Part 10 (1/2)

”What's the rowled the factor ”Have you been drinking again?”

”No, no, no,” cried the Indian, hastily ”I am afraid--I must tell you--Miss Jean--Oh, what can I say?”

”In heaven's name, what's the matter? What's this about Miss Jean?”

shouted the factor

”She is gone, sir, disappeared co-wo out behind the fort at ten o'clock, with the missionary's wife Mrs Gates came in at noon, but Miss Jean said she would slide once or twice more, alone She hasn't come in, and we can find no trace of her”

”Why wasn't I told of this?” cried the factor, in a weak, pitiful voice

”We didn't want to alaret out of here! Leave roaned Fitzpatrick; and the two rief

CHAPTER IX

THE BROKEN PIPE

For nearly the whole night, Donald McTavish had paced the bare little room that had been set aside for him Now, he looked at his watch It was four o'clock

The thought occurred to hiet some rest, but immediately his common sense told hi to do but rest, and, spurred on by the witches that rode his racingUp one side, across past the foot of the bed; back again and down; that was his route And, while his feet traversed but seven or eight yards, his ueless spaces of the Northland

Where was she? Where was she? This was the continual refrain that rang in his ears For five days now, Jean Fitzpatrick had been gone; sed up in the silent, snoastes Who had taken her?

Why? And whither?

When Tee-ka-h the post, fifty , each according to his own teirl more beloved than was Jean Fitzpatrick Summer and winter, the days were full of little kindnesses of hers, so that her disappearance was not a signal for a ”duty” search, but one in which every h he alone had been to blaan had been found at the top of the hill where she and Mrs Gates had spent the , and on the hard crust a few di into the forest, with now and then a dent where, perhaps, the girl's snowshoe had gone through But aside fro clews not a trace of her could be located

For two days, the searchers took every trail, traveling light and running swiftly, but to no avail The girl had disappeared as though evaporated by the sun

Then did old Angus Fitzpatrick, boith grief, sueon Lake Stern old disciplinarian with others, he was none the less so with hied the two days of the Company's time that he had used in the search for Jean

Unaniainst him stood the entire council when he ested that they be run to earth His chiefs of departments alhter should be found But old Fitzpatrick with the autocracy of thirty years in the Far North, snarled their sentiments doith his own, and forced them to the Company's business in hand

And so it was at last decided that almost the entire force of men, well-areon Lake, led by the factor hied the white-haired chief to remain in the co that this was the only trouble in all his years in the North, and that he would put it down himself, Fitzpatrick remained inexorable

”Besides,” he added pathetically, ”if anything should be heard from Jean, I would be there to follow it up”

All this Donald heard fro in his little roo the excitement, the captain of Fort dickey and his miraculous escape from death never entered the minds of the couard, he would have fared ill indeed

Theof the fourth day, was hardest of all Then, the fifty es, and packs, tinkled out from the fort across the icy river, sped on their way by the waving hands of women, old men, and the furious few selected by lot to re fort

That same day, Peter Rainy, under strict orders from the factor, who had at last recollected his prisoner, hitched up Buller's dogs, and departed for Fort dickey Before he went, he had only aat which the Scotcher Then, the guard came, and the intervieas at an end