At the sight of him the woman’s stony face broke in tender pity, the silent tears flowed down her cheeks, while the baby’s fingers, like little living things, played lightly over the boy’s head seeking his face. In that hour of solemn sacrament the boy in an unspoken covenant dedicated himself to the care and protection of this babe upon whose blue eyes God for some mysterious reason had let this unspeakable horror of darkness fall. Thenceforth no love, no lure could draw away the boy’s heart whensoever the babe had need of him. In that hour too the Indian mother of the blind child gave to the boy the deep adoring love of her heart, veil it as she might, second only to that she had given to the man for whose sake she had abandoned home and race and all else that she held dear. The weeks following the arrangement as to Paul’s headquarters were somewhat difficult for the boy. For one thing, Peg was never satisfied that the whole afternoon should be given to Pine Croft, and was continually impressing into her service the Colonel in planning expeditions of one kind and another in which Paul should join. Then, more and more Paul came to see that the days were dragging wearily for his father. Few of the old neighbours visited at Pine Croft, in spite of the vigorous propaganda carried on in the little community by the Colonel and his lady in favour of a generous and liberal judgment of Gaspard and his social misadventures. The only response came from the Macdonalds who, in spite of the stern and rigid ethical standards inherited from their sturdy Nova Scotian forebears, frankly accepted the guarantee of the Colonel and his wife and often dropped in of an evening or on a Sunday afternoon. But it was hard going for them all. The old friends found it difficult to unbend in the old free and easy manners of the old days, without finding themselves involved in reminiscences painful and embarrassing to all concerned. And none of them, with the very best of intentions, could break through the shy, proud reserve of the Indian woman. She had her own life, and between that life and the life of the valley there existed but one vital point of contact, the man whose life she had twice saved and for whom she would gladly any day lay down her life.