"The Doctor heard him and shook with laughter, while Mr. Mackenzie reiterated: 'Fact, madame, fact! When you come back jess ask Mrs. Mason and she'll tell you.' I feel sure he was joking, although my nose was a little blue at the time from the extreme cold. Still the 'Boss' is a fine specimen of his race; rough, generous and warm-hearted. I wonder if he has a wife. If not the sooner he gets one the better, for like Harold he could make a woman happy.
"That afternoon we passed an Indian camp. Some of the redskins were armed, and as there were a lot of them, and only a few of us in sleighs, it didn't seem safe, until we had driven on and they had shouted their last 'Qua.'
"But the horror of all was last night, only three or four hours before dawn, where, if it had not been for a providential candle, Harold would have been killed. Oh, that blessed candle! I have stowed it away already among my most valuable belongings in commemoration of the event. The fiendish eyes of that gaunt wolf made my blood run cold as he wriggled through the bars into our camp. Harold shot him twice with his pistols and afterwards stabbed him to the heart with his dagger; still he could not have done it but for that little candle which he had stuck between the branches before the fight began. What a terrible scene it was! When Harold and the brute were locked together and the blood spurted all over, I felt sure that it was Harold's. I almost fainted. But somehow I just wouldn't. So I grabbed hold of the wolf's leg and helped to roll him on his back. It was all the help I could give. The whole thing was horrible to think of. It made my blood curdle. But I don't care so long as Harold is all right. I always knew what a good, true man my husband was, but never before did I know how brave he could be. He's the——"
But here the record broke off abruptly, caused no doubt by the said Harold's arrival. "I wonder how you purposed concluding that last sentence?" he asked with a laugh, as he handed back the book. "Possibly the dash was merely a happy substitute for something else."
"On second thought I don't think I'll finish it," she said, dryly. "Just leave it for you to conjecture."
"And am I to read no more chapters?" he asked.
"Not even one," she replied, nodding her head. "A woman's fiat is like the law of the Medes and Persians—it cannot be altered."
"So be it," he assented, while he helped her into the sleigh. "I shall restrain my curiosity until the manuscript is finished. But woe betide you if you do not let me read it then." And they both laughed.
The next moment the bugles sounded, the sleighs and troops were already in order, and on the word of command the journey was resumed.
Helen's diary continued.