Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/126

124 "I am taking Florestine back with me," he said. "And you'd best go home at once, Mrs. Ducane. There's a storm corning, I fancy. Those look like snow-clouds."

Jennifer realised suddenly that the sun was gone and that a cold restless wind was plucking at the shack-corners. But she did not heed.

"Who is taking her down to Fort Saskatchewan?" she asked.

"Kennedy. To-morrow morning."

Jennifer glanced at the ruddy youth.

"Oh, will he know enough?" she said. "Will he be kind to her?"

"Why, he'll do his best," Tempest smiled. "He's a good lad. But I'll speak to him if you like."

He beckoned Kennedy.

"Mrs. Ducane is very anxious that this poor girl should be well looked after," he said. "I told her you'd do your best. Isn't that so?"

"Aha," said Kennedy, scarlet with shyness. "All right, Sergeant. Cert'nly."

Tempest's glance passed to the motionless Florestine.

"I think you would be wise to go, Mrs. Ducane," he said. " We may get bad snow out of this. You know what the spring storms are."

Jennifer went obediently, with a curious sense of impotence. These men whose ways lay so much among rough men and rough work needed no teaching from her in the matters of gentleness and forethought. She could not have handled Florestine as Tempest had done, and she believed that Tempest had made more of the storm so that she should not have the pain of seeing them take Florestine away.

Then she realised that the storm was very much more than a thing of Tempest's imagination, and along the flank of the hill she hurried with all her strength, feeling the chill bite of the wind on her face. A flake of wet snow, chill as the forerunner of a blizzard, struck her, and she lowered her head, pushing against it with her long swift snow-shoe swing. Already the distances were shortening down with the mist that brought the snow. The wind in her skirts held her back and tired her, and the cold began