286
THE LAW-BRINGERS
which bunch together on the selections, and weaning them from their unlawful ways, so that they should not breed up plague-spots to inoculate East and West.
And it waits for the lonely Indian, that law; guarding him along his silent trails; for the breed, weakened and demoralised by his contact with the white man who recognises no duty towards his brother; for the new lives yet to be: the strange, wonderful medley of lives out of which is to be fused the still untabulated race which will produce the Canadian of the future. It waits for them all; held grimly, firmly in its place by the untiring hands and the unflagging souls of the few, the very few, who prove worthy of their trust until the end.
Dick felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought that he had given Tempest back to that service. For, as he had not broken Tempest outwardly, so he could not believe that he had broken him inwardly. At seeing the bare future before him another man might fling himself into despairing sin. But not Tempest. The training of a whole life could not fail when once the man's eyes were open. It surely could not fail. But even as he said it Dick felt the doubt come. Dared man say that anything was sure? And if it was, what made it so? Not the shifting sand of man's own heart; not the vagrant wind-puffs of his desires; not the trembling marsh-flames of his beliefs. Then, since there was nothing beyond or above man, it followed that nothing was sure. Tempest might fall into a deeper pit than that from which Dick had pulled him. Jennifer might give the lips which she had denied him to another man. For, since man's stability was the author and the core of all the virtues, how could he, a man, say that they were sure?
Dry powdery flakes of snow drifted down through the dark canopy, hissing softly on the fire, and Dick rolled into his tent, forgetting past certainties and future possibilities in sleep. And after that he thrust, day by 'day, further into the forest which made a mighty sounding- board for the least noise, and a mighty haven for his restless spirit. It was a long chase and a hard one, and seven weeks and over had gone by before he brought his man back; a little leaner, perhaps, a little harder in the muscles,