couple of handkerchiefs taken from the sick man's pack.

She poured a few drops between his lips, and then after laving his face, she laid one of the wet handkerchiefs on his brow, renewing it, from time to time, in order to cool his head. After a little time the babble ceased, the restlessness passed away, and his eyes closed in natural slumber. Seated on the ground, she still watched him, her face the index of troublesome thoughts; but after a little time, she began to nod, her chin dropped to her chest, and she fell into a profound sleep.

"Miss Yardely! Miss Yardely!"

Stane's voice awakened her two hours and a half later. She looked round in some bewilderment, and as her eyes saw his tired, white face, she started up. "I am afraid I must have fallen asleep," she began hurriedly. "I"

"Have you been watching me all night?" he asked in a rather weak voice.

"No, not all night," she protested. "I awoke outside a little time ago, and heard you talking deliriously. I came in the tent to do what I could, and then seated myself to watch. I must have been very tired or

Please, please, Miss Yardely. You must not reproach yourself. I cannot allow it! I blame myself for giving you so much trouble."

"How do you feel?" asked Helen, changing the subject.

Rather groggy," he replied with a poor attempt at gaiety.

She stretched a hand and took his. The palm was moist.

"Ah," she said.

"You feel weak no doubt, but the fever has left you. I will go and attend to the fire and prepare breakfast."

She turned a little abruptly and left the tent, and Stane looked after her with frowning eyes. Something had gone wrong. There was an air of aloofness and austerity about her that had not been there yesterday, and she had spoken in formal terms that had nothing of the camaraderie which had characterized their acquaintance until now. He could not understand it; in no way could he account for it; and he lay there puzzling over the matter and listening to the sound of her movements outside. Never for a single moment did it enter his mind that the daughter of civilization was jealous of that daughter of the wilds whose name he had uttered in the unconsciousness of delirious hours. Nor did it enter the mind of Helen herself. As she recalled the name she had heard on his lips in the night, whilst she busied herself with unaccustomed tasks, the feeling of resentment that was strong within her, to her appeared a natural feeling due to a sense of outraged convenances when in reality it had its origin in the strongest and deepest of primal passions.

L

CHAPTER X

A CANOE COMES AND GOES

YING on his back, his head pillowed on a rolled-up blanket, Hubert Stane became

aware that the sound of the girl's movements had ceased. He wondered where she had gone to, for it seemed clear to him that she had left the camp, and as the time passed without any sound indicating her presence he began to feel alarmed. She was unused to the woods, it would be easy for her to lose herself and if she did

Before the thought was completed he heard the sound of a snapping stick, and knew that she had returned. He smiled with relief and waited for her appearance, but a few minutes passed before she entered the tent, bearing in her hand a tin cup. He looked at her inquiringly.

"What have you there, Miss Yardely?' "Balsam," was the reply," for the cut upon your head. It is rather a bad one, and balsam is good for healing."

"But where did you get it?"

"From I forget how many trees.

quite a number of them hereabouts."

There are

"I didn't know you knew so much of wood lore,"

he said smilingly.

"I don't," she retorted, quickly. "I am very ignorant of the things that really matter up here. I suppose that balsam would have been the very first thing an Indian girl would have thought of, and would have searched for and applied at once, but I only thought of it this morning. You see one of my uncle's men had a little accident, and an Indian went out to gather the gum. I happened to see him pricking the blisters on the trees and gathering the gum in a dish and I inquired why he was doing it. He explained to me, and this morning when I saw the cut, it suddenly came to me that if I could find balsam in the neighbourhood it would be helpful. And here it is, and now with your permission I will apply it."

"I wonder I never thought of it myself," he answered with a smile. "It is a very healing ungent. Apply to your heart's content, Miss Yardely."

Deftly, with gentle fingers, the girl applied the balsam and then bound the wound with a strip of linen torn from a handkerchief. When the operation was finished, still kneeling beside him, she leaned back on her heels to survey the result.

"It looks quite professional," she said; "there isn't an Indian girl in the North could have done it better."

"There isn't one who could have done it half as well," he answered with a laugh.

"Are you sure?" she asked quickly. "How about Miskodeed?"

"Miskodeed?" he looked at her wonderingly.

แ

"Yes, that beautiful Indian girl I saw you talking with up at Fort Malsun."

Stane laughed easily. "I know nothing whatever about her capacity as a healer," he said. "I have only spoken to her on two occasions, and on neither of them did we discuss wounds or the healing of them."

"Then" she began, and broke off in sudden confusion.

He looked at her in some surprise. There was a look on her face that he could not understand, a look of mingled gladness and relief.

"Yes?" he asked inquiringly. "You about to say

what?"

were

"I was about to say the girl was a comparative stranger to you!"

"Quite correct," he replied. "Though she proved herself a friend on the night I was kidnapped, for I saw her running through the bushes towards my tent, and she cried out to warn me, just as I was struck."

"If she knew that you were to be attacked she ought to have warned you before," commented Helen severely.

"Perhaps she had only just made the discovery or possibly she had not been able to find an opportunity."

"She ought to have made one," was the answer in uncompromising tones. Any proper-spirited girl would have done."

Stane did not pursue the argument, and a moment