had burst out crying. That was the queerest memory of them all--that
crying of Bella's.--Even now he could not understand exactly why she
had cried so then.

The frightened, furtive life they had all led since--the life of
scared wild things--had left its mark on Pete. His fear for Hugh now
threw him back into the half-forgotten state of apprehension which
had been the atmosphere of all his little boyhood. He had not known
then why strange men were creatures to be feared and shunned. In fact,
he had never been told the reason for Hugh's flight. Only, bit by
bit, he had pieced together hints and vague allusions until he knew
that this strange, embittered, boasting poet of a brother had killed
or had been accused of killing. In his loyal boy mind Hugh Garth was
promptly acquitted. It was the world that was wrong--not Hugh. Yet
to-day, after all the long years of carefulness, he had gone back
to the cruelty of the world.

Like a beast the boy's anxiety for his brother began to prowl
about the walls of his mind. He imagined Hugh appearing at the
trading-station. He pictured the curious glances of the Indians
and the white natives. This limping, extravagant, energetic Hugh
with his whitening hair and eyebrows and flaring hazel eyes--with
his crooked nose and mouth, his magnificently desperate manner and
his magnificently desperate voice--attention would inevitably fasten
upon him anywhere; how much more in an empty land such as this! Pete
fancied the inquiring looks turned from the man to the man's posted
picture. It was no longer a faithful likeness, of course; still, it
was a likeness. There was no other man in all the world like Hugh! He
was made of odd, fantastic fragments, of ill-fitting parts--physically,
mentally, spiritually. It was as if a soul had seen itself in a