In point of fact Jessie had not thanked him in set words. She had been in too great an agitation of spirit to think of it. But Morse did not say so. "Oh, that's all right. Any one would have done it. Mighty glad I was near enough. Hope she doesn't feel any worse for the shock." "Not a bit. I'm here to ask ye to let bygones be bygones. I've nursed a grudge, but, man, it's clean, washed oot o' my heart. Here's my hand, if you'll tak it." Tom did, gladly. He discovered at the same moment that the sun was striking sparks of light from a thousand snow crystals. It was a good world, if one only looked for the evidence of it. "The latchstring is always oot for you at the hame of Angus McRae. Will you no' drap in for a crack the nicht?" asked the trapper. "Not to-night. Sometime. I'll see." Tom found himself in the position of one who finds open to him a long-desired pleasure and is too shy to avail himself of it immediately. "Have you seen Whaley yet to-day?" he asked, to turn the subject. The hunter's lip grew straight and grim. "I have not. He's no' at the store. The clerk says a messenger called for him early this mornin' and he left the clachan at once. Will he be hidin' oot, do you think?" Tom shook his head. "Not Whaley. He'll bluff it through. The fellow's not yellow. Probably he'll laugh it off and say he was only stealin' a kiss an' that Miss Jessie was silly to make a fuss about it." "We'll let it go at that--after I've told him publicly what I think o' him." Where Whaley had been nobody in Faraway knew. When he returned at sunset, he went direct to the store and took off his snowshoes. He was knocking the packed and frozen slush from them at the moment Angus McRae confronted him. The trader laughed, from the lips, just as Tom had prophesied he would do. "I reckon I owe you an apology, McRae," he said. "That li'l' wild-cat of yours lost her head when I jollied her and Morse broke the door down like the jackass he is." The dressing-down that Angus McRae gave Whaley is still remembered by one or two old-timers in the Northwest. In crisp, biting words he freed his mind without once lapsing into profanity. He finished with a warning. "Tak tent you never speak to the lass again, or you an' me'll come to grips."