Evening star., 1935-09-08

took the strongest on short notice and laid
them low with fevers. Several Indians died on
Black Bear creek before Sandra Llewellan
heard about it.
When runner brought the news, she
called in Dorien and LeFaver and put them
in charge of things while she gathered certain
vials and huge can of dry ground mustard.
and cut white wool blanket into squares.
When she got her snowshoes out and looked
to their webs and toe-straps. Dorien could
stand it no longer. "Ma amselle." he gasped,
what would you do?"
"Do?" said Sandra standing up in her tall
grace I'm going back with him." and she
nodded at the runner. This thing is influenza.
and it will sweep the land unless we do some
thing about it,
but Black Bear creek is twenty miles, and
YOU have only learned the snowshoes with the
fall" She shot him flaming look at that. the
blue eyes flashing to a curious brilliant black
with the spreading of the pupils. One seeing
them only so would have sworn ever after
they were black.
How do you know that ?" she said sharply.
Pardon, Ma 'amselle, said Dorien humbly,
'by the way you handle them of course.
She did not answer but strobe away, her
priceless pack on her shoulders, an automatic
in its holster on her hip. That was the last
Dorien saw of her for eighteen days.
But the Indians saw her, and three trappers'
families in the Black Bear country, and old
Pete Brisac who was down and alone in his
cabin at Beaver Fork. These had reasons to
bless her. and they did, the women before
shiny old rucifixes. the men silently, in their
shy hearts.
pack was empty and she was thin to emacia-
tion herself, with violet shadows under her
violet eyes, but she carried herself CALAMITY
She smiled easily, remembering the children
safe in their fathers cabins, that might have
been by now asleep in the snow.
And Dorien, who had loved her before,
worshipped her now.
"She is not just the woman" he told him
self silently, there is the Madonna in her as
well. She is pure, like the great white lily of
the Pot Hole country. and she has courage
She should wear shining armor of the SOUL
like Joan of Arc"
One day he tried to put something of this
into words. blundering and diffident and
when Ma amselle understood his drift at last,
a slow dark tide of blood began to rise from
the whiteness of her throat where the flannel
shirt lay open. 1t spread upward painfully
and covered her face, and the look she bent
on the man would have been food for thought
for those who analyse the SOUL
The cold winter passed The ice let go its
grip on the frozen land. The snow melted and
Deer River roared in it's madness of freshet,
brown and terrible with its woolly crests of
foam. With the first warm DAYS a stranger
rode good horse into McPhersons post.
Both horse and rider were worthy of note for
looks. the one tall and strong and disciplined.
the other all those things as we'll. The horse
was black and carried well worn saddle with
the letters R.C.M.P. stamped on it. The man
was rail lean, with eyes like gimlets beneath
his tilted hat-brim, and mouth that belied
them in its gentleness
He came jogging up along the pebbly
stretch and dismounted at the wide log step.
Sandra, coming from her living quarters
into the store. saw him and stopped in her
tracks, one hand reaching to the counter
arrested in its notion The breath she had
just taken into her lungs staid there Her eyes
went swiftly from blue to black.
So well she knew this trick they had that
she closed them for moment. drew long