered at its gates, a gaunt man, leaning on his rifle, greeted them
standing like a warrior, though his body was like that of one who had
lain in the grave. He answered to the name of Pierre without pride, but
like a man and not as a sick woman. And huddled on the floor beside him
was an idiot fondling a pipe, with a shred of pemmican at his lips.

As if in irony of man's sacrifice, the All Hail and the Master of Things
permitted the fool to fulfil his own prophecy, and die of a sudden
sickness in the coming-on of summer. But he of God's Garrison that
remained repented not of his deed. Such men have no repentance, neither
of good nor evil.






A HAZARD OF THE NORTH

Nobody except Gregory Thorne and myself knows the history of the Man and
Woman, who lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog Ear River falls
into Marigold Lake. This portion of the Height of Land is a lonely
country. The sun marches over it distantly, and the man of the East--
the braggart--calls it outcast; but animals love it; and the shades of
the long-gone trapper and 'voyageur' saunter without mourning through its
fastnesses. When you are in doubt, trust God's dumb creatures--and the
happy dead who whisper pleasant promptings to us, and whose knowledge is
mighty. Besides, the Man and Woman lived there, and Gregory Thorne says
that they could recover a lost paradise. But Gregory Thorne is an