Is it not strange?
I have pieced little things together, and that night--when terror drove him to my cabin--he betrayed himself, and I learned one thing.

He is afraid of a _woman_!" "A woman!" gasped David.
"Yes, a woman--a woman who lives--or lived--up in the Stikine River country you mentioned to-day." David's heart stirred strangely.
"The Stikine River, or--or--Firepan Creek ?" he asked.
It seemed a long time to him before Father Roland answered.

He was thinking deeply, with his eyes half closed, as though striving to recall things that he had forgotten.
"Yes--it was on the Firepan.

I am sure of it," he said slowly.

"He was sick--small-pox, as I told you--and it was on the Firepan.