CHAPTER VI

"THE YOUNG GOD FREY"

Hah-yah-ah-ah! Hah-yah-ah-ah! Hah-yah'——"

Ducane dashed his cup down in the saucer with a force chat spattered the tea across the tablecloth.

"What in the name of all things d'you let that old fool into the house for?" he demanded.

Jennifer laughed the little soft laugh that soothed him always.

It's just a thanksgiving for his breakfast, dear. I told Louisa to bring him in. It must have been below zero in his shack this morning."

"Pshaw! You can't freeze a Cree Indian. Good Lord, Jenny! Stop him! And that devil's tom-tom of his, too. Tell him——"

Jennifer went out quickly. Ducane's nerves had been a ragged edge of late, and she could not draw from him the reason why. But she shielded and eased and softened him wherever her wit could do it; and if the strain showed in her face it was not Ducane who would notice it, nor yet the two in the rough draughty kitchen behind the house.

Jennifer stood a moment in the door. At the broad blackened bench running along one side of the place the slow, clumsy half-breed girl was splashing greasy water as she scraped a pot. She was a living thorn in Jennifer's flesh; a primitive thing that could not be taught, and that never lost its temper. Up in the dark rough rafters were thrust broken snow-shoes, a special hand-sled of Ducane's, a couple of bear-skins of his own curing, and many other things which belonged to the days before Jennifer came and which she had not had the courage to touch. Before the glowing stove sat the old Cree, astride of a box. His store-clothes hung loosely on his gaunt, long body. His black hair, like frayed-out carpet, fell back from the blind, seamed old face as he pointed his nose to the roof and