The rescue of the Indian woman and her family was to the missionary a bit of his ordinary day’s work, as was the daily ministering to the sick woman, without questioning and without suspicion, such help for body and soul as she required. The woman’s need was great, and for these good Samaritans this established a sufficient claim upon the full wealth of their resources, with never a suggestion or sense of burden. Indeed, within the missionary’s home the coming of the little blind girl was as the visit of an angel unawares. It added not a little to the cares of the missionary’s wife that she was not infrequently called upon to settle furious strife between her sturdy young sons as to their rights and privileges in the service of the little maid. Within a week the whole family had made for themselves an assured place in the little community about the Post. The only cloud upon the horizon of their community life was the only too obvious fact that the Indian woman was travelling her last trail and that the camp ground was in sight. Upon this shadowed area of peace came breezing from the south Sergeant Starr on his way to the far north, seeking a runaway half-breed murderer and thief. A cheery soul was the sergeant, in spite of his seventy-three inches of gaunt and grim manhood. He had left his corporal a hundred miles back, nursing, at another Hudson’s Bay Company’s Post, a frozen foot. “Where has your man gone, Sergeant?” inquired the factor. “Have you any idea now?” “Up the Athabasca—among the Chippewayans, I rather guess,” replied the sergeant, “and they are the very deuce too to work with. Close as clams. No use for us.” “But you will be getting him in time, I suppose,” said the factor dubiously. “It’s a habit we have,” said the sergeant, as if gravely announcing a demonstrated fact. “What’s new? Who is the young Apollo?” he added, nodding in the direction of Paul who was passing. “Yon lad is one of a party rescued by Chambers from the teeth of the last blizzard, a week or so ago.” “Chambers is at his old tricks, eh?” “Aye. And this time he made a very fine catch whatever. Four of them, one a woman, an Indian with a blind little child——” “What?” exclaimed Starr, arrested in his unloading operations. “A blind girl? An Indian?” “Half-breed Scotch. Indian mother.” “What name?” enquired the sergeant sharply. “Name? That I do not know. We don’t bother with the names of our guests much,” said the factor. The sergeant nodded. “Quite right, quite right, Mr. MacKinroy. But I am interested in this family. Fine young fellow that. And blind child, eh?” “And what will you be after, Sergeant?” asked the factor, knowing his man. “Not much, except that I may say to you, Mr. MacKinroy, that I am of the opinion that I have hit upon something that the commissioner has been asking us to dig up for the past six years.” The sergeant’s deliberate voice and manner were quite impressive. “And what will you be meaning now, Sergeant?”