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434 reluctance. He knocked his pipe out and stood up with a long breath.

"That is sure, then," he said. "And I must get into Herschel before the ice. Can you get me a breed to pilot me through the Mackenzie mouths, Hensham? Those currents are always changing."

"Why, certainly." A note in his voice brought Hensham to look at him curiously. "You're not wanting to start right away to-night, are you?" He laughed. "Leave it a day or two, anyway. By the way, I sent Anderson down with the mail after the boat came in. You'll meet him, and he can likely give you some information."

"Ah! Perhaps he can."

Dick fell silent, looking round on the amber and scarlet and the cold black of the night where the dark figures moved. The quiet, busy women brought that strange sense of home-life to this wild nature which no camp of men ever brings. Dick had noticed this very often before, and the fact struck him again, forcibly. A quiver of pain passed across his face before he turned to answer Hensham's next question. For he was remembering Jennifer sewing on the deck of the river-steamer down the Athabaska.