ntlemen were sadly ignorant of the North.

Whereupon, recognizing the trend of his thought, the Reverend Wesley Thompson turned upon himself with a bitter accusation of self-seeking, and besought earnestly the gift of an humble spirit from Above.

But the deadly pin-points of discontent and discouragement were still pricking him when he fell asleep.

---

CHAPTER V

FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE

Mike Breyette took a last look over his shoulder as the current and the thrust of two paddles carried the canoe around the first bend. Thompson stood on the bank, watching them go.

"Bagosh, dat man hees gon' have dam toff time, Ah theenk," Breyette voiced his conviction. "Feller lak heem got no beesness for be here 'tall."

"He didna have tae come here," MacDonald answered carelessly. "An' he disna have tae stay."

"Oh, sure, Ah know dat, me," Mike agreed. "All same hees feel bad."

Which was a correct, if brief, estimate of Mr. Thompson's emotions as he stood on the bank watching the gray canoe slip silently out of his ken. That gave him a keener pang, a more complete sense of loss, than he had ever suffered at parting with any one or anything. It was to him like taking a last look before a leap in the dark. Thrown entirely upon his own resources he felt wholly inadequate, found his breast filled with incomprehensible misgivings. The work he had come there to do seemed to have lost much of its force as a motive, as an inspiration. He felt himself—so far as his mission to Lone Moose was concerned—in the anomalous position of one compelled to make bricks without straw.

He was, in a word, suffering an acute attack of loneliness.

That was why the empty space of the clearing affected him with a physical shrinking, why the neatly arranged interior of his cabin seemed hollow, abandoned, terribly dispiriti