“Yes, Mother says they just sweep down and keep us from bumping too hard. They do, don’t they, Daddy?” enquired the boy, seeking assurance in his father’s eyes. “Why—ah—certainly they do. They got a wing in the way of that old stump sure enough. But are you all right now, old man? Any headache? Arms all right?’ Legs? Back? All sound, eh?” Paul, moving his various limbs in response to his father’s questioning, found them all entire, without bruise or fracture. They all climbed to the grassy plot above, Paul refusing to be carried, and found waiting them only one little girl, her face showing dead white against the aureole of her bronze-gold hair. “Hello, Peg,” grinned Paul. “Where’s Asa and Adelina?” The little girl, looking very tiny in her riding breeches, gulped very hard once or twice, then rushing at Paul flung herself upon him in a storm of tears. “Oh, Paul, they said you were dead,” she sobbed, clinging to him. “But you’re not! You’re not!” “Oh, rot, Peg.” Paul cast sheepish eye round the group as he disentangled himself from the clinging arms. “Don’t be a silly. What’s a fling from a horse? Lots of chaps get that.” The little girl drew away from him, hurt and ashamed, and went slowly toward her pony. “Where are you going, Peg?” said Paul. “None of your business,” she flung at him, leading her pony toward a convenient stump. “Peggy!” called Gaspard. Slowly she turned her face toward him. “Peggy, will you do something for me?” He walked over toward her. “Peggy, I want you to take Paul home for me. He is quite all right, I think, but I would feel safer if you were with him. Will you?” “Yes, Uncle Hugh,” said the little girl, her self-respect much restored. “And, Paul—sure you feel all right?” enquired his father. “Sure thing. Perfeckly all right, Daddy,” replied the boy stoutly. “Well, then, ride slowly home together. Don’t race. And don’t tell Mother anything about the accident, about what’s happened, till I return. I don’t want her frightened. You understand, Paul, don’t you? I can trust you, eh?” “Yes, Daddy, you can trust me.” And, sitting his pony very straight and gripping tight with his knees, he set off, crying out, “Good-bye, all! Come along, Peg.” “Good-bye, Uncle Hugh. Good-bye, little baby. Good-bye, all,” cried Peg, putting her horse to a gallop to overtake Paul who was just disappearing round a turn in the trail. CHAPTER VI When Gaspard turned from waving his son good-bye he found himself facing the chief and his daughter. “Chief, I want to speak to you about—about—that baby there.” He pointed to the child in the girl’s arms. The chief motioned the girl away. “No, Father, it is my child. I will hear what is said.” “Let her stay,” said Gaspard. The chief grunted acquiescence. Then Gaspard spoke. “I want to have the boy educated like a white man. I will pay for all. But I want him to live in the North Country with his mother. That is the best place for him just now.”