Delight and excitement were running high. It was a game. In Marcel's child-mind there was nothing better in the world. And it was An-ina's invention. It was the gopher hunt.

They often played it in the cool summer evenings. The gophers destroyed the crops of men, therefore men must destroy the gophers. It was the simple logic that satisfied the child-hunter's mind. Besides, it was his own game which An-ina had taught him, and no one else played it in the same way. Every dead gopher An-ina told him meant more food for the pappoose on the Reserve. And it was the child's desire that the pappoose on the Reserve should eat to repletion.

The game entailed the lighting of a fire. That in itself demanded a hundred excited instructions to the faithful An-ina, who contrived the fire unfailingly, in her quick Indian way, in spite of them. Then there was the collection of dried grass which demanded a search and laborious consideration as to its suitability. Then came the stuffing of it into a score and more of the principal holes in the selected gopher warren. During this operation strict silence had to be observed. Then the crowning moment. Erect, alert, in his woolen jersey and the briefest of knickers, the child took his stand in the centre, where, with youthful optimism, he sought to take within his purview the numberless exits for the panic-stricken quarry. With stick raised, and every nerve quivering with excitement, he was there to do battle with the destructive foe.

So he waited whilst An-ina advanced with her fire brand. With rapid breathing and shining eyes the hunter watched as each plugging of dried grass was fired. The smoke, rising in a circle about him, left him a picture like some child martyr being burned at the stake.

Her work completed An-ina stood looking on, her beautiful dusky face wreathed in a smiling delight which the sight of the boy's happiness never failed to inspire.

A wild shriek. A flourishing and slashing of the stick. A scuttle of racing moccasined feet. The quarry had broken cover and the chase had begun!

A dozen gophers with bristling tails bounded clear of the smoke ring. They scattered in every direction. The boy was in pursuit. Shrieking, laughing, slashing, headlong he ran, nimble as the gophers themselves.

It was wide open grassland, and An-ina contented herself with watching from the distance. It was the boy's game. His was the chase. Hers was the simple happiness of witnessing his enjoyment.

"Gee!"

An-ina started at the sound of the exclamation behind her. She turned, and her movement had something of the swiftness of some wild animal. But it was not a defensive movement. There was no apprehension in it. She knew the voice. It was the voice she had been yearning to hear again for something over two years.

"Boss Steve!" she cried, and there was that in her wide, soft eyes which her aboriginal mind made no effort to conceal.

Steve was standing some yards away, with his horse's reins linked over his arm. As the woman approached he moved forward to meet her. But his eyes were on the boy, still in vain pursuit of the escaped gophers, pausing, stalking, completely and utterly absorbed.

The woman realized the white man's pre-occupation. She was even glad of it. So, in her simple way, she explained.

"This—his game," she said. "He mak' great hunter," she added with simple pride. "An-ina tell him gophers bad—much. So he say Marcel hunt 'em. Him kill 'em. Him say Uncle Steve say all things bad must be kill."

"He still thinks of—Uncle Steve?"

The enquiry came with a smile. But the man had withdrawn his gaze from the distant child, and was earnestly searching the woman's smiling face.

"Marcel think Uncle Steve all man," she said quickly. "Uncle Mac, oh, yes. Auntie Millie, oh, very good. An-ina. Yes. An-ina help in all things. Uncle Steve? Uncle Steve come bimeby, then all things no matter."

"Is that so? Does he feel that way? After two years?"

"Marcel think all things for Uncle Steve—always. An-ina tell him Uncle Steve come bimeby. Sure come. She tell him all time. So Marcel think. He not forget. No. He speak with the good spirit each night: 'God bless Uncle Steve, an' send him back to boy.'"

The man's smile thanked her. And a deep tenderness looked out of his steady eyes as they were turned again in the direction of the distant, running figure.

"You come back—yes?"

The woman's voice was low. It was thrilling with a hope and emotion which her words failed to express.

"Yes. I'm back for keeps." Steve's gaze came back to the soft eyes of the woman. "That is, I'm going back to Unaga—with the boy. Will An-ina come, too?"

"Boss Steve go back—Unaga?"

A startled light had replaced the softness of the Woman's eyes. Then, after a moment, as no reply was forthcoming, she went on.

"Oh, yes. An-ina know." She glanced away in the direction where the police post stood, and a woman's understanding was in the sympathy shining in her eyes. "White man officer no more. Oh, yes. No little baby girl. No. No nothing. Only Marcel, an'—maybe An-ina. So. Oh, yes. Unaga. When we go?"

There was no hesitation, no doubt in the woman's mind. And the utter and complete self-abnegation of it all was overwhelming to the man.

"You—you're a good soul, An-ina," he said, in the clumsy fashion of a man unused to giving expression to his deeper feelings. "God made you a squaw. He handed you a colour that sets you a race apart from white folk, but he gave you a heart so big and white that an angel might envy. Yes, I want you An-ina. So does Marcel. We both want you bad. Unaga—it's a hell of a country, but you come along right up there with us, and I'll fix things so you'll be as happy as that darn country'll let you be. Julyman and Oolak are going along with us. They've quit the police, same as I have. I can't do without them, same as we can't do without An-ina. We're going there for the boy. Not for ourselves. It's the weed. We got to do all that Marcel's father reckoned to do. And when we've done it Marcel will be rich and great. Same as you would have him be. There's 'no nothing' for me anywhere now but with Marcel. You understand? You'll help?"

All the softness had returned to the woman's eyes, untaught to hide those inner feelings of her elemental soul.

"An-ina help? Oh, yes." Then she added with a smile of patient content: "An-ina always help. She love boy, too. You fix all things. You say 'go.' An-ina go. So we come by Unaga. It storm. Oh, yes. It snow. It freeze. It no matter. Nothing not matter. Auntie Millie mak' boy and An-ina speak with the Great Spirit each night. An' He bless you all time. Him mak' you safe all time. An-ina know—sure."

The frank simplicity of it all left the white man searching for words to express his gratitude. But complete and utter helplessness supervened.

"Thanks, An-ina," he articulated. And he dared not trust himself to more.

Diversion came at a moment when he was never more thankful for it. The shrill treble of the boy reached them across the stretch of tawny, summer grass.

"Uncle Stee-e-ve! Uncle St-ee-ee-ve!"

Little Marcel was unstinting in all things. His call was not simply preliminary. His enthusiasm for the hunt was incomparable with his new enthusiasm. His call of recognition came as he ran towards the object of his hero-worship, and he ran with all his might.

It was a breathless child that was lifted into Steve's arms and hugged with an embrace the sight of which added to the squaw's smile of happiness. The boy's arms were flung about the man's neck with complete and utter abandonment. An-ina looked on, and no cloud of jealousy shadowed her joy. She had done all in her power that the white man should not be forgotten in his absence. The great white man, who was her king of men. And she had her reward.

The first wild moments of greeting over, the boy's chatter flowed forth in a breathless torrent. And all the while the man was observing those things that mattered most to his maturer mind.

Marcel had grown astoundingly in the prolonged interval. The promise of the sturdy body Steve had so often watched trundling across the snows of Unaga in its bundle of furs had developed out of all knowledge under the ample hospitality of Millie Ross's home. Tall, straight, muscular it had shot up many inches. The boy was probably seven years of age. Steve did not know for sure. Nor did it signify greatly. The things that mattered were the ruddy, sunburnt cheeks of perfect health, the big, intelligent blue eyes, the shapely mouth, and the sunny, wavy hair, all containing the promise of a fine manhood to come. Then the firm, stout limbs, and the powerful ribs. That which was in the handsome boyish face was in the body, too. God willing, the man knew that the coming manhood would be amply worth.

Slackening excitement brought the boy back to the thing which held his vital interest, and he told of the great game he and An-ina were engaged upon. He told of his failures and successes with impartial enthusiasm. And finally invited his "Uncle" to join in the game.

"No, old fellow," he said. "I've got to get right along down to the house to see Uncle Mac and Auntie Millie. You see, I've only just got along from Reindeer. Guess I've been chasing a gopher for two years and more. But like you I just didn't get him. Some day——"

"You been hunting gophers, Uncle Steve?" The childish interest leapt afresh.

The man nodded, and his smiling eyes encountered those of the squaw. He read the understanding he beheld there, and turned quickly to the child again.

"Sure," he said drily. "But I didn't get him."

"No." The boy turned regretful eyes towards the open, where he, too, had just failed to bag his quarry. "You kill 'em when you get 'em, Uncle. We do, don't we, An-ina?" he added, appealing for corroboration.

"We always kills 'em, Uncle Steve," he went on, "'cos gophers are very bad."

"Yes. Gophers are bad, old fellow. Always kill them. That's how I'd have done if I'd got the one I was after. But I didn't get him. He ran too fast for me. Maybe I'll find him another time. You never know. Do you? Boy and Uncle and An-ina are going a great long way soon. We'll find better than gophers to hunt, eh?"

"Yes—wolves! Where we go?"

"We go back to the Sleepers—and the old fort."

Steve searched the child's face anxiously as he made the announcement. He was half afraid of a lingering memory that might jeopardize his plans, or, at least make their fulfilment more difficult. But he need have had no fear. The child remembered, but only with delight. And again the man recognized the guiding hand of the squaw.

"Oo-o, Uncle! Soon? We go soon?" Marcel cried, his eyes shining. "The forests where the wolves are. And the Sleepers. And the snow comes down, and we dig ourselves out. And the dogs, and sleds, and—we go soon—very soon! Can't we go now? Oo-o!"

"Not now, but—soon."

Steve's satisfaction was in the glance of thanks which he flashed into An-ina's watching eyes.

"But now I must really go along to the house, old fellow," he said, with a sigh. "Guess boy'll come, too, or maybe he'll go on with his game?"

The question was superfluous. Gopher hunting was a glorious sport, but walking hand in hand with Uncle Steve back to the house, even though bed and a bath were awaiting him, was a delight Marcel had no idea of renouncing.

The plump figure of Millie Ross half filled the doorway, while the sunset sought out the obscure corners of the comfortably furnished hall place behind her.

The doctor's great figure was supported on the table on which he had flung his hat while he welcomed Steve. The latter's arrival had been quite unheralded, completely unexpected. So long was it since his going that husband and wife had almost abandoned the thought that some day they would be called upon to render an account of their stewardship with regard to young Marcel, and hand over the little human "capital" originally entrusted to them. It was not to be wondered at. They loved the boy. They had their two girls, but they had no son. And Marcel—well, Steve was so long overdue, and his absence had been one long, unbroken silence. So, all unconsciously, they had come to think that something had happened, something which had caused him to change his mind, or which had made it physically impossible for him to return. Now, after the first warmth and delight of the meeting had passed, a certain pre-occupation restrained the buoyancy so natural to the warm-hearted pair.

Steve was seated in the chair beside the table, the chair which the doctor was wont to adopt when the mosquitoes outside made the veranda impossible. Perhaps he understood the preoccupation which more particularly looked out of Millie's eyes. He felt the burden of his debt to these people, a debt he could never repay; he understood the feelings which his return must inspire if the child, left in their care, had become to them a tithe of that which he had become to him. He knew it was his purpose to tear the child out of their lives. And the wrench would be no less for the thought that he purposed carrying him off to those regions of desolation which had already come very near to costing the child's helpless little life.

So his steady eyes were watchful of the woman's attitude, and he looked for the sign of those feelings which he knew his return must have set stirring. He knew that, whatever the big Scotsman felt and thought, the woman was the real factor with which he must reckon.

With this understanding he frankly laid bare much which he otherwise would have kept deep hidden. He told these two, who listened in deep sympathy, the story of his pursuit of the man who had wronged him, from the beginning to the end. And, in the telling, so shorn of all unnecessary colouring, the simple deliberateness of his purpose, contemplated in the coldly passionate desire of an implacable nature, the story gained a tremendous force, the more so that his pursuit had ended in failure.

He told them how for nearly a year, after winding up the affairs of his dead father, which had left him with even a better fortune than he had expected, he had systematically devoted himself to spreading a wide net of enquiries. In this process he had to travel some thousands of miles, and had to write many hundreds of letters, and had spent countless hours in the official bureau of local police.

He told them how finally he had discovered the trail he, sought in a remote haunt in the poorer quarters of Winnipeg. This, after many tortuous wanderings and blind alley searchings, had finally led him to the waterside of Quebec, and the purlieus of Mallard's, where, under the guidance of the celebrated Maurice Saney, he ran up against the blank wall of that redoubtable harbour of crime.

"All this," he said, without emotion, "took me over two years. And I guess it wasn't till I hit up against Mallard's that I sat down and took a big think. You see," he went on simply, "I wanted to kill that feller. I wanted to kill that feller, and take my poor girl back and get back my little, little baby. I had a notion I might have to hang for the job, but, anyway, I'd have saved her from a life—well, I'd have saved them both, and been able to fix them so they didn't need a thing in life. What happened to me didn't seem to worry any. But when I hit up against Mallard's, and I'd listened some to Saney I started in to figure. To get that far had taken me over two years, and big money. There might be still years of it ahead of me. And when I'd done, was I sure I'd get Nita and the kiddie back? And if I did, how would I be able to fix them after all the expense? Then there was Marcel. Maybe it was something else urging me to quit. Something I wasn't just aware of. I don't know. I've heard say that a feller who yearns to kill, either kills quick or goes crazy. There wasn't a thing foolish about me. I hadn't any of the foolishness of a crazy man. Which is a way of saying the yearning to kill hadn't the grip on me it had. It was a big fight, but sense—or something else—won out. I quit for those other things I'd got in my head. Guess I heard that little feller's 'Hullo!' ringing in my ears. Same as I heard it up in Unaga. So I cut out the other, and got busy right away fixing things for the big play I mean to put up for the kiddie that Providence has left to me. There are times when my whole body kicks at the thought of that skunk getting away with his play. But there's others when I'm glad—real glad—I quit. I can't judge the thing right. I'm sort of torn in different directions. Anyway, there it is. Maybe the thing I haven't been allowed to do will be done sometime by the Providence that reckons to straighten out most things as it sees fit. I hope the way it sees is my way. That's all. Now I'm ready for the big play. My outfit has gone up by water on Hudson's Bay, a special charter. It's to be landed and cached on the shores of Chesterfield Inlet. I've sunk every cent of my inheritance in it. It's an outfit that'll give Marcel and me a life stake in the work lying ahead. And all that comes out of it is for him. With all this fixed I got back right away."

"But not—in a 'hurry.'"

There was a half smile in the Scotsman's eyes.

"The only 'hurry' I'm in is to get all the season we need," Steve replied simply.

"That means you want Marcel—right away."

Millie spoke without turning from her contemplation of the view beyond the doorway. And there was that in her voice which told Steve of the inroads Marcel had made upon her mother's heart.

"I've thought of all this a whole heap," he said gently. "It's one of the things that clinched my idea of quitting. Later I don't guess I'd have had the nerve to—ask for Marcel."

Millie turned abruptly. And the husband was watching her as urgently as Steve himself.

"That's not fair, Steve," she declared, without attempting to soften the challenge.

"But, Millie—"

The husband's protest was cut short.

"Don't worry, Mac," Millie cried. "I know just the feelings that prompted Steve to think that way. But it's not fair. It's making out that I'd like to go back on my word, and refuse to give Marcel up to the moloch of Unaga. That's the part that isn't fair. Steve, if you'd come to me in twenty years my word would have gone every time. That boy might be my own son, I never had a son, and maybe you can guess just what that means to me when I say it. But there's bigger things in the world than my feelings, and I'm full wise to them. That boy loves you the same as if you were his father. I've helped to see to that. I and An-ina. You've been through hell for him. You've been through a hell of your own besides. Now you're ready to give your all for him—including your life. Do you know what I feel in my fool woman's way? I'll try and tell you," she went on, forcing back the threatening tears. "There's men in the world made to give their everything for those they love. You're one of them. To rob you of an object for you to work and sacrifice yourself for would be to rob you of the greatest thing in your life. It would be an unforgivable crime, and though it broke my heart I would refuse to commit that crime. Marcel is ready for you the moment you ask for him. Oh, yes, it's just as I said. His outfit is ready. We've enlarged it as he's grown. An-ina has done her share. There's two of everything, as I said there would be—and a good deal over. But," she added, with a little pitiful break in her voice that showed how near were her tears, "I wish, oh, how I wish, it was not Unaga, and that, some day, I might hope to see his smiling, happy face again. You'll be good to him, Steve, won't you? Raise him, train him, teach him. Don't let him become a wild man. I want to think of him, to always remember him as he is now, and to think that when he grows to manhood at least he's as good a man as you."