full of the events of the last few days. In vain he had struggled to throttle the suspicion which was steadily gaining strength—that this silent old Indian sitting there across the fire was playing a deep and subtle game. But why?
In the eastern survey lately completed they had camped together many nights on a flying reconnaissance of the country, as they were then camped. Born in a Hudson's Bay Post where his father was factor, Gordon as a boy had become familiar with the Ojibway tongue, and it was in Ojibway that he talked to David when they were alone. This knowledge of the language of his fathers had been the means of drawing out the proud old Indian as nothing else could have done, and of speedily cementing a warm friendship between white engineer and red voyageur.
Night after night they had burned much tobacco discussing the ways of the furred prowlers and horned wanderers of the Ontario forests and muskeg. David had spun many a tale of his journeys to the great salt bay of the north where the geese and duck swarm in myriads for the fall migration. Gordon had spent two years in the British Columbian Rockies and his talk of that land of summer snows and glaciers, lying far beyond the sunset, enthralled the imagination of the Indian. But for the most part it had been David who taught and Gordon who listened. The old man's knowledge of woodcraft, his many winter trails with the dog-teams and summer journeys in the boats of the Great Company through the Ontario silent places, his love of the mystic in nature,
