The young man’s face brightened.

“I knew him,” he said.  “He helped me to bury my brother, three years ago.  And if it’s him you seek, he is safe.  He went up to Fort William a week after the fire, and that was in September, eight months past.”

“And was there with him a girl named Nada Hawkins?” asked Jolly Roger, trying hard to speak calmly as he looked into the other’s face.

The youth shook his head.

“No, he was alone.  He slept in my cabin overnight, and he said nothing of a girl named Nada Hawkins.”

“Did he speak of others?”

“He was very tired, and I think he was half dead with grief at what had happened.  He spoke no names that I remember.”

Then he saw the gray look in Jolly Roger’s face grow deeper, and saw the despair which could not hide itself in his eyes.

“But there were a number of girls who passed here, alone or with their friends,” he said hopefully.  “What sort of looking girl was Nada Hawkins?”

“A—­kid.  That’s what I called her,” said Jolly Roger, in a dead, cold voice.  “Eighteen, and beautiful, with blue eyes, and brown hair that she couldn’t keep from blowing in curls about her face.  So like an angel you wouldn’t forget her if you’d seen her—­just once.”

Gently the youth placed a hand on Jolly Roger’s arm.

“She didn’t come this way,” he said, “but maybe you’ll find her somewhere else.  Won’t you have breakfast with me?  I’ve a stranger in the cabin, still sleeping, who’s going into the fire country from which you’ve come.  He’s hunting for some one, and maybe you can give him information.  He’s going to Cragg’s Ridge.”

“Cragg’s Ridge!” exclaimed Jolly Roger.  “What is his name?”

“Breault,” said the youth.  “Sergeant Breault, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.”

Jolly Roger turned to stroke the neck of a horse waiting for its morning feed.  But he felt nothing of the touch of flesh under his hand.  Cold as iron went his heart, and for half a minute he made no answer.  Then he said: 

“Thanks, friend.  I breakfasted before it was light and I’m hitting out into the brush west and north, for the Rainy River country.  Please don’t tell this man Breault that you saw me, for he’ll think badly of me for not waiting to give him information he might want.  But—­you understand—­if you loved the brother who died—­that it’s hard for me to talk with anyone just now.”

The young man’s fingers touched his arm again.

“I understand,” he said, “and I hope to God you’ll find her.”

Silently they shook hands, and Jolly Roger hurried away from the cabin with the rising spiral of smoke.

Three days later a man and a dog came from the burned country into the town of Fort William, seeking for a wandering messenger of God who called himself Father John, and a young and beautiful girl whose name was Nada Hawkins.  He stopped first at the old mission, in whose shadow the Indians and traders of a century before had bartered their wares, and Father Augustine, the aged patriarch who talked with him, murmured as he went that he was a strange man, and a sick one, with a little madness lurking in his eyes.