“After the ceremony was over she told me her story. It seems that, in spite of her fair skin, she was a half-breed daughter of the Scotch factor of a Hudson Bay trading-post and his Indian wife. When she was thirteen years old her father sent her to Scotland to be educated. She made the long trip by canoe and sledge from the distant post where she was born to York Factory, on Hudson Bay, in safety, and there took passage in the company’s annual ship for London. From there she was sent to Edinburgh, where for five years she lived with relatives and attended school. Then she received a note of recall from her father, and was obliged to retrace the wearisome journey over thousands of miles of sea and wilderness to her home in the far Northwest. It was terrible for her to leave the dear friends and pleasant associations of so many years, and hardest of all to separate from the young Scotchman who had won her heart and her promise to marry him as soon as he should come to claim her in her own home. While she returned to Hudson Bay in a company’s ship, he was forced to travel by way of New York and through the States.
“When the girl reached her home she immediately told her parents of her engagement, and that her lover was even then on his way to marry her. To her dismay her father flew into a violent rage, informed her that he had already selected a husband for her in the person of one of the company’s employés stationed at Fort Liard, and declared that she must marry him at once. In vain did the girl plead with him and endeavor to change his cruel determination, and in vain did the mother take her part. The tyrannical father only grew the more obstinate, and when, after months of weary wanderings, the Scotch lover appeared at the fort, he was driven from it with bitter words. He was not allowed to see, or even communicate with, the girl, but was ordered to leave the country at once.
“There was nothing to do but obey. The factor was also the only magistrate of a vast region, and ruled it with a rod of iron. None could dwell within his jurisdiction without his knowledge, none obtain employment without his consent. The forts held all the necessaries of life, and none could be purchased elsewhere. A band of Indians was ordered to convey the unfortunate youth several hundreds of miles away and there leave him. This they did, but what afterwards became of him I do not know.
“By some means the girl learned of her lover’s visit to the fort, of his harsh reception, and of his cruel banishment. The knowledge broke her heart. She became dejected and miserable, and spent her days in weeping. At this her father became so furious that he sent for the man to whom he had promised her to come and marry her at once. He furthermore upbraided his daughter in the presence of all the employés of the fort, and said such cruel things about the man she loved that, declaring she could bear it no longer, she ran out, mounted her pony, and fled to her mother’s tribe. There she promised to marry a young Indian who had long admired her, and at once set out with his family for the Yukon, where they hoped to find a priest. As it happened, I was the first whom they encountered, and the result I have already told.”
“What became of them after that?” asked Phil, who was deeply interested in this sad romance of the wilderness.
“I do not know. They dared not return to the territory governed by her father, and the last I heard of them they were living by themselves somewhere on the upper Yukon, where the man was making a precarious livelihood by trapping. I tried to induce them to come and make their home at the mission, but poor Ellen McLeod answered that she should never again dwell among people of her father’s race.”
“Poor girl,” sighed Phil, who had a very tender heart for the troubles of others. “I wonder if we should have any chance of meeting them if we took our trip up the river? By-the-way, sir, don’t you think Serge and I might be trusted to make that trip this winter?”
“I should not care to advise you to do it,” replied the missionary, “knowing its dangers as I do. And certainly you could not go without Captain Hamer’s consent, for you would require a more expensive outfit than any one save he could furnish.”
“I suppose so,” admitted Phil, ruefully, “but I can’t help thinking something will turn up to make it seem best to let us go.”
They were by this time nearing Anvik, and though the sun had long since set, the river was flooded with moonlight. All at once a dark figure darted out from the shore and came running towards them. As it drew near, Kurilla’s well-known voice shouted, breathlessly: