Carefully, so that it would not tear, he drew it forth.  There was writing on the paper, as he had expected, and he read it, bent low beside the lamp.  The date was nearly eighteen years old.  The lines were faint.  The words were these: 

My husband,—­God can never undo what I have done.  I have dragged myself back, repentant, loving you more than I have ever loved you in my life, to leave our little girl with you.  She is your daughter, and mine.  She was born on the eighth day of September, the seventh month after I left Fort o’ God, She is yours, and so I bring her back to you, with the prayer that she will help to fill the true and noble heart that I have broken.  I cannot ask your forgiveness, for I do not deserve it.  I cannot let you see me, for I should kill myself at your feet.  I have lived this long only for the baby.  I will leave her where you cannot fail to find her, and by the time you have read this I will have answered for my sin—­ my madness, if you can have charity regard it so.  And if God is kind I will hover about you always, and you will know that in death the old sweetheart, and the mother, has found what she could never again hope for in life.

Your wife.

Philip rose slowly erect and gazed down into the still, tranquil face of Pierre, the half-breed.

“Why didn’t you open it?” he whispered.  “Why didn’t you open it?  My God, what it would have saved—­”

For a full minute he looked down at Pierre, as though he expected that the white lips would move and answer him.  And then he thought of Jeanne hurrying to Fort o’ God, and of the terrible things which she was to reveal to her father that night.  She was D’Arcambal’s own daughter.  What pain—­what agony of father and child he might have saved if he had examined the locket a little sooner!  He looked at his watch and found that Jeanne had been gone three hours.  It would be impossible to overtake MacDougall and the girl unless something had occurred to delay them somewhere along the trail.  He hurried back into the little room, where he had left Cassidy.  In a few words he explained that it was necessary for him to follow Jeanne and the engineer to D’Arcambal House without a moment’s delay, and he directed Cassidy to take charge of camp affairs, and to send Pierre’s body with a suitable escort the next day.

“It isn’t necessary for me to tell you what to do,” he finished, “You understand.”

Cassidy nodded.  Six months before he had buried his youngest child under a big spruce back of his cabin.

Philip hastened to the stables, and, choosing one of the lighter animals, was soon galloping over the trail toward the Little Churchill.  In his face there blew a cold wind from Hudson’s Bay, and now and then he felt the sting of fine particles in his eyes.  They were the presage of storm.  A shifting of the wind a little to the east and south, and the fine particles would thicken, and turn into