Tempest forgot her in a struggle to clear a snag round the next corner. But the thing which he had done before the Treaty tent at Fort Resolution meant more than either the white man or the brown girl knew. For it was earnest of that deeper, more impersonal fathering which Tempest was later to give to the land he loved.
Through the evening haze a tall York boat grew out of the blue distance with its patched sail drawing feebly in the fitful wind. It was crowded with the Yellow Knives and Dog Rib Indians, going in to Fort Resolution for Treaty Payment. Idly they sat or lay about the decking; long-haired, loose-limbed, indifferent, except where one boy sprang up on a thwart, holding a little girl on his broad shoulder. A red handkerchief was bound about the boy's head; and his shrill hail, broken across by the drop of his voice to a man's depth, came curiously over the empty waters. Then they too fell away into the past, and Dick turned his eyes to the man ahead of him again.
He had watched each one of those swarthy, dark-eyed faces with the lightningly-keen glance which was his by nature. He knew that he would look so at every man he passed—until he found Ducane. The order to go and look for Ducane until he found him would have been very nearly the greatest joy earth could have given him now. But, because it was denied, he knew the matter only lengthened by a little. If Ducane lived he would find him. If Ducane died he would know it. Concerning this matter he had the strange intuition which occasionally comes to men who have relied all their lives on chance.
The Lake, wide and moaning as the sea, was dark with the wrath of an eastern wind that night. But it was no darker than Tempest's spirit as he walked the stony ridge behind their island camp, forgetful of the mosquito-smudges, and remembering only that he had at last taken the decisive step away from civilisation and from all knowledge of Andree.
He knew Andree now very much for what she was. But that only changed his love. He no longer thought of her a wife. To him she was, and always would be, just Grange's Andree; a thing half-human and wholly dear—a thing which the very soul of him longed to protect and
