ments, in search of her grave. MeCready was his tried friend and could give him the news of the posts hundreds of miles below.
How he longed to see his island again and the pitiful cross he had placed over the ruins of his home! He wanted to talk to the factor's wife of Marie and the happy days that were dead. He would bring sod from the post stockade, forest flowers and wild shrubs, and make his sacred ground beautiful. It would be her wish, for in life she had loved them so. And each spring, if he were alive, he would come, even from the uttermost north, and keep the forest from encroaching on his altar; and she, looking down from heaven, would see him and know he had not forgotten.
So one day in early June the canoe of François Hertel grated on the beach at Lost Lake Post.
"Upon my soul, François Hertel, where did you come from? I thought you'd be up on Hudson's Bay by this time!" gasped MeCready as Hertel walked into the trade-house,
"I come long way, but not from de Bay. I go to Coocoocache."
"Coocoocache?" cried the astonished Scotchman. "Man, are you crazy? They've offered a reward of a thousand dollars for you, dead or alive. You might run into government people down there on the Transcontinental."
"I have met dem before," and Hertel's set mouth relaxed into a smile.
"I know, François, but they're not all cowards.
