Turning to his family he spoke a command in Cree, and forthwith they began to pitch their bundles in.

Ambrose was accustomed to the thanklessness of the humbler natives.

They are like children, who look to the white man for everything, and take what they can get as a matter of course. Still he was a little nonplused by the excessive precipitation of this family.

It occurred to him there was something more in their desperate eagerness to get away than Alexander's tale explained. But having given his word, he could not take it back.

From father down to babe their faces expressed such relief and hope he had not the heart to rebuke them. Alexander came to him for the food, and he handed over all he had.

"Wait!" he said. "I will give you a letter for Peter Minot. Lord!" he inwardly added. "Peter won't thank me for dumping this on him!"

On a leaf of his note-book he scribbled a few lines to his partner explaining the situation.

"You understand," he said to Alexander, "out of your credit for the black fox, John Gaviller must be paid what you owe him."

Alexander nodded indifferently, mad to get away.

As Alexander's squaw was about to get in the dugout she paused on the stones and looked at Ambrose, her ugly, dark face working with emotion.

Her eyes were as piteous as a wounded animal's. She flung up her hands in a gesture expressing her powerlessness to speak.

It seemed there was some grat.i.tude in the family. Moved by a sudden impulse she caught up Ambrose's hand and pressed it pa.s.sionately to her lips. The white man fell back astonished and abashed. Alexander paid no attention at all.

In less than ten minutes after Ambrose had given them the dugout the distressed family pushed off for a new land. Father and son paddled as if the devil were behind them.

"I wonder if I done the right thing?" mused Ambrose.

The Selkirks had not long disappeared down the river when Ambrose received another visitor. This was a surly native youth who, without greeting, handed him a note, and rode back to the fort. Ambrose's heart beat high as he examined the superscription.

He did not need to be told who had written it. But he was not prepared for the contents:

DEAR:

Come to me at once. Come directly to the house. I am in great trouble.

COLINA.

CHAPTER XII.

GATHERING SHADOWS.

Ambrose, hastening back to Gaviller's house with a heart full of anxiety, came upon Gordon Strange as he rounded the corner of the company store. The breed was at the door. Evidently he harbored no resentment, for his face lighted up at the sight of an old friend.

"Well!" he said. "So you came to see us."

Ambrose felt the same unregenerate impulse to punch the smooth face.

However, with more circ.u.mspection than upon the previous occasion, he returned a civil answer.

"Have you heard?" asked Strange, with an expression of serious concern.

Ambrose reflected that Strange probably knew a message had been sent.

"Heard what?" he asked non-committally.

"Mr. Gaviller was taken sick last night."

"What's the matter with him?" asked Ambrose quickly.

Strange shrugged. "I do not know exactly. The doctor has not come out of the house since he was sent for. A stroke, I fancy."

"I will go to the house and inquire," said Ambrose.

He proceeded, telling himself that Strange had not got any change out of him this time. He was relieved by the breed's news; he had feared worse.

To be sure, it was terribly hard on Colina, but on his own account he could not feel much pain of mind over a sickness of Gaviller's.

The half-breed girl who admitted him showed a scared yellow face.

Evidently the case was a serious one. She ushered him into the library. The aspect, the very smell of the little room, brought back the scene of two days before and set Ambrose's heart to beating.

Presently Colina came swiftly in, closing the door behind her. She was very pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She showed the unnatural self-possession that a brave woman forces on herself in the presence of a great emergency. Her eyes were tragic.

She came straight to his arms. She lowered her head and partly broke down and wept a little.

"Ah, it's so good to have some one to lean on!" she murmured.

"Your father--what is the matter with him?" asked Ambrose.

The look in her eyes and her piteous shaking warned him to expect something worse than the tale of an illness.

She lifted her white face.

"Father was shot last night," she said.

"Good G.o.d!" said Ambrose. "By whom?"

"We do not know."

"He's not--he's not--" Ambrose's tongue balked at the dreadful word.

She shook her head. "A dangerous wound, not necessarily fatal. We can't tell yet."

"You have no idea who did it?"

Colina schooled herself to give him a coherent account. The sight of her forced calmness, with those eyes, was inexpressibly painful to Ambrose.