"Well," said Ed Matheson, as the boat rounded a bend in the river, "there's the river tilt, an' she looks good."

"That she do," agreed Dick Blake. "I hopes, now, Bob's there an' has a fire on. I'm wet t' th' last rag."

"So be I. This snow an' rain comin' mixed always 'pears t' make a wetter wet 'n just rain alone," observed Ed.

"Bob's there now," broke in Bill Campbell. "I sees smoke comin' from th' tilt pipe."

The voyageurs were returning from Eskimo Bay with their second cargo of winter supplies for the trails. Five weeks had elapsed since the morning Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge had watched them disappear around the river bend, and returning to camp had found Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn awaiting them at the edge of the forest.

Since early morning there had been a steady drizzle of snow and rain, accompanied by a raw, searching, easterly wind, a condition of weather that renders wilderness travel most disheartening and disagreeable.

This was, however, the first break in a long series of delightfully cool, transparent days, characteristic of Labrador during the month of September, when Nature pauses to take breath and assemble her forces preparatory to casting upon the land the smothering snows and withering blasts of a sub-Arctic winter.

Despite the pleasant weather, the whole journey from Eskimo Bay had been one of tremendous effort. With but three, instead of five, as on the previous journey, to transport the boat and carry the loads over portages, the labour had been proportionately increased.

It was, then, with a feeling of intense satisfaction and relief that the voyageurs hailed the end of their journey, with its promised rest, when they finally ran their boat to the landing below the river tilt of the Big Hill trail.

"I'll be tellin' Bob an' Shad we're here now, an' have un help us up with th' outfit," said Ed Matheson cheerily, stepping ashore and striding up the trail leading to the clearing a few yards above, in the centre of which stood the trail.

But at the edge of the clearing he stopped in open-mouthed amazement. Before the open door of the tilt stood a tall, comely Indian maiden, perhaps seventeen years of age. She was clad in fringed buckskin garments, decorated in coloured designs. Her hair hung in two long black braids, while around her forehead she wore a band of dark-red cloth ornamented with intricate beadwork. From her shoulder hung a quiver of arrows, and resting against the tilt at her side was a long bow.

She stood motionless as a statue, striking, picturesque and graceful, and for a full minute the usually collected and loquacious Ed gazed at her in speechless surprise.

"Good evenin'," said he finally, regaining his composure and his power of speech at the same time. "I weren't expectin' t' find any one here but Ungava Bob an' Shad Toobridge. Be they in th' tilt?"

With Ed's words she took a step forward, and in evident excitement launched upon him a torrent of Indian sentences spoken so rapidly and with such vehemence that, though he boasted a smattering of the language, he was unable to comprehend in the least what she was saying. It was evident, however, she was addressing him upon some subject of import.

"There now," he interrupted finally, forgetting even his smattering of Indian and addressing her in English, "just 'bide there a bit, lass, whilst I gets Dick Blake. He knows your lingo better'n me. I'll send he up."

And, hurrying down the trail, he called:

"Dick, come up here. They's a Injun lass at th' tilt, firin' a lot o' lingo at me I can't fathom."

"A Injun lass!" exclaimed Dick. "What's she doin' there, now? An' where's Bob an' Shad?"

"Yes, a Injun lass," said Ed impatiently, "an' what she's doin' you'll have t' find out. It seems like she's achin' t' tell somethin'. I'm not seein' Bob an' Shad."

"They must be somethin' wrong, Ed. Come down an' help Bill get th' cargo ashore, an' I'll find out what 'tis;" and Dick hurried up the trail past Ed, to meet Manikawan, for she it was.

She was still standing where Ed had left her, and Dick asked kindly in Indian:

"What message does the maiden bring to her white brothers?"

"Listen!" she commanded, in a clear, musical voice. "I am Manikawan, the daughter of Sishetakushin, whose lodge is pitched on the shores of the Great Lake, to the north. Yesterday some men of the South visited the lodge of my father."

"Mingens!" exclaimed Dick.

"They told him," she continued, not heeding the interruption, "that five suns back they had found a lodge built where the big river broadens. The lodge was newly made. It was a white man's lodge, for it was built of trees. The men of the ............