CHAPTER III

A LOST GIRL

R. GERALD AINLEY standing in the meadow outside the Post, looked towards the river bank with smiling eyes.

Where Hubert Stane's little tent had been the willows now showed an unbroken line, and he found that fact a source of satisfaction. Then between the willows he caught sight of a moving figure, and after one glance at it, began to hurry forward. A moment later the figure emerged from the willows and stood on the edge of the meadow, revealing its identity as that of the English girl with whom he had walked on the previous day. Without observing him the girl turned round and began to walk towards the Indian encampment and Ainley immediately altered his course, walking quickly so as to intercept her. He joined her about a score of paces from the tents and smilingly doffed his cap.

"Good morning, Miss Yardely. You are astir early."

Helen Yardely laughed lightly. "It is impossible to do anything else in this country, where it is daylight all the time, and birds are crying half the night. Besides we are to make a start after breakfast."

Yes, I know; I'm going with you."

"You are going with us, Mr. Ainley!" There was a little note of surprise in the girl's tones. "My uncle has not mentioned it!"

"No! It was only finally decided last night; though from the beginning of the excursion it has been contemplated. Sir James is making notes of his journey which I am to supplement. I believe he has an idea of bringing out a book describing the journey!"

"Which you are to write, I suppose?" laughed the girl.

"Well," countered the man also laughing, "I am to act as amanuensis. And after all you know I am in the service of the Company, whose fortunes Sir James directs."

"He may direct them," answered the girl lightly, but it is other men who carry them the men of the wilds who bring the furs to the posts, and the traders who live in isolation from year's end to year's end. You must not take my uncle quite so seriously as he takes himself, Mr. Ainley."

Gerald Ainley smiled. "You forget, Miss Yardely, he can make or break a man who is in the Company's service."

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Perhaps!" laughed the girl. "Though if I were a man I should not so easily be made or broken by another. I should make myself and see that none broke me." She paused as if waiting for an answer, then as her companion continued silent, abruptly changed the topic. "By the by, I see that your acquaintance of other days has removed himself!"

"Yes," answered Ainley, "I noticed that." "He must have gone in the night."

"Yes," was the reply. "I suppose he folded his tent like the Arabs and as silently stole away." "I daresay the meeting with an old acquaintance was distasteful to him."

"That is possible," answered Ainley.

"When a

man has deliberately buried himself in this wild land he will hardly wish to be resurrected."

And yet he did not appear to avoid you yesterday?" said the girl thoughtfully.

"A momentary impulse, I suppose," replied her companion easily. "I daresay he thought I might fraternise and forget the past."

"And you couldn't?"

"Well, scarcely. One does not fraternise with gaol-birds even for old time's sake."

They had now arrived at the tepees and as they halted, the flap of one was thrown aside, and Miskodeed emerged. She did not see them, as the moment she stepped into the open air her eyes turned towards the willows where Stane's camp had been. A look of sadness clouded the wild beauty of her face, and there was a poignant light in her eyes.

"Ah!" whispered Helen Yardely. "She knows that he has gone."

"Perhaps it is just as well for her that he has, answered Ainley carelessly. "These marriages of the country are not always happy for the

Miskodeed caught the sound of his voice, and, turning suddenly, became aware of their presence.

In an instant a swift change came over her face. Its sadness vanished instantly, and as her eyes flashing fiercely fixed themselves upon Ainley, a look of scorn came on her face intensifying its bizarre beauty. She took a step forward as if she would speak to the white man, then apparently changed her mind, and swinging abruptly on her heel, re-entered the tent. Helen Yardely glanced swiftly at her companion, and surprised a look of something very like consternation in his eyes.

"That was very queer!" she said quickly. "What was very queer?" asked Ainley.

"That girl's action. Did you see how she looked at you? She was going to speak to you and changed her mind."

Ainley laughed a trifle uneasily. Possibly she blames me for the disappearance of her lover!" "But why should she do that? She can hardly know of your previous acquaintance with him." "You forget she saw him speak to me yester

day!"

"Ah yes," was the girl's reply. "I had forgotten that." The notes of a bugle, clear and silvery in the still air, floated across the meadow at that moment, and Gerald Ainley laughed.

"The breakfast bell! We must hurry, Miss Yardely. It will scarcely do to keep your uncle waiting."

They turned and hurried back to the Post, nothing more being said in reference to Miskodeed and Hubert Stane. And an hour later, in the bustle of the departure, the whole matter was brushed aside

by Helen Yardely, though now and again through the day, it recurred to her mind as a rather unpleasant episode; and she found herself wondering how so fine a man as Stane could stoop to the folly of which many men in the North were guilty.

At the end of that day her uncle ordered the camp to be pitched on a little meadow backed by a sombre forest of spruce. And after the evening meal, in company with Gerald Ainley, she walked towards the timber where an owl was hooting dismally. The air was perfectly still, the sky above crystal clear, and the Northern horizon filled with a golden glow. As they reached the shadow of the spruce, and seated themselves on a fallen trunk, a fox barked somewhere in the recess of the wood, and from afar came the long-drawn melancholy howl of a wolf. Helen Yardely looked down the long reach of the river and her eyes fixed themselves on a tall bluff crowned with spruce, distant perhaps a mile and a half away.

"I like the Wild," she said suddenly, breaking the silence that had been between them.

"It is all right," laughed Ainley, "when you can journey through it comfortably as we are doing."

"It must have its attractions even when comfort is not possible," said the girl musingly, "for the men who live here live as nature meant man to live."

"On straight moose-meat-sometimes," laughed Ainley. "With bacon and beans and flour brought in from the outside for luxuries."

"I was not thinking of the food," answered the girl quickly. "I was thinking of the toil, the hard