Three months he roamed the plains alone, finding at length one sunny day, Night Hawk Lake, whose fair and lonely wildness seemed to suit his mood, and there he pitched his camp.  Thence back to Winnipeg a month later to his brother’s wedding, and that over, still smiling, to take his way again to Night Hawk Lake, where ever since he spent his life.

He passed his days at first in building house and stables from the poplar bluffs at hand, and later in growing with little toil from the rich black land and taking from prairie, lake and creek with rifle and with net, what was necessary for himself and his man, the Scotch half-breed Mackenzie, all the while forgetting till he could forget no longer, and then with Mackenzie drinking deep and long till remembering and forgetting were the same.

After five years he returned to Winnipeg to stand by her side whose image lived ever in his heart, while they closed down the coffin lid upon the face dearest to her, dearest but one to him of all faces in the world.  Then when he had comforted her with what comfort he had to give, he set face again toward Night Hawk Lake, leaving her, because she so desired it, alone but for her aged mother, bereft of all, husband, brothers, father, who might guard her from the world’s harm.

“I am safe, dear Jack,” she said, “God will let nothing harm me.”

And Jack, smiling bravely still, went on his way and for a whole year lived for the monthly letter that advancing civilization had come to make possible to him.

The last letter of the year brought him the word that she was alone.  That night Jack French packed his buckboard with grub for his six-hundred-mile journey, and at the end of the third week, for the trail was heavy on the Portage Plains, he drove his limping broncho up the muddy Main Street of Winnipeg.

When the barber had finished with him, he set forth to find his brother’s wife, who, seeing him, turned deadly pale and stood looking sadly at him, her hand pressed hard upon her heart.

“Oh, Jack!” she said at length, with a great pity in her voice,—­“poor Jack! why did you come?”

“To make you a home with me,” said Jack, looking at her with eyes full of longing, “and wherever you choose, here or yonder at the Night Hawk Ranch, which is much better,”—­at which her tears began to flow.

“Poor Jack!  Dear Jack!” she cried, “why did you come?”

“You know why,” he said.  “Can you not learn to love me?”

“Love you, Jack?  I could not love you more.”

“Can you not come to me?”

“Dear Jack!  Poor Jack!” she said again, and fell to sobbing bitterly till he forgot his own grief in hers.  “I love my husband still.”

“And I too,” said Jack, looking pitifully at her.

“And I must keep my heart for him till I see him again.”  Her voice sank to a whisper, but she stood bravely looking into his eyes, her two hands holding down her fluttering heart as if in fear that it might escape.