lodge. She loved the child as only an Indian woman can love an
adopted child. She longed for him to come when she found Margie
was ill, yet dreaded that coming from the depths of her soul. She
dreaded the hour he would see the child and take it away. For the
moment she looked upon his face, the night he rode over to engage
her to cook, months ago, she had known he was Margie's father. The
little thing was the perfect mirror of him, and Catharine's strange
wild heart rejoiced to find him, yet hid the child from him for
very fear of losing it out of her own life.

After finding it almost dead in its dead mother's arms on the
shore, the Indians had given it to Catharine for the reason that
she could speak some English. They were only a passing band of
Kootenays, and as they journeyed on and on, week in and week out,
they finally came to Crow's Nest Mountain. Here the child fell ill,
so they built Catharine a log shack, and left her with plenty of
food, sufficient to last until the railway gang had worked that
far up the Pass, when more food would be available. When she had
finished the strange history, Wingate looked at her long and
lovingly.

"Catharine," he said, "you were almost going to fight me once
to-day. You stood between the couch and me like a panther. What
changed you so that you led me to my baby girl yourself?"

"I make one last fight to keep her," she said, haltingly. "She mine
so long, I want her; I want her till I die. Then I think many
times I see your face at camp. It look like sky when sun does not
shine--all cloud, no smile, no laugh. I know you think of your baby
then. Then I watch you many times. Then after while my heart is