in the middle of the tint stood the Tall Master, alone. He had his
fiddle to his chin, and the bow hoverin' above it. He looked at me for a
long time along the thing; then, all at once, from one string I heard the
child laughin' that pleasant and distant, though the bow seemed not to be
touchin'. Soon it thinned till it was the shadow of a laugh, and I
didn't know whin it stopped, he smilin' down at the fiddle bewhiles.
Then he said without lookin' at me,--'It is the spirit of the White
Valley and the Hills of the Mighty Men; of which all men shall know, for
the North will come to her spring again one day soon, at the remaking of
the world. They thought the song would never be found again, but I have
given it a home here.' And he bent and kissed the strings. After, he
turned sharply as if he'd been spoken to, and looked at someone beside
him; someone that I couldn't see. A cloud dropped upon his face, he
caught the fiddle hungrily to his breast, and came limpin' over to me--
for there was somethin' wrong with his fut--and lookin' down his hook-
nose at me, says he,--'I've a word for them at Fort Luke, where you're
goin', and you'd better be gone at once; and I'll put you on your way.
There's to be a great battle. The White Hands have an ancient feud with
the Golden Dogs, and they have come from where the soft Chinook wind
ranges the Peace River, to fight until no man of all the Golden Dogs be
left, or till they themselves be destroyed. It is the same north and
south,' he wint on; 'I have seen it all in Italy, in Greece, in--' but
here he stopped and smiled strangely. After a minute he wint on: 'The
White Hands have no quarrel with the Englishmen of the Fort, and I would
warn them, for Englishmen were once kind to me--and warn also the Golden
Dogs. So come with me at once,' says he. And I did. And he walked with
me till mornin', carryin' the fiddle under his arm, but wrapped in a
beautiful velvet cloth, havin' on it grand figures like the arms of a
king or queen. And just at the first whisk of sun he turned me into a
trail and give me good-bye, sayin' that maybe he'd follow me soon, and,