Ethel stared at the speaker, wide-eyed, and the pallor of her face increased.
"Married another!" she gasped.
Jacques regarded her gravely. "I know nothing except it was told me by Jeanne," he returned—"how he talked in the voice of the fever-spirit, that this girl would marry another. In the paper he read it—but even so, will he drink no whisky. One week ago did he not hear how one night in the bunk-house Leduc tried to make the little boy drink whisky? And did he not hunt up Leduc the next morning, and, upon the skidway, smash the nose of him and knock four teeth from his jaw?"
The guide paused, and Appleton slowly screwed the silver top to his flask and returned it to his pocket.
"Upon the stove is a pot of very strong coffee which Daddy Dunnigan told me to bring," Jacques went on; "and he is even now making broth in the cook-shack. M's'u' Bill cannot die. The strong coffee and the good broth will bring him back to life; for he is called in the woods The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die.
"If he could die he would die in the blizzard. For, since blizzards were known, has no man done a thing like this—to search for two days and a night for one boy lost in the snow, and carry him home in safety."
The half-breed finished, and the girl, with a low cry, sank into a chair and, leaning forward upon the desk, buried her face in her arms while her shoulders shook with the violence of her sobbing.
Appleton crossed to her side and laid a hand gently upon her shoulder.
"Come, Ethel," he said; "this has been too much for you. Let me take you to the house."
But the girl shook her head. She raised her eyes, wet with tears, and with an effort controlled her voice.