It was hard, discouraging work, this striving to implant the rudiments of education in the minds of the sullen, apathetic savages, whose chief ambition was to gorge themselves into stupidity with food from the storehouse.  With the adults the case seemed hopeless.  And, indeed, the girl attempted little beyond instruction in the simplest principles of personal and domestic cleanliness and order.  Even this met with no response, until she established a daily inspection, and it became known that the filthy should also go hungry.

With the children, Chloe made some slight headway, but only at the expense of unceasing, monotonous repetition, and even she was forced to admit that the results were far from encouraging.  The little savages had no slightest conception of any pride or interest in their daily tasks, but followed unvaryingly the line of least resistance as delineated by a simple system of rewards and punishments.

The men had shown no aptitude for work of any kind, and now when the ice skimmed thinly the edges of the lake and rivers, they collected their traps and disappeared into the timber, cheerfully leaving the women and children to be fed and cared for at the school.  As the days shortened and the nights grew longer, the girl realized, with bitterness in her heart, that almost the only thing she had accomplished along educational lines was the imperfect smattering of the Indian tongue that she herself had acquired.

But her chiefest anxiety was a more material one, and Lapierre’s appearance with the supplies became a matter of the gravest importance, for upon their departure the trappers had drawn heavily upon the slender remaining stores, with a result that the little colony on the Yellow Knife was already reduced to half rations, and was entirely dependent upon the scows for the winter’s supply of provisions.

Not since the night of the battle had Chloe heard directly from MacNair.  He had not visited the school, nor had he expressed a word of regret or apology for the outrage.  He ignored her existence completely, and the girl guessed that many of the Indians who refused her invitation to camp in the clearing, as they passed and repassed upon the river, did so in obedience to MacNair’s command.

In spite of her abhorrence for the man, she resented his total disregard of her existence.  Indeed, she would have welcomed a visit from him, if for no other reason than because he was a white man.  She spent many hours in framing bitter denunciations to be used in event of his appearance.  But he did not appear, and resentment added to the anger in her heart, until in her mind he became the embodiment of all that was despicable, and brutish, and evil.

More than once she was upon the point of attempting another visit to Snare Lake, and in all probability would have done so had not Big Lena flatly refused to accompany her under any circumstances whatever.  And this attitude the huge Swedish woman stubbornly maintained, preserving a haughty indifference alike to Chloe’s taunts of cowardice, promise of reward, and threats of dismissal.  Whereupon Chloe broached the subject to Harriet Penny, and that valiant soul promptly flew into hysteria, so that for three days Chloe did double duty in the school.  After that she nursed her wrath in silence and brooded upon the wrongs of MacNair’s Indians.