THE MAID OF THE WHISPERING HILLS

By Vingie E. Roe

Published January, 1912

 To My Mother Who Has Been My Constant Help

 My Father Who Was Proud Of Me

 And My Little Brother, These Two Long Asleep On The Hill At Carney--

 This Book Is Lovingly Inscribed V. E. R. 

Contents

 I The Venturers II The Spring III New Homes IV The Stranger From Civilisation V Nor'westers VI Spring Trade VII Forest News VIII First Dawn IX Gold Fire X The Saskatoon XI Leaven At Work XII The Nakonkirhirinons XIII "A Skin For A Skin" XIV Fellow Captives XV Long Trail XVI Travel XVII The Compelling Power XVIII "I Am A Stone To Your Foot, Ma'amselle" XIX The Hudson's Bay Brigade XX The Wolf And The Caribou XXI Tightened Screws XXII "Choose, White Woman!" XXIII The Painted Post XXIV The Stone To The Foot Of Love XXV Answered Prayers XXVI Sanctuary XXVII Return XXVIII The Old Dream Once More XXIX Bitter Aloes XXX The Land Of The Whispering Hills

CHAPTER I THE VENTURERS

"Mercy!" shrieked little Francette, her red-rose face aghast, "he willbegin before I can bring the help!"

Like a flash of flame the maid in her crimson skirt shot up the main wayof Fort de Seviere to where the factory lay asleep in the warm springsun. 

On its log step, pipe in mouth, young Anders McElroy leaned against thejamb and looked smilingly out upon his settlement. Peace lay softly uponit, from the waters of the small stream to the east where nine canoeslay bottom up upon the pebbly shore, to the great dark wall of theforest shouldering near on three sides. To him ran little Francette, light on her moccasined feet as the wind in the tender pine-tops, her eloquent small hands outstretched and clutching at his sleeveaudaciously. 

None other in all the post would have dared as much, for this smilingyoung man with the blue eyes was the Law at Fort de Seviere, factor ofthe Company and governor of the handful of humanity lost in the vastregion of the Assiniboine. But to Francette he was Power and Help, andshe thought of naught else, as it is not likely she would have done evenat another time. 

"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried, gasping from her run, "come at once beyond thegreat gate! Bois DesCaut, --Oh, brute of the world!--whips that greatgrey husky leader of his team, because it did but snap at his heelbeneath an idle prod! Hasten, M'sieu! He drags it, glaring, along theshore to where lie those clubs brought for the kettles!"

In the dark eyes upraised to him there swam a mist of tears and theheart of the little maid tore at her breast in anguish. 

The smile slipped swiftly from the factor's face, leaving it grave. 

"Where, little one?" he asked. 

"Beyond the palisade. But hurry, M'sieu, --for the love of God!"

At the great gate in the eastern wall he paused and looked either way. To the southward all was peaceful. An aged Indian of the Assiniboinessquatted at the water's edge mending the broken bottom of a skin canoe, and two voyageurs, gay in the matter of sash and crimson cap, lay lazilybeneath a drowsing tree. 

To the northward there flashed into McElroy's vision one of thosepictures a man sees but few times and never forgets, a picture startlingin its clear-cut strength. 

Against the mellow background of the weather-beaten stockade thatsurrounded the post there stood two figures, a man and a woman, andbetween the two there crouched with snarling lips and flaming eyes ahuge grey dog. 

Tall he was, that man, tall and broad of shoulder, but the head of thewoman, shining like blue-black satin in the morning sun, was level withhis brows. 

She leaned a trifle forward and her eyes held fast to hispassion-flooded face. It was evident that she had but just reached thespot from the fact that the club, arrested in its upward swing, stillwas poised in the air. 

They faced each other and the factor stopped in his tracks. 

"Quick, M'sieu!" begged Francette at his side, but he put out acommanding hand and ceased to breathe. 

"Hold!" said the tall young woman at last, and her voice cut cold andclear in the sun-filled morning. "No more! You have whipped the dogenough. "

The red face of the trapper flamed into purple and his lips opened foran oath. Quick as the heat lightning that flutters on the waters ofWinipigoos in the hot summers the cruel club came down. McElroy heardits dull impact, and the husky crumpled like a broken reed. 

With stern face the factor started forward, while the little maidcovered her pretty eyes and whimpered. 

But quicker than his stride retribution leaped to meet DesCaut. 

He saw the woman's arm shoot out and her strong hand, smooth and tawnyas finest tanned buckskin, double itself hard and leap in where the jawturns downward into the curve of the throat. 

The stroke of a man it was, clean and sharp and well delivered, andDesCaut, catching his heel on a buried stone's sharp jut, went backwardwith his head in the young grass of the sloping shore. 

For a moment she stood as it had left her, leaning forward, and therewas a shine of satisfaction in her eyes. 

Then as the man essayed to rise there was a mighty laughter from the twoyouths on the river bank and the spell was broken. 

McElroy went forward. 

"DesCaut, " he said sharply, and his words cut like the lash of the longdog-whips, "you deserves death but you have been beaten by a woman. Go, and boast of your strength. It is sufficient. "

DesCaut stood a moment swaying drunkenly with the force of passionwithin him, his lips snarling back from his teeth and his eyes measuringthe factor unsteadily then he snatched off the little cap he wore andhurled it at him. 

Turning on his heel he swung down toward the gate and the two voyageursnow standing and still laughing merrily. 

One look at his bloodshot eyes sobered their mirth, and Pierre Garconreached involuntarily for the knife in his sash. 

But Bois DesCaut, savage to silence, swung past them into the fort. 

McElroy watched him until he disappeared, fearing he knew not what. 

Then he faced the little scene again. 

Down on her knees little Francette had lifted the heavy head with itsdull eyes and pitiful hanging tongue, lifted it to her breast, weepingand smoothing the short ears deaf to her soft words, and sat rocking toand fro in an ecstasy of grief. Beyond SHE stood, that tall woman, stoodsilent and frowning, looking down upon the two, and the factor saw witha strange thrill that the hand, yet doubled, was flecked with blood. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said, "is of the new people who arrived last night fromPortage la Prairie?"

Then they were lifted for the first time to his face, those dark eyessmouldering like banked fires, and he saw their marvellous beauty. 

"Of a surety, " she said slowly, and there was a subtle tone in herdeep-throated voice that made the blood stir vaguely within the factor'sveins, "does M'sieu have so many strangers passing through his gatesthat he is at loss to place each one?"

And with that word she turned deliberately away, walked down toward thegate, and entered the stockade. 

McElroy watched her go, until the last glint of her sober dress, plainand clinging easily to the magnificent shoulders that swung slightlywith her free walk, had passed from view. And not alone he, for the twovoyageurs alike gazed after her, this new-comer from the farther ways ofcivilisation who dared the brute DesCaut and struck like a man. 

Then the factor bent above the little Francette. 

"Sh!" he said gently, "little one, let go. The dog is dead, poor beast. Come away. "

But the maid would not give up the battered body, and with the audacityof her beauty and life-long spoiling, besought the young factor forhelp. 

"There is yet life, M'sieu. See! The breath lifts in his sides. Is therenaught to be done when one sleeps, so? He is so strong at the sledgesand he did not whimper, --no, not once, --when DesCaut was beating him todeath. Is there nothing, M'sieu?"

Very pretty she was in her pleading, the little Francette, with hermisty eyes and the frank tears on her cheeks; and McElroy went to theriver and filled his cap with water. This he poured into the openjaws and sopped over the blood-clotted head, wetting the limp feet andwatching for the life she so bravely proclaimed. 

And presently it was there, twitching a battered muscle; lifting theside with its broken ribs, fluttering the lids over the fierce eyes; forthis was Loup, the fiercest husky this side of the Athabasca. 

With pity McElroy gathered up the great dog, staggering under the load, for it was that of a big-framed man, and entered the post, the littlemaid at has side. Near the gate a running crowd met them, for the talehad spread apace and wondering eyes looked on. 

Down to the southern wall where lived the family of Francette they went, and the factor laid Loup in the shade of the cabin. 

"If he lives, little one, he shall be yours, " said he, "for he is wortha tender hand. We'll try its power. "

And as he turned away he caught a glimpse of the tall stranger lookingat them from a distance. 

Small it was and crowded, this little trading post of the great Hudson'sBay Company in that year of 1796, and a goodly stream of beaver foundits way through it to the mighty outside world. 

Squatted alone on the shores of the Assiniboine, shouldering back thewilderness with the spirit of the conqueror, it faced the rising sunwith its square stockade, strong and well built, log by log, its great, brass-studded gate in the eastern centre, its four bastions rising atits corners. 

Here was a little world of itself, a small community of voyageurs, trappers, coureurs du bois, and all those that cast their lot in thewild places. 

Adventurers from the Old World often passed through it on their wayto the farther west, lured by the tales of dreamers who spoke of theNorthwest Passage and the world that opened beyond the settingsun; renegades of the lakes and forest came for and found its readyhospitality, and into it came at all seasons those Indians whose skilland cunning accounted for so much of that great fur trade which made forwealth in the distant cities beyond the eastern sea. 

Too small for a council, it gave allegiance wholly to its factor, young Anders McElroy, at whose right hand for sage advice and honestfriendship stood that most admirable of men, Edmonton Ridgar, chieftrader and anything else from accountant to armourer. Beneath them andin good command were some thirty able men whose families lived in theneat log cabins within the stockade. 

With its back to the western wall there stood in the centre the factoryitself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room, divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle, serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, inthe smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden deskof the factor, its massive book of accounts always open on its face, itshand-made drawers filled with the documents of the Company. HereMcElroy was wont to take account of the furs brought in, to distributerecompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room onthe south was the great store-room, packed with those articles ofmerchandise most likely to seem of worth in savage eyes and brought, with such infinite labour by canoe and portage, from those favouredlower points whose waters admitted the yearly ships--namely, rifles andammunition, knives of all sorts, bolts of bright cloth and beads ofthe colour of the rainbow, great iron kettles such as might hang mostfittingly above an open fire, and bright woven garments made by handsacross seas. 

At the back of the big room was the small one where McElroy and Ridgarhad their living, furnished scantily with a bed and table, an openfireplace and crane, some rude, hand-made chairs, and a shelf of books. 

And to this post of De Seviere had come in the dusk of the previousnight a little company of people. 

They were tired and travel-stained, with their belongings in packs onthe shoulders of the men, and the joy of the venturer in their eagerfaces. 

From far down in the country below the Rainy River they had come, pushing to the west in that hope of gain and desire of travel whichopens the wilderness of every land. They had met the factor at the greatgate and entered in to rest and feast, as is the rule of every fire. Bymorning had come the leaders of the party to McElroy, and there had beentalk that ended in an agreement, and the tired venturers had droppedtheir burden of progress. 

When they had rested, there were to be three new cabins squeezed somehowinto the already overcrowded stockade, and five more men and six womenwould belong to Fort de Seviere. 

As he walked toward the factory the young man was thinking of all this. Of a surety the tall girl, had come with the strangers, yet he had notnoticed her until that moment outside the stockade wall, when he hadcaught the striking picture in the morning sun. 

Name? Most certainly it would be in that list which the leader of theparty had promised him by noon. When he entered the big room the man wasthere before him, a picturesque figure of a man, big and graceful anddark of brow, with long black curls beneath his crimson cap. As McElroywent forward he straightened up from his lounging position against therailing and held out the paper he had promised. 

"For enrollment, M'sieu, " he said simply. 

The factor took the proffered slip and read eagerly down its length, done neatly in a finished hand. 

"Adventurers, " he read, "from Grand Portage on Lake Superior, bound forthe west, --agreed to stop for the length of one year at Fort de Seviereon the Assiniboine River, --Prix Laroux and wife Ninette, Pierre and CifBordoux and their wives Anon and Micene, Franz LeClede and wife Mora, Henri Baptiste and wife Marie, and Maren Le Moyne, an unmarried womanand sister to Marie Baptiste. "

A sudden little light flamed for a moment in the young factor's blueeyes. 

For some unknown reason it had pleased him, that last ingenioussentence. 

"Prix Laroux, " he said, turning to his new acquisition, "we will get tothe work of our contract. "

CHAPTER II THE SPRING

Springtime lay over the vast region of lake and forest. Along theshores of the little rivers the new grass was springing, and in nook andsheltered corner of rock and depression shy white flowers lifted theirpretty heads to the coaxing sun. Deep in the budding woods birds inflocks and bevies called across the wilderness of tender green, while atthe post the youths sang snatches of wild French songs and all the worldfelt the thirst of the new life. 

A somewhat hard winter it had been, long and cold, with crackling frostof nights and the snow piled deep around the stockade, and the graciousrelease was very welcome. 

The somewhat fickle stream of the Assiniboine had loosed its locks ofice and rolled and gurgled, full to its low banks, as if the late summerwould not see it shrunk to a lazy thread, refusing sometimes even theshallow canoes and barely licking the parched lips of the land. 

In gay attire the maids of De Seviere ventured beyond the gates to straya little way into the forest and come back laden with tiny green spraysof the golden trailer, with wee white blossoms and now and again a greatswelling bud of the gorgeous purple flower of the death plant. 

"Bien! It is of a drollness, mes cheries, " laughed Tessa Bibye one day, stopping at the cabin by the south wall; "how Francette does but sit inthe shade and nurse that half-dead wolf. Is it by chance because of theowner, or that hand which carried it here, Francette? Look for the manbehind Francette's devotion ever!"

Whereat there was a laugh and crinkling of pretty dark eyes at thelittle maid's expense, but she sprang to her feet and faced her mates inanger. 

"Begone, you Tessa Bibye!" she cried hotly; "'tis little you know beyondthe thought of a man truly, and that because you have lacked one fromthe cradle!"

Tessa flushed and drew away, vanquished. Merry laughter, turned asreadily upon her, wafted back on the golden wind. Francette, her eyesflaming with all too great a fire, set a pan of cool water beneath thefevered muzzle of the husky and glanced, scowling, across her shouldertoward the factory. 

Five days had passed since the episode beside the stockade, and BoisDesCaut had said no word, of his property. In fact, the great dog wasseemingly scarce worth a thought, much less a word. Helpless, bruisedfrom tip to tip, one side flat under its broken ribs, he lay sullenly inthe shade; of the cabin where McElroy had put him down, covered at nightfrom the cool air by Francette's' own blanket of the gorgeous stripes, fed by her small loving hands bit by bit, submitting for the first timein his hard and eventful life to the touch of woman, thrilling in hissavage heart to the word of tenderness. 

Gently the little maid stroked the rough grey fur and scowled toward thefactory. 

So intent was she with her thought that she did not hear the step besideher, springing quickly up when a voice spoke, cool and amused, behind. "Well said, little maid, " it praised; "that was a neat turn. "

The tall stranger, Maren Le Moyne, stood smiling down upon her. 

Francette, sharpest of tongue in all the settlement, was at suddenloss before this woman. She looked up into her face and stood silent, searching it with the gaze of a child. 

It was a wondrous face, dark as her own, its cheeks as dusky red, but init was a baffling something that held her quick tongue mute, a look asof great depth, of wondrous strength, and yet of fitful tenderness, --theone playing through the other as flame about black marble, and with therest a smile. 

More than little Francette had beheld that baffling expression andsquirmed beneath its strangeness. Francette looked, and the scowl drewdeeper. 

She saw again this woman leaning slightly forward, her eyes a-glitter onthe prostrate DesCaut, her strong hand doubled and flecked with blood, with Loup at her feet, --and quick on the heels of it she saw the look inthe factor's eyes as he had commanded her to silence with a motion. 

"So?" she flamed at last, recovering her natural audacity, for the maidwas spoiled to recklessness by reason of her beauty; "I meant it to beneat. "

At the look which leaped into the eyes of the stranger her own began towaver, to shift from one to the other, and lastly dropped in confusion. 

"But spoiled at the end by foolishness, " said Maren Le Moyne, and allthe pleasure had slipped from her deep voice, leaving it cold as steel. 

Abruptly she turned away, her high head shining in the sun, her strongshoulders swinging slightly as she walked. 

Francette looked after her, with small hands clinched and breast heavingwith, anger, and there had the stranger made her second enemy in Fort deSeviere within the first fortnight. 

Along the northern wall there was much bustle and scurry, the noise ofvoices and of preparation, for the men were busy with the raising of thefirst new cabin. As some whimsical fate would have it, there were thehewn logs that Bard McLellan had prepared a year back for his own newhouse when he should have married the pretty Lila of old McKenzie, whosickened suddenly in the early autumn when the leaves were dropping inthe forest and fled from his eager arms. No heart had been left in thebreast of the trapper after that and the logs lay where he had felledthem. 

Now McElroy, tactful of tongue and gentle, touched the sore spot, andBard gave sad consent to their use. 

"Take them, M'sieu, " he said wearily; "my pain may save another's need. "

So the first new cabin went up apace. 

Anders McElroy looked over his settlement day by day and there was greatsatisfaction in his eyes. Fort de Seviere was none so strong that itcould afford to look carelessly on the acquisition of five good men andhardy trappers, and, beside, somehow there was a pleasanter feeling tothe warm spring air since they had arrived-a new sense of bustle andaccomplishment. 

Often he stood in the door of the factory and looked to where the womensang at their work or carried the shining pails full of water from theone deep well of the settlement, situated near the gate in the easternwall, and the smiles were ever ready in his blue eyes. 

A handsome man was this factor of Fort de Seviere, tall and well formed, with that grace of carriage which speaks of perfect manhood; his head, covered with a thick growth of sun-coloured hair curling lightly at theends, tossed ever back, ready to laugh. Scottish blood, mingled with astrong Irish strain, ran riot in him, giving him at once both love oflife and honour. 

They had known what they were doing, those lords of the H. B. Company, when they had sent this young adventurer from Fenchurch Street to thenew continent, and, after five years among the hardships of the trade, he found himself factor of Fort de Seviere, --lord of his little world, even though that world were but one tiny finger of the great systemspreading itself like a stretching hand outward from the shores of theBay to that interior whose fringed skirts alone had been explored. 

A high station it was for so young a man, for his twenties were not yetbehind him, and the pride of his heart, its holding. 

Therefore, life was a living wine to Anders McElroy, and the smallworld of his post a kingdom. And into it, with that travel-tired band ofventurers from Rainy Lake, had passed a princess. 

Not yet did he know this, --not for many days, in which he looked fromthe factory door among the women, singling out one who wore no brilliantgarment, yet whose shining head drew the eyes of the men like a magnet. 

Slowly speech grew among them, very slowly, as if something held backthe usual comment of the trappers, concerning this Maren Le Moyne. 

"Look you, Pierre, " ventured Marc Dupre to Pierre Garcon, as theybeached their canoe one dusk after a short trip up the river; "yonderis the young woman of the strong arm. A high head, and eyes like athunderous night, --Eh? Is there love, think you, asleep anywhere withinher?"

Whereat Pierre glanced aside under his cap to where Maren hauled up thebucket from the well, hand over hand, with the muscles slipping underher tawny skin like whipcords. 

"Nom de Dieu!" ejaculated Pierre under his breath; "if there is, I wouldnot be the one to awaken it and not be found its master! It would be athing of flame and fury. "

"Ah!" laughed the other, "but I would. It would be, past all chance, a thing to remember, howe'er it went! But it is not like that you orI will be the one to wake it. Milady, though clad in seeming poverty, fixes those disdainful eyes upon the clouds. "

CHAPTER III NEW HOMES

The work of raising the new cabins went forward merrily. Every one lenta hand, and by the end of May the new families were installed and livinghappily. In that last house near the northeast corner of the post dweltHenri and Marie Baptiste and Maren Le Moyne. 

A goodly place it was, divided into two rooms and already the hands ofthe two sisters had fashioned of such scant things as they possessed anddared buy from the factory on the year's debt, a semblance of comfort. 

In the other cabins the rest of the party managed to double, each familytaking one of the two rooms in each, and the women at least drew asigh of content that the long trail had at last found an end, howeverunstable of tenure. 

"Ah, Maren, " said Marie Baptiste, sitting on the shining new log stepof her domicile, "what it is to have a home! Does it not clutch at yourheart sometimes, ma cherie, the desire for a home, and that which goeswith it, the love of a man?"

She raised her eyes to the face of Maren leaning above her against thelintel, and they were full of a puzzled question. 

Maren answered the look with a swift smile, toying lightly with a foldof the faded sleeve rolled above her elbow. 

"Home for me, Marie, is the wide blue sky above, the wind in the tossingtrees, the ripple of soft waters on the bow of a canoe. For me, --Igrieve that we have stopped. Not this year do we reach the Land of theWhispering Hills. "

A swift change had fallen into the depth of her golden voice, a subtlewistfulness that sang with weird pathos, and the eyes raised toward thewestern rim of the forest were suddenly far and sombre. 

"Forgive!" said her sister gently; "I had forgot. I know the dream, butis it not better that we rest and gain new strength for another season?Here might well be home, here on this pretty river. We have come amighty length already. What could be fairer, cherie, --even though weleave another to win to the untracked West. "

A small spasm drew across the features of Maren, a twitching of the fulllips. 

"Faint heart of you, " she said sadly. "Oh, Marie, 'tis your voice hasever held us back. They would prod faster but for you. Is there noglory within you, no daring, no dreams of conquest? Bien! But I could goalone. This dallying stiffles the breath in me!"

She put up a hand and tore open the garment at her throat, taking a deepbreath of the sunlit air. 

"But it is poverty that must be reckoned with. By spring again we may bebetter equipped than ever. "

So rode up the hope that was ever in her. 

"Yes, " sighed Marie, "as the good God wills. "

But she glanced wistfully around the new cabin, to be her own for thelength of the four seasons. And who should say what might not happen infour seasons?

She wondered fretfully what fate had fashioned the glorious creaturebeside her in the form of Love itself to put within the soul of therestless conqueror. Never had she known Maren, though they two had comefrom the same lap. 

Presently Maren looked down at her, and the shimmering smile, like lightacross dark waters, had again returned. 

"Nay, " she said gently, "fret not. It is spring-and you have at last ahome. "

True, it was spring. 

Did not each breath of the south wind tell it, each flute-like callfrom the budding forest without the post, each burst of song from somehot-blooded youth with his red cap perched on the back of his head, hisgay sash knotted jauntily?

It stirred the heart in the breast of Maren Le Moyne, but not with thethought of love. It called to her as she stood at night alone under thestars, with her head lifted as if to drink the keen, sweet darkness;called to her from far-distant plains of blowing grass, virgin of man'sfoot; from rushing rivers, bare of canoe and raft; from high hills, smiling, sweet and fair, up to the cloudless sky--and always it calledfrom the West. 

Spring was here and cast its largess at her feet, --fate held back hereager hand. 

A year she must wait, a year in which to win those necessaries of thelong trail, without which all would fail. 

Travel, even by so primitive a method as canoe and foot, must demand itstoll of salvage. 

At Rainy Lake they had been held by thieving Indians and a great partof their provisions taken from them, leaving them to make their way incomparative poverty to the next post of De Seviere. 

Further progress that year was impossible. Therefore, the contract ofthe trappers with the factor. 

And Maren Le Moyne--venturer of the venturers, flame of fire among them, urger, inspirer, and moral leader, a living pillar before them in hereagerness--must needs curb her soul in bonds of patience and wait atFort de Seviere for another spring. 

Close beside her in her visions and her high hope, her courage and hereagerness, stood that leader of the little band, Prix Laroux. Fed byher fire, touched by her enthusiasm, the man was the mouth piece for thewoman's force, the masculine expression of that undying hope of conquestwhich had drawn the small party together and set it forth on theperilous venture of pushing toward the unknown West to find for itselfan ideal holding. 

Back at Grand Portage the girl had listened from her late childhoodto tales of the wilderness told at her father's cabin by voyageursand trappers, by returning wanderers and stray Indians smoking thepeace-pipe at his hearth. Long before she had reached the stature ofwoman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grimy from his forge, and drunk the tales wide-eyed, to creep away andwatch the stars, to dream of those dashing streams and to clinch herhands for that she was not born a man. 

And then when she was fifteen had come the day when the tales had atlast kindled to flame the parent fire of that wildness in her whichslept unsuspected in the breast of the blacksmith, then old as the wayof life runs, and he had closed his cabin and his forge, given his twomotherless girls to the wife of Jacques Baptiste, joined a party goinginto the wilderness, and gone out of their lives. 

Eleven years had passed with its varied life, at Grand Portage and hehad never returned, --only vague rumors that had sunk in tears thehead of gentle Marie, the younger of the two sisters, and lifted withsympathetic understanding that of Maren the elder. 

Why not? She had asked herself in the starlit nights of those years, whynot? All their lives he had been a good father to them, taking the placeof the mother dead since she could just remember, speeding with tap andstroke of his humble craft those luckier ones who streamed through thestirring headquarters of Grand Portage at the mouth of Pigeon River eachseason, going into that untracked region of romance and dreams where thecall of his still sturdy manhood had beckoned him, --how long none mightknow. And at last he had heeded, laid down the staid, the sane, andfollowed the will-o'-the-wisp of conquest and adventure that took thecurrent by his door. 

Never had Maren chided him, --never for one moment held against him thedesertion of his children. For that, they were well provided for sincehe had left with Jacques Baptiste the savings of his life, not much, butenough to bring both of them to the marriage age. 

And well and tenderly had old Jacques and his wife fulfilled thetrust, --Maren's dark eyes were often misty as she recalled the partingat Grand Portage. 

So tenderly had the two maids grown in the love of the family thatMarie had, but at the start of the great journey, married young HenriBaptiste. 

Marie was all for a home and some black-eyed babies, but she clung toMaren as she had ever done, --and now, in her twenty-sixth year, Marenhad risen to the call as her father had done before her, and lifted herface, rapt as some pagan Priestess', toward that mystic West, --boundfor the Land of the Whispering Hills, whence had come that old, vaguerumour, lured alike by love of the unknown and shy, unspoken longing forthe father whose heart must be the pattern of her own. 

And in her train, swept together by that fire within her, touched intoflame by her ever-mounting hope, her courage, and her magnetism, wentthat small band of men and women, all young, all of adventurous blood, all daring the odds that let reluctantly a woman into the wilderness. 

Yet it has been ever women who have conquered the wilderness, for untilthey trod the trace the men had cut it still remained a wilderness. 

So she leaned in the door of Marie's new home, this taut-strung MarenLe Moyne, and gazed away above the rim of the budding forest, and herspirit was as a chaffing steed held into quiet by a hand it knows itsmaster. 

For a year she must endure the strain, --then, as the good God willed, the leap forward, the wild breath in her nostrils, the forging into theunknown. 

"Ah, yes!" she said again, "it is the spring. "

"Bon jour, " she nodded, unsmiling, as a slim youth swung jauntily up thehard-beaten way between the cabins. 

"Eh!" said Marie, alert, "and who is that lord-high-mighty, with his redcheeks and his airs, Maren? You know, as it is always, every man in thepost already. It is not so with the women, I'll wager. For instance, wholives in the tiny house there by the south bastion?"

"I know not, " answered Maren, as though she humoured a child, and takingthe last question first; "as for the youth, 'tis young Marc Dupre, andone of a sturdy nature. I like his spirit, though all I know of it iswhat sparkles from his roguish eyes. A fighter, --one to dare for love ofchance. "

Marie looked quickly up, ever ready to pounce on the first gleam ofaught that might ripen into a love interest, but she saw Maren's eyes, cool and shining, watching the swaggering figure with a look thatmeasured its slim strength, its suggestion of reserve, its gay joy oflife, and naught else. 

"A pretty fellow, " she said, with a touch of disappointment. 

Each and every man went by Maren just so, --eliciting only that interestwhich had to do apart from the personal. 

But the black eyes of Marc Dupre had softened a bit under their daringas he approached the factory. 

"Holy Mother!" he whispered to himself; "what a woman! No maid, buta WOMAN--for whose word one would fillip the face of Satan. She isfire--and, if I am sure, all men are tow. "

CHAPTER IV THE STRANGER FROM CIVILISATION

"How goes it, little one, with Loup?"

The factor stopped a moment in the sunshine before the cabin of oldFrance Moline. 

Clad in a red skirt, brilliant in its adornment of stained quills of theporcupine got from the Indians, Francette paced daintily here and therein the clean-swept yard, now snapping her small fingers, now coaxingwith soft noises in her round throat, her sparkling eyes fixed on thegaunt grey skeleton that stood on its four feet braced wide apart, wavering dizzily. 

For a time she did not answer, as if he who spoke was no more than anyyouth of the settlement, so exaggeratedly absorbed was she. 

Then, pushing back the curls from her face, a pretty motion that alwayswakened a look of admiration in masculine eyes beholding, --

"If he would only try, M'sieu, " she said, frowning, "but he does nothingsave stand and look at me like that. The strength is gone from hislegs. "

It seemed even as the little maid protested. Massive, silent, contemptuous, his small eyes under the wolfish skull cold and alightwith a look that sent shuddering from him the timid, --thus he had beenin his hard-fought and hard-won supremacy, a great, mysterious beastbrought full-grown from the snowbound wilderness of the forest onefamine-time by old Aquamis and sold to Bois DesCaut for a tie oftobacco. 

Now he stood, a pitiable shadow, and begged mutely of the only tenderhand he had known for understanding of this strange weakness that tookhis limbs and sent the heavens whirling. 

McElroy looked long upon him. 

"'Tis a shame, " he said, his straight brows drawing together, "the dogis a better brute than Bois. "

"Aye, " flashed Francette, talking as though it were no uncommon thingfor the factor to stop at the cabin of the Molines, "and no more shallthe one brute serve the other. You have said, M'sieu. "

"Yes, " laughed the factor, "I have said and it shall be so. I will buythe dog from Bois if he speaks of the matter. Take good care of him, little one, " and McElroy turned down toward the gate. As he moved away, free of step and straight as an Indian, he filliped away a small buddingtwig of the saskatoon which one of the youths had brought in to showhow the woods were answering the call of the warm sun, and which he haddandled in his fingers as he walked. It fell at the edge of the beadedskirt and quick as thought the hand of Francette shot out and coveredit. A hot flush mounted under the silken black curls and she dropped hereyes, peering under their lashes to see if any observed. She drew thefaded sprig toward her and hid it in her breast. 

Before the cabin of the Baptistes, Jean Saville touched his cap andstopped. 

"Yes?" said the factor; "what is it, Jean?"

"Assuredly, M'sieu, has the tide of the spring set in. Pierre but nowreports the coming of a band of strangers down the river. They come incanoes, five of them, well manned and armed as if the country of theAssiniboine were bristling with dangers instead of being the abode ofGod's chosen. Within the hour they will arrive at the landing. "

"Thank you, Jean, " said McElroy; "I will prepare for the meeting. "

The trapper touched his cap and passed. 

"Ah, " smiled the factor to himself, "I like this bustle of passage. Itis good after the winter's housing, and who knows? There may be thoseamong the strangers who bring word from Hudson Bay. "

He turned briskly back and gave word to Jack de Lancy and his wifeRette to cook a great meal, also to see that the store-room was clearedsufficiently by the more orderly packing back of the goods to allow offive canoe-loads of men sleeping upon the floor. Then he passed downthe main way, out of the gate in the warm sun and took his place atthe landing to look eagerly down stream for the first coming of thestrangers. Not far from the enthusiasm of boyhood was this young factorof Fort de Seviere. 

And within the hour, as Jean had said, they came, rounding the distantbend in an even distanced string, long narrow craft, each bearingthe regular complement of five men, a bowman, a steersman, and threemiddlemen whose paddles shone like crystal as they sank and liftedevenly. Strangers they were in very truth, as McElroy saw at the firstglance. 

Never had they been bred in the wilderness, these men, unless it werethe two guides in the first and fourth canoe, picked out readily bytheir swarthy skins, their crimson caps, and their rugged litheness. Fairer, all, were the rest, paler of skin, more loose of muscle, shownby the very way they bent to their work. Their garments, too, as theydrew nearer brought a smile to the watcher's lips, a smile of memory. Those coats, brave in their gilt braid, had assuredly come across seas. Thus might one behold them on the Strand. 

Ah! These were, without doubt, part of the fall ship's load ofadventurers come to the new continent filled with the fire ofachievement and excitement that brought so many youths over seas. Theyhad, most like, come down from the great bay by way of God's Lake andthe house there, traversed the length of Winnipeg, come along the riverat the southern end, and at last turned westward into the Assiniboine. A long rest they would no doubt take at Fort de Seviere, and there wouldbe news of the outside world. 

McElroy was at the water's very edge as the first canoe of the stringcurved gracefully in and cut slimly up to the landing. 

"Welcome, M'sieurs, " called the factor of Fort de Seviere, usingunconsciously the speech of the region, which had become his own in fiveyears, "in to the right a bit, --so! Well done!"

The word was not so sincere as he would have made it, for the bowman, jumping out into the knee-deep water to keep the boat from touchingbottom, had floundered like an ox, thereby proving his newness at thebusiness. On the face of the swarthy Canuck guide who sat in the sternthere was a weary contempt. 

"Friends, M'sieurs?" called McElroy tardily, scarcely deeming suchprecaution necessary, yet giving the hail from force of habit. 

They looked for the most part Scottish, these men, save here and thereamong them one who might be anything of the motley that came across eachyear. 

In the first canoe a figure had risen and stood tall and straight amongthe bales of goods with which the craft was seen to be close packedfrom bow to stern, a figure striking in its lack of kinship to itssurroundings, yet commanding in its beauty. Garments of cloth, of a gayblue shade and much adorned with trimming of gold braid, fitted closeto the slender form of the man. His limbs from the knee were encased inleggings made, most evidently, in some leather shop, while tilted on hissplendid head he wore a hat of so wide a brim that no sunlight touchedeither face or throat, while from beneath this covering there fell tohis shoulder long curls of hair that shone like silk. This, evidently, was the leader of the party. 

"Friends, " he said, "bound for the west and the country of theSaskatchewan. "

For all his appearance he spoke with the accent of the French, and for amoment McElroy looked closely at him. 

"Of the Company?" he asked sharply. 

"Aye, " said the other, with a little of wonder in voice and look, "ofthe Company, M'sieu most assuredly. "

The momentary flicker of uneasiness that had gripped the factor with thestranger's speech died at his words. 

So, of a surety, why not?

Had not he himself, born in the smoke of a London street, accepted withthe ingenious adaptability of the Irish blood within him the very speechhe now wondered at in the other?

As the young man sprang lightly to land he held out his hand, and it wasgripped with a force that showed the spirit behind the beauty of thisnew guest. 

"Welcome, M'sieu, " said the factor, "to Fort de Seviere and all itcontains. "

"Bien!" laughed the other with a show of fine white teeth, "but it isgood to behold neighbours in so deadly a wilderness as we have passedthrough for these many days. Naught but God-forgotten loneliness andnever-ending forest. Yet it is for these that we barter the comfortsof civilisation, eh, M'sieu, and waste ourselves on solitude and thesavage?" He turned and waved his gloved hand over the five canoes, nowcurving one by one in to the landing, and shouted a few terse orders andcommands. 

"But I had nigh forgot, so unused am I to society and the usagesthereof, "--he said, turning back with an engaging smile, "Alfred deCourtenay, known in that world across the water; and which my taste, orthat of itself, more properly speaking, has caused me to forswear forsome length of time, as Mad Alfred, I am, M'sieu--?"

"Anders McElroy, " supplied the other, "and factor of Fort de Seviere. "

"Monsieur le facteur, your servant, of French lineage, English nativity, and adventurous spirit. "

With a motion indescribably graceful he swept off his wide hat andexecuted a bow which in itself was proof of his gentleness. 

"And now, M'sieu, lead on to those delights of rest and converse whichyour hospitality hath so graciously promised. "

Leaving his company to beach and store for the night the canoeswith their loads of merchandise, under the direction of his aide orlieutenant whom he introduced to the factor as John Ivrey, a youngman of fine presence, Alfred de Courtenay walked beside McElroy up thegentle slope of the river bank, entered the great eastern gate of thepost, not without an appreciative glance at its massive strength andat the well-nigh impregnable thickness of the stockade, the well-placedsurveillance of the towering bastions, and thus up the way between thecabins to the door of the factory, open and inviting. 

"Mother of God, M'sieu!" he said with a copious sigh; "what it is tomeet with white faces! For weeks I have beheld along the shores peeringbrown countenances that lifted my gorge, and I have well-nigh beentempted to turn back. "

"It has been a long journey, then, to you?"

McElroy smiled, thinking of the first impressions and effect of thewilderness on such a man fresh from the ways of civilisation. 

"Long? Though it is my initial journey, yet am I veteran frontiersman. "

He turned upon the factor the brilliance of his smile, a combination ofdazzling teeth and eyes that fairly danced with spirit, like bubblingwine, blue and swift in their changes from laughter to an exaggerateddolorousness, as when he spoke of these terrible hardships. 

And if they were quick after this fashion they were no less so inroaming keenly over every corner of the enclosed space within thestockade. 

Before they had reached the factory the stranger knew that there werethree rows of cabins in the post, that the factory was a mighty fortressin its low solidity, and that the small log structure to the right of itwith the barred window was the pot au beurre. 

As they neared the factory the figure of a tall woman, young by thestraightness of the back, the gracious yet taut beauty of line andcurve, came from behind the cabin of the Savilles, and on her shoulderwas perched a three-year-old child which laughed and gurgled withdelight, holding tight to her widespread hands. The woman's face washidden by the child's body, but her voice, deep-throated and rich withsliding minor tones, mingled with the high shrillness of the littleone's shrieks. 

"Hold fast, ma cherie, " came its laughing caution, smothered by theflying folds of the baby's little cotton shift. "See! The ship dips so, in the ocean, --and so, --and so!"

The strong arms, bare and brown and muscular, swayed backward, throwingup the milky whiteness of the little throat, the tiny feet flewheavenward and the baby's wee heart choked it, as witness the screamsof irrepressible joy. As the child swayed back there came into view theface of Maren Le Moyne, flushed all over its rare darkness, glowing withtenderness, its great beauty transfigured divinely. The black braids, wrapped smoothly round her head, shone in the evening sun, and the fadedgarment, plain and uncompromising, but served to heighten the effect ofher physical perfection. 

Alfred de Courtenay stopped in his tracks, the smile fixed on his face, and drank in the pretty scene like one starved. 

So long he looked that McElroy turned toward him and only then did heshift his glance, remembering himself, while a blush suffused his ratherdelicate features. 

"Pardon!" he murmured; "truly do I forget myself, M'sieu; but not for atwelvemonth have I seen aught to match this moment. I pray you, of whatstation of life is the glorious young Madonna before you;--wife or widowor maid? By Saint Agnes, never have I beheld such beauty!"

"Maid, " replied McElroy; "by name Maren Le Moyne, one of a party ofventurers who came but a short while back from Rainy River, and who havecast in their lot with us for the matter of a year. "

The woman and the child passed on their way, disappearing again behindthe next cabin, unconscious of observation, still lost in their play ofthe tossing ship at sea, and the two men entered the great trading-roomof Fort de Seviere, where Edmonton Ridgar, chief trader and accountant, came forward to meet the stranger. 

The young factor went in search of Jack de Lancy and word of the meal hehad ordered, and for some reason there was within him a vague vexationwhich had to do with the look he had seen in the merry eyes of Alfred deCourtenay. 

He found the great kettles boiling over the fires and a ten-gallon potof coffee Venting the evening air. 

As he gave word for the feast to be spread on strips of cloth laid onthe hard-beaten ground before the factory that many might sit round atonce and partake, there came from the direction of the gate the voicesof De Courtenay's men. The stranger and himself, with young Ivrey andRidgar should be served in the little room off to the west where werethe small table, the chairs, and the row of books. 

Not often did Fort de Seviere have so illustrious a guest as must bethis young adventurer. 

CHAPTER V NOR'WESTERS

"Merci, my friend, what extravagance is this! The savour of that potdoes fairly turn my head!"

Alfred de Courtenay settled himself gracefully in one of McElroy'schairs and smiled across at his host with a twinkle in his laughingeyes. 

A dozen candles, lit in his honour, where three were wont to suffice, shone mellowly in the little room, and Rette de Lancy, still comelydespite her forty years and a certain lavishness in the matter ofavoirdupois, set down in the midst of the table a steaming dish with acover. There were a white cloth of bleached linen and cups of blueware that had come with her and Jack from across seas, also a silvercoffee-urn that had been her great-grandmother's. When the factor gaveword for a meal to these two he knew well that all dignity would beobserved. As for himself, his living of every day was scant and plain asregarded the manner of its serving. 

"What is it, M'sieu, that so assails the nostrils with delicious aroma, if I may so far forget politeness? 'Tis not beef, assuredly, --there istoo much of the scent of the wild about it. "

"Moose, " replied McElroy, and by this time the vague vexation had blownout of his heart as all ill-feelings were wont to do, "moose, killed inthe snows and hung in the smoke of a little fire until the very heartof the wood is in the meat. And now, M'sieu, fall to. I would I hadsomething better than Rette's strong coffee in which to pledge you, but, as you see, Fort de Seviere has no cantine salope. It is not the policyof the Great Company, as you doubtless know, to abet its trade with theIndians by the use of liquor. "

De Courtenay looked quickly up. 

"Why, I thought, --but then I have much to learn, in fact, all to learn, since I am but raw in the wilderness. "

Like men hungry and athirst from the hardships of the trail and thestream, the camp and the portage, the guests did justice to the savouryviands, and at last leaned back in repletion, while Rette took off theplates and cups; the spoons and forks, and set in their stead a huge potof crumbled tobacco with a tin box containing pipes. 

"And now, " said the factor, smiling, "let us have talk of that world ofwhich I am hungering for news. You are of the fall ship's load of newarrivals, I take it?"

"No, " said De Courtenay, "it was last spring, about this time, that Ifirst saw the shores of the New World. Five of my men came with me fromacross seas and the rest I picked on starting into the wilderness. Theyare mostly Canadians of Scottish blood. I have a fancy that the strongblond peoples are best for the rigours of what one may find in thiscountry. Though, " he laughed as at some reminiscence, "I have found sofar that my two swarthy guides are worth any three of the rest. "

"You have found the way hard?"

"Mother of God! If the rest is like the first of it, I think you mayfind my bones bleaching beside some portage where I have given up theghost. Truly do we pay for our whims of caprice, M'sieu. "

"Whims?"

"Aye, what save a whim of the moment could have induced me to undertakeso great a hardship as this winning to the Saskatchewan? What save thelove of excitement sent me to be, like yourself, the head of a losttrading-post in this far north country?"

The merry blue eyes were full of gaiety and light. 

"Truly, --and I pay. "

A whim it might be, yet there was in the spirited face of Alfred deCourtenay that which told plainly that it would be followed to its end, be that what it might, as faithfully as though it were a deeper thing. 

For a moment a little line appeared between the straight brows of thefactor. 

The word of so grave an office mentioned as a "whim, " "a caprice, " wentdown hard with him. There was nowhere in the heavens above nor the earthbelow so serious a thing as that same office, and he served it with hiswhole heart. Therefore he could not quite understand the other. Yet hethought in a moment of De Courtenay's newness and the frown cleared. Ofa very wide tolerance was McElroy. 

"And you came, I suppose, from York Factory, down by way of God's Lakeand the house there. What is the word of Anderson who presides there? Afine fellow, --I met him once at Churchill. "

"York Factory? God's Lake?"

De Courtenay lowered his pipe and looked through the smoke. 

"Nay, " he said, "I know nothing of those places, M'sieu. "

He turned to young Ivrey. 

"It might be that these locations answer to different names. Heard youaught from the guides of these two posts?"

"We did not pass them, Sir Alfred, " answered the young man soberly. 

"Then, in Heaven's name, which way have you journeyed?" asked McElroyamazed. 

"Why, by way of Lake Nipissing, across the straits below the Falls ofSt. Mary, by canoe along the shores of Lake Superior, into Pigeon River, and so on up the various streams to your own Assiniboine--from Montreal. How else, M'sieu?"

But the factor of Fort de Seviere had risen in his place, his face goneblank with consternation. 

"From Montreal!" he cried, "but did you not answer to me as friends andof the Company?"

"Aye, " answered De Courtenay, also rising, the gaiety fading from hisface and his eyes beginning to sparkle bodefully, "of the North-westCompany, trading from Montreal into the fur country. I am sent of myuncle Elsworth McTavish, who is a shareholder and a most responsibleman, to take charge of the post De Brisac on the south branch of theSaskatchewan. But I like not this sudden gravity, M'sieu. Wherein have Ioffended?"

"In naught, De Courtenay, " said McElroy quite simply, "save that you arein the heart of the country belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, asdoes this fort and all therein. "

"Nom de Dieu!" cried the other, springing back and tossing up his head;"I knew it not! How is it, then, that at midday of this day we met onthe river one who told us of this post of De Seviere, and that itserved the Montreal merchants? That we should here find hospitality andfriends?"

"Eh?" shot out McElroy sharply. "Of what like was such a person?"

"A big man, swarthy and dark, with sullen eyes, clad in garments oftanned hides and wearing a red cap and a knife in his belt. He bore onhis left temple a pure white lock amid his black hair. "

"Bois DesCaut!" said Edmonton Ridgar; "he has been these two days gonein his canoe. "

"A traitorous trapper, M'sieu, " said the factor, "one who has umbrage atme for a rebuke administered some time back and hopes by this sorryjoke to win revenge. But what is done cannot be helped. We have metas friends, --the unfortunate fact that we find ourselves rivals, --thatalmost speaks the word 'foes, ' I must inform you, M'sieu, since thestrife between our companies has become so sharp, --should not cause usto forget the bread we have broken between us personally. I still offeryou a night's rest. "

But De Courtenay had drawn himself to his slender height, his hand athis hip, where, in other times, had dangled a sword. 

"Nay, M'sieu, " he said quickly, "a blunder found and unremediedbecomes two. If I ay gather my men we will sleep outside an unfriendlyfort, --and in the name of De Courtenay allow me to repay the cost oftheir entertainment. "

Reckless, indeed, was this young cavalier, else he would not have madethat speech. 

Anders McElroy turned white beneath his tan and his fingers tapped thetable. 

"Not ungrateful am I, M'sieu, but I stick by the colours I choose. Ifour companies are rivals, then we are such, and I follow my master'slead. It is at present the North-west organisation. I am pledged inMontreal--and--I prove faithful. "

The young man's face was fired with that spirit which ever lay so nearthe surface and he looked at his whilom host with a mighty hauteur. 

"I thank you for your kindness, M'sieu, but I must decline it further. Come, Ivrey, " and turning he picked up his wide hat, bowed first toMcElroy and then to Ridgar, and strode toward the outer door. As hepassed the lintel the not insignificant form of Rette blocked his exit, en route for a cup she had left behind. With an instant flourish the hatin his hand swept the logs of the floor, he seized the woman's toil-hardfingers and bore them to his lips. 

"Excellent, Madame, was that meal, " he murmured, "and never to be forgotso long as one unused to hardship faces privation. I thank you. "

Comely Rette flushed to her sleek hair and some flicker of a girlhoodthat had its modicum of grace, flared up in the swift curtsy with whichshe acknowledged the compliment. 

And with a last flash of his blue coat Alfred de Courtenay was gone. 

McElroy ran his fingers helplessly through his tousled light hair andfaced his friend. 

"Now, by all the Saints!" he said with a strange mixture of regret andrelief, "what an unhappy ending!"

But at that moment he was thinking of the wondrous beauty of the man andof the picture of Maren Le Moyne's brown arms spread wide apart with thelaughing child between, and again that little feeling of vexation creptinto his wholesome heart. 

Without in the soft night the late guest was striding, a gracefulfigure, hurriedly down toward the gate he had entered so short a timeago, and his slender hand played restlessly at his hip. His heart wasseething with swift-roused emotions. So had its quick stirrings broughthim into many a scrape in his eventful life. That word of his host, "which speaks almost of foes, " sang in his ears. 

And yet it had been given only in the spirit of enlightenment. 

Behind, John Ivrey gathered up the men idling about the fire and talkingwith the men of the post, where question and answer had begun to stiruneasiness. 

In a ragged, uneven line they strung out, fading into the darkness, andpresently from down the river some forty rods there rose up the columnsof their fires. 

Fort de Seviere closed its gates and settled into the night with afeeling of something gone awry. 

By morning all was early astir, those within to witness the departure ofthe strangers, and, those without for that same departure. 

The canoes were floated, the men embarked, and all in readiness with thefirst flame of the sun above the eastern forest when Alfred de Courtenaypresented himself at the gate and called for McElroy. 

Gladly the factor responded, hoping somewhat to soften the awkwardnessof the situation by a godspeed, to be met by the Frenchman high-headedand most carefully polite. A servant beside him held a wickered jug. 

"With your leave, M'sieu, " said De Courtenay, "I wish to leave someearnest of my gratefulness for what we have received at your hands. Therefore accept with my compliments this small gift, which, as yousay you have no cantine salope, must come most happily. Once more, farewell. "

The man set down the jug at McElroy's feet and strode toward thelanding. The master was turning more leisurely away with his uncoveredcurls shining in the first level beams of morning, when he stopped andlooked past the portal within the stockade. 

With a small brass kettle in her hand, Maren Le Moyne was coming downthe open way toward the well. 

With a colossal coolness he forgot the presence of the factor and theready light began to sparkle in his blue eyes with every step of theapproaching girl. Swiftly he glanced to right and left, as if in searchof something, and meeting only the green slope of the shore, a growingexcitement flushed his face. 

Suddenly he snatched from a crevice of the stockade a tiny crimsonflower which nodded, frail and fragrant, from its precarious foothold, and sprang forward as she set her vessel on the well's stone wall. 

Unsurpassed was the bow he swept her, this daring soldier of fortune, to whose delicate nostrils the taking of chances was the breath of life, and his smile was brilliant as the spring morning itself. 

"A chance is a chance, Ma'amselle, " he said winningly, "and who wouldnot risk its turning? For me, --I looked upon your face but now, andbehold! I must give you something, and this was all the moment offered. "

With hand on heart he held forth the little flower. 

"In memory of a passing stranger far from all beauty, wear it, I prayyou, this day in the dusk of that braid, just there above the temple. Have I permission?"

He stepped near and lifted the crimson star, smiling down into theastonished eyes of Maren Le Moyne, to whom no man in all her life hadever spoken thus. 

For a moment she stared at him, and her face was a field of fleetingsensations. And then, slowly, the sparkle in his eyes lit her own, thesmile on his lips curled up the corners of her full red mouth, and thecharm of the moment, fresh and sweet as the new day, swept over her. 

"A venturer, -you!" she said; "some kin we must surely be, M'sieu! 'Tisgranted. "

She rested her hands on the kettle's rim, and bent forward her head, wrapped round and round with its heavy braids, and with fingers deft asa woman's Alfred de Courtenay placed the flower in a shining fold. 

Somewhat lengthy was the process, for the braid was tight and the greenstem very fragile, but at last it was accomplished, and Maren lifted herface flushed and laughing. 

"Thank you, M'sieu, " she said demurely; "God speed your journey. "

De Courtenay took the kettle from her, filled it himself, and when hegave it back the smile was gone; from his face, but the light remained. 

"Some day, Ma'amselle, " he said gravely, "I shall come back to Fort deSeviere. "

The tall girl turned away with her morning's kettle of fresh water, andthe man stood by the well watching her swinging easily to its weight, forgetful of the canoes, manned and waiting on the river's breast fortheir leader, forgetful of the factor of the post, waiting in the shadowof the wall, on whose face there sat a deeper shade. 

Then he turned and ran lightly down the bank, leaped into the canoe heldready, once more bowed, and as the little craft swept out to midstream, he shook back his curls and lifted his face toward the country of theSaskatchewan. 

CHAPTER VI SPRING TRADE

So passed out of Fort de Seviere one who was destined to be interwovenwith its fortunes. 

Anders McElroy watched him go until the shadow of the great trees on theeastern shore, long in the level sun, quenched the light on his silkenhead and the men of the five canoes had taken up a song of the boats, their voices lifting clear and fresh on the wings of the new day, untilthe first canoe turned with the curve of the river above and was lost, the second and the third, and even until the last had passed from viewand only the song came back. 

Then he turned back into the gate and the tender mouth that was allIrish above the square Scottish jaw was set tight together. 

His foot touched the wickered jug and he called Jean Saville. 

"Take this, Jean, " he said, "and give each of the men a cup. 'Tis ashame to waste it. "

But for himself he had no taste for the stranger's gift of payment. 

He was thinking of the red flower in Maren Le Moyne's black hair and avexation, past all reason held him. 

But the spring was open and there was soon more to occupy his mind thana maid and a posy and a reckless blade from Montreal. 

At dusk of a day within that week a trapper brought word of a hundredcanoes on the river a day's journey up-country, laden with packs ofwinter beaver, and bound for the post. 

The Indians were coming down to trade. 

Picturesque they were, in their fringed buckskin cunningly tanned andbeaded, their feathers and their ornaments of elk teeth and claws of thehuge, thick-coated bears. At day-dawn they came, having camped for thenight a short distance above the fort, to the letter display of theirarrival, and they swept down in a flotilla of graceful craft made of thebirch bark and light as clouds upon the water. 

All was in readiness for them, for the factor had been expecting themfor a fortnight back; and, when the crackling shots of the bravesannounced their coming, McElroy gave orders that the three small cannonmounted on a half-moon of narrow breastwork to the south of the maingate, and just before a small opening in the stockade for use in case ofattack, should be fired in salute. 

These were the quiet and friendly Assiniboines, and the first of thetribes, being the nearest, to reach the factory that year. 

De Seviere was early awake and all was astir within its walls, forthis was the great time of the four seasons. Eagerly the maids andthe younger matrons flocked down to the great gate to peer out at thegathering craft, afloat like the leaves of autumn upon the breast of thelittle river, --two braves to a canoe, the gallant front of the youngmen flanking and preceding that which held the leader of the expedition, chief of the tribe, distinguished by its flag fluttering in the morningwind upon a pole at the stern, --at the bedizened figure of the chiefhimself, and lastly those canoes which held the women, the few children, and even a dog or two. 

Thus they came, those simple children of the forest and the lakes, the open ways and the fastnesses, of the untrammelled summers, and thesnow-hindered winters, to the doors of the white man, dependent at lastupon him for the implements of life, --the gun, the trap, the knife, thekettle, and the blanket. 

Presently Edmonton Ridgar, chief trader of Fort de Seviere, came downthe main way between the cabins, passing alone between the rows of thepopulace, and went forward to the lading to receive the guests. 

The canoes had by this time swept swiftly and with utmost skill into twohalf-moons, their points cutting to the landing; and down the reach ofwater between them, slightly ruffled into little waves and sparklingripples by the soft wind and the deftly dipping paddles, there came thelarger craft of Quamenoka the leader. 

"Welcome, my brothers!" called Ridgar, in their own tongue, for this manhad been born on the shores of Hudson Bay and knew the speech of everytribe, from the almost extinct Nepisingues, of the Nepigon, to thefar-away Ouinebigonnolinis on the sea coast. His hair was thicklysilvered from the years he had spent in the service of the H. B. C. , andhis heart was full of knowledge gathered from the four winds. Therefore, his worth was above price and he would have been factor of a post of hisown, instead of chief trader for young Anders McElroy. 

"We greet our brother, " gravely replied Quamenoka as he stepped from hiscanoe, gathering his blanket around his body with a practised sweep. 

Swiftly four headmen disembarked from the first four canoes of thehalf-moon which closed in with scarce a paddle dip, so deft were thebraves with their slender, shining blades of white ash, and stoodbehind. 

Side by side, conversing in a few sentences, the trader and the chiefentered the post, followed by the headmen and proceeded to the factory, where McElroy stood to welcome them in the open door. 

They entered, to the ceremony of the pipe, the speech, and the bargain, while those without made a great camp two hundred strong all along thebank of the stream, beached the canoes, stacked the beaver packs, set upthe tepees of the seventeen sticks, and built the little fires withoutwhich no camp is a camp. 

In a little space the quiet shore was all a-bustle and activity reignedwhere the silence of the spring morning had lain, dew-heavy. 

Among those most eager who peered at the gate, and who presentlyventured forth to the better view the bustling concourse of braves andsquaws, was Maren Le Moyne, her dark eyes wide, soft lips apart, andface all a-quiver with keen enjoyment of the scene. 

These were the first she had ever seen of those Indians who came fromthe west. Who knew? Perhaps those moccasined feet had trod the virginforest of her dreams, those sombre eyes looked upon the WhisperingHills, those grave faces been lifted to the sweet wind that sang fromthe west and whose caress she felt even now upon her cheeks. 

Perhaps, --perhaps, even, some swift forest-runner among them, far on hisquest of the home of the caribou or with news of some friendly tribe, had come upon a man, an old man rugged of frame and face, with blue eyeslike lakes in his swarthy darkness, and muscles that bespoke the forgeand hammer. 

Who knew?

Maren's strongly modelled chin twitched a bit while the little flame oftenderness that flickered ever behind the graveness of her eyes leapedup. She longed for their speech that she might go among them and ask. 

A little way along the stockade wall to the north there lay a greatrock, flat and smooth of surface, and here the girl drew apart from thewomen and sat herself down thereon, hands clasping her knees and thelevel sun in her eyes. Her thoughts were soon faraway on the misty trailthey had worn for themselves in the many years they had traversed thewilderness in search of what it held, and the eyes between the narrowedlids became blank with introspection. And as she sat thus, a little waywithdrawn from the scurrying activity of the scene, there came a stepon the soft green sod and a slim form in buckskins halted beside her. 

It was young Marc Dupre, and his devil-may-care face was alert andsmiling. 

"Is that seat big enough for two, Ma'amselle?" he asked impertinently, though the heart in him was thumping a bit. This was a woman, herecalled having thought, for whom one would fillip the face of Satan, and he was uncertain whether or no he had made a right beginning. 

Maren started and looked swiftly up at him. 

"It is, M'sieu, " she said quietly, "if those two are in simple, sensibleaccord. Not if one of the two coquettes. "

Over the handsome features of the youth there spread a deep red flush. 

"Forgive me, Ma'amselle, " he said, "my speech was foolish as my heart. They are both sobered. "

"Then, " said the girl, drawing aside the folds of her dress, "you maysit beside me. "

With a sudden diffidence he sank upon the stone, this handsome boy whosetongue was ever ready and whose heart of a light o' love had taken tollfrom every maid in the settlement, and for the first time in his life hehad no sprightly word, no quip for his careless tongue. 

They sat in silence, and presently he saw that her eyes were againhalf-closed and the dreaming look had settled back in them. She hadforgotten his presence. 

Never before in his experience had a woman sat thus unmoved beside himwhen he longed to make her speak, and it stilled him with silent wonder. 

He thought of the words of Pierre Garcon that day on the river bank whenthis maid was new to the post, "if there is, I would not be the one towaken it and not be found its master, " and they sent a thrill to hisinmost being. 

Who would awaken her; he wondered, as he watched the cheek beside himfrom the tail of his eye, a round womanly cheek, sweet and full and richas a damask rose with the thick lashes above shining like jet. 

Obedient to her silence, he sat still while she dreamed her dream out toits conclusion, and presently she straightened with a little breath likea sigh, unclasped her hands from her knees and turned her glance uponhim as if she saw him for the first time. 

His head whirled suddenly and he sought for some common word to coverhis rare confusion. 

"See, Ma'amselle, " he said, pointing, "the well-lashed packs of the fatwinter beaver. Truly they come well laden, these Assiniboines, andwe may well thank le bon Dieu for the wealth of skins. Is it not aheartening sight?"

The eyes of Maren Le Moyne left his face and swept swiftly down thegentle slope to where the Indians had piled their bales of furs. At thesight they darkened like the waters of a lake when a little wind runsover its surface. 

"A heartening sight? Nay, M'sieu, " she said, shaking her head, "I canfind no joy in it. "

"What?"

The trapper was aghast. 

"No pleasure in the fruits of a fat season?"

"See the packs of marten, the dark streaks showing a bit at the edgeswhere the fur rounds over the dried skin. How were those pelts taken, M'sieu?"

"How? Why, most cunningly, Ma'amselle, --in traps of the H. B. Company, set with utmost skill, perhaps on a stump above the line of the heavysnows, or balanced nicely at the far end of a slender pole set leaningin the ground. The delicate hand of a seasoned player must match itselfwith the forest instinct of these small creatures. The little pole holdslittle snow and the scent of the bait calls the marten up, when, snap! it is fast and waiting for the trapper and the lodge of theAssiniboines, the women and the drying. "

"Yes. And those hundreds of beaver, M'sieu?"

Marc Dupre's eyes were shining and the red in his cheeks flushing withpleasure. 

What more to a man's liking than the exploitation of knowledge gainedfirst-hand in the pursuit of his life's work?

"Again the trap, " he said, "set this time at the edge of a stream wherethe beaver huts peek through the ice, or lift their tops above the openwater. Neatly they are set, cunning as an Indian himself; hidden in thesoft slime at the margin if the water runs, waiting with open jaws inthe small runway above the dam where the creatures come out from theswim. A sleek head lifting above the ripples a scrambling foot ortwo, --snap! again the price of a pound and a half of powder, a tie oftobacco. No footmark must the hunter leave, Ma'amselle, unsplashed withwater, no tainting touch of a hand ungloved on chain or stake or trapitself. Ah! one must know the woods and the stream, the cold and thesnow and the winds. "

"You know them, M'sieu, I have no doubt, " said Maren, "for you followthe trapping trail. And those beautiful silver fox, frosty and fine asthe sparkle of a winter morning? The heavy hides of the bear, soft andglossy and thick as a folded blanket?"

"All the trap, --unless the latter drops through the flimsy roof of somewell-hidden dead-fall, covered with brush. "

The girl was not looking at him, her glance being still on the bustlingcamp below. The fingers on her knee were laced tight together. 

Now she began to speak in a low voice, deep and even. 

"Aye! All you have said is true. Wealth, indeed, is in those packs, andpatience and cunning and utmost skill, defiance of the snows and thecrackling cold, long miles on snowshoes and the hardships of the trail, the nights in the bough-tied huts, the pack galling the shoulders. Butwhat is all this beside that which waits the runner of the trail atevery 'set' in those many miles? Here he finds his leaning-pole. Therehave been little tracks up its slim roadway, but those were covered bythe fall of three days back and the little creature who made them hangsthere at the end, three small feet beating the cold air feebly, atiny head squirming from side to side, two dull black eyes set at thedistorted world. He has caught his marten. It has not frozen, for thesnow was light and the forest still and thick, and three days havepassed, M'sieu. Three days! Mon Dieu! How much were those three daysworth? The trapper taps the squirming head and puts the bit of fur inhis pack-bag. On to the next. The beaver? Dead, M'sieu, thanks to thegood God, drowned in its own sweet water. The pack is heavy with smallbodies ere the Assiniboine reaches the place where he has laid his trapfor the silver fox. And what greets him here? Only a foot gnawed off inthe silence of the day and the night, and some beauty gone staggeringaway to lie and suffer with starvation in the cold. "

The youth was staring at the averted face beside him, mouth open andutter amazement on his features. 

Maren went on. 

"And lastly, M'sieu, far at the end of the trail, --at the outer, rim ofthe circle traced by his traps, --he comes eagerly, to peep and peer forwhat might have happened at the head of the little dip leading down tothe stream where the firs bend heavily under their weight of snow. 

"Here he had laid his cunningest instrument, a thing of giant jaws, ofsharp ragged points, each inlocking with the other, the whole unholything hung to a chain at whose other end there lay a ball of iron, weighing, M'sieu, some eighty pounds. That was for the great shy bear, rocking along ire his quest of berries or some tree that should ringhollow under his scratching claws, bespeaking the hive of the wild bees. The oiled and fur-wrapped Indian stoops down and looks along the dip. Ah! There he sees that which brings a glint to his small eyes. No bear, M'sieu, nor yet the trap he had left, but a thrashed and broken spacewhere the snow went flying in clouds and the bushes were torn from theirroots, where the very tree-trunks bore marks of the conflict and a wideand terrible trail led wildly off to the deeper forest. 

"He takes it up. 

"All day he follows it. At night he camps and sleeps by his fire incomfort. By daybreak again he is swinging along on that trail. Its wordis plain to him. At first it raged, that great shaggy creature, tallas an ox and slow, raged and fought and broke its teeth on the strangething that bit to the bone with its relentless jaws, and tore along thewhite silence dragging its hindering ball, that, catching on bush androot, skinned down the flesh from the shining bone. And presently thewild trail narrowed to undisturbed snow, with naught save two greatfootprints, one after the other. With the cunning of a man, M'sieu, thetortured animal has gathered in its arms that chain and ball, and iswalking upright. For another day and night the trapper follows thistrail of tragedy and at their end he comes upon it. 

"Beside a boulder, where the snow is pushed away there lies a round heapof anguish, curled up, pinched nose flat on the snow and two ears laidlop to a vanquished head. It is still breathing, though the dull eyesopen not at sound of the trapper, bold in his safety, who lifts his gunand ends it all. 

"A fine pelt, --save that the right foreleg is somewhat spoiled. 

"It lies there in that pile, M'sieu, and makes for wealth, --but to me itis no heartening sight. I have followed that trail to the deeper woods. "

The eyes of the woman were deep as wells, flickering with light, and thedark brows frowned down the slope. She had drawn her hands tightaround her knees, so tight that each knuckle stood out white from thesurrounding tan. 

The young man shut his open lips and drew in a breath that quivered. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said huskily, "nowhere in the wide world is thereanother woman so deep of heart, so strong in tenderness. Never beforehave I seen that side of the trapping. To a man that is shut. It needsthe soul of a woman to see behind those things. And, oh, Ma'amselle!"his voice fell low and trembling, "I have seen more, --the divinitywithin your spirit. May the good God make me worthy that you may speakso to me again. I would I might serve you, --with my life I would serveyou, Ma'amselle, for I have seen no woman like you. " He was on his feet, this young Marc Dupre, and the hot blood was coursing fast in his veins. The awakening was coming, though not for Maren Le Moyne. 

"May the time come when I may be a stone for your foot, " he saidswiftly. "I ask no better fate. "

Maren looked up at him and a wonderful tenderness spread on her face. 

"I think the time will come, M'sieu, --and, when it does, it will beworth while. I think it would be a lifting sight to see you in somegreat crisis, before some heavy test. "

"You do?" he said slowly; "you do, Ma'amselle? Then, by Heaven, itwould!"

"And some day I shall see it. "

They little knew, these two in their glowing youth, how true was thatword, nor how tragic that sight would be. 

"And till then, " said this wild youth of the forest, "until then may webe friends?" The head under the crimson cap was whirling. 

"Friends?" smiled Maken, and her voice was very gentle; "assuredly, M'sieu--I had destined you for that some time ago. "

As she turned away, her glance once more fell upon the long camp of theAssiniboines, and Marc Dupre faded from her mind. 

Not so with him, left sitting on the flat stone, the blood hot in hisface and a sudden mist before his eyes. 

Her last words sang in his ears like the voice of many waters. 

He did not look after her, --there was something within that held himsilent, staring at the waters of the river, now sparkling like astream of diamonds in the risen sun, the lightness gone from him and atrembling loosed in his bosom. 

Within the big trading-room at the factory, seats had been placed, thechief and his headmen sat in a solemn circle, and McElroy, holdingin his two hands the long calumet, stood in the centre of the smallconclave. 

Very gravely he pointed the stem, clinking with its dangling ornaments, to east and west, to the heavens and to the earth, and then with a deftmotion swung it around his head. 

"My brothers, " he said, glancing around at the solemn visages of thesehis friends and people, "may the sun smile all day upon us together inpeace. "

Wherewith he smoked a moment at the carven mouthpiece and handed thepipe to Quamenoka. 

With the utmost gravity Ridgar took it from the chief, passed it tothe savage on his right, who likewise smoked and passed, it on, andpresently the ceremony was done and the visit had begun. 

"My brothers are late this year at the trading, " said the factor. "For afortnight has the ox waited in the pen, the bread of the feast been set. So do we love our brothers of the forest. What is the word of the west?What tribes come in to the factory with peltry? We would hear Quamenokaspeak. "

He fell silent, sat down in his chair, and waited. 

In the hush of that moment a shadow falling in the open door of thefactory caught his eye and he looked up to see the form of Maren LeMoyne leaning against the lintel, her face filled with eagerness, hereyes, clear as a child's and as far-seeing, fixed on the Indians. Heglanced swiftly to that tight braid just above the temple, where he hadlast seen a small red flower nodding impishly, and was conscious of afeeling of relief to find it gone. 

It was irregular, the intrusion of an outsider in the ceremony of theopening of the trade; but for his life the young factor of De Sevierecould not have said so to this girl who went fearlessly where she listedand whose eyes held such mystery of strength and wistfulness. 

Moreover, Quamenoka was speaking and the council harkened. 

CHAPTER VII FOREST NEWS

He was an old man, this chief of the Assiniboines, and his face waswrinkled like the dried bed of a stream` where the last little rippleshave cast up the sand in a thousand ridges. His black eyes were mild, for these Indians were a peaceful people, relying on the trapping andthe hunting and the friendship of the white men at the posts which theyhad held for three generations. 

Fear of their more warlike kin had kept them near the factories anddriven them into the ways of civilisation. 

Now he sat with quiet glance upon the floor looking back into the pastyear, his feathered head-dress quivering a bit and the blue smoke risingfrom the pipe. 

"The wind in the woods aisles is full of words, my brothers, " he said, in his own tongue, "and tales flit down the lakes like the leaves inautumn. From the Saskatchewan come the French, who tell the Assiniboinesthat at their posts will be given four axes for one beaver, eight poundsof shot and four of powder. Yet thy brothers come down from their lodgesto Fort de Seviere because of the love they bear to you, and for thefairness in trade that never varies. Many beavers are in the packs, muchmarten and fox and ermine. We will do good trade. Guns that are lightand neat shaped to the hand, with good locks. Also much tobacco andsweet fruits. Of these things we are sure, --also are we sure of thenext year and the next. Therefore do we come down the rivers to theAssiniboine. 

"The tales that flit in the forest, my brothers, tell of a new fort ofthe French far, far to the northwest on the shores of the Slave Lake, whose factor is of the name Living Stone. Also there are whispers thatfly like the wintering birds of new people, fair-skinned and red in thecheeks, who come into the upper country from the west where lies the BigWater. These are strange people, like none that trade with the Indians, who are neither friends to the English, nor yet the French, but strivefor barter with those tribes that come up from the Blackfeet Hills anddown from the frozen regions of the North with bearskins, the one, andseal and sea-otter, the other. 

"A runner of the Saulteurs, resting in the lodges of the Assiniboines, has told Quamenoka of their strange customs, their hardness, and theirshut forts guarded with suspicion and sentinelled with fear. "

He ceased a moment and smoked in silence. 

No breath of sound broke the stillness, for this was ceremony and ofgreat dignity. 

Only McElroy was acutely conscious of the figure in the doorway and thepeering face of the girl, so full of hushed intensity. 

"Also do we bring word of a great tribe, the Nakonkirhirinons, livingfar beyond the River Oujuragatchousibi, who this year journey down toFort de Seviere with many furs, --more than all that will come fromthe Assiniboines, the Crees, the Ojibways, and the Migichihilinons puttogether. 

"Past York and Churchill on the Great Bay they come, because of unfairdealings which met them at those places last year and the year before, down to the country of the Assiniboines, in whose lodges they will eatthe great feast of the Peace Dance. Not long have the Nakonkirhirinonstraded their furs, living to themselves in their hills, and much creditis due Quamenoka by whose word they come this year to his brothers onthe Assiniboine. "

The chief paused impressively and raised his glance to the factor'sface. 

McElroy nodded. 

"Greatly does the heart of thy brother rejoice at such word, and apresent over and above that meant for him shall be given Quamenoka. Letthe talk go on. We listen. "

But before the chief could speak again, Edmonton Ridgar had brokensilence:

"Negansahima is chief of that tribe and my Indian father, he havingadopted me with all ceremony once when I sojourned a year among them. The sight of him will gladden my spirit. "

Swift surprise spread on the factor's face, but he did not speak. Therewas much in the checkered life of his friend that had not been setbefore him, and each revelation was full to the brim of romance, of daring, and of that excitement which attends a life spent in thewilderness. 

The Indian nodded and went on:

"And last of the news of forest and lake and river is word of themeeting of canoes, the half of one-ten, laden with goods and going upthe river, which passed but few suns back. A sun-man sat in the first, beautiful of face and with hair like light, who strove to barter. Butthe Assiniboines come to their brothers. They heeded not his words, though they were sweet with promise. I have spoken. "

The chief fell silent, for the year had been told, and McElroyspoke presently of his joy at their presence, their words, and theirfriendship, as was the custom of the H. B. Company's factors on suchoccasions; and Ridgar rose from the council to bid a young clerk, oneGifford, bring forth the presents for the guests, --a coat with coarsewhite lace and lining of vermilion, a hat of felt and a sash of manycolours for Quamenoka, and lesser glories for his four headmen. Thesepresented with due formality, and actually donned by the recipientswithout loss of time, the ceremony of the opening council was over, savefor the triumphal march of the potentate, accompanied by McElroy andRidgar, back to the camp on the river bank. 

As they passed out the factory door, they brushed by Maren Le Moyne, where she had drawn aside, still wistfully watching the comers from thewilderness. 

The young factor's eyes went to her face and for a moment held herglance. 

Instantly, with that deep look, the girl's hand shot forth and touchedhis arm, a light touch with the deftness of strength held in abeyance, and McElroy felt his flesh tingle beneath it. 

"M'sieu, " she said, "where do they come from, how far in the west?"

"Not far, Ma'amselle, --only from the Lower Saskatchewan. TheAssiniboines are our nearest tribe, living along the country from theHare Hills to the parting of the twin rivers above the Qui Appelle. Holdthey interest for you?"

"Nay, " she said, shaking her black head, "not if they come not far, other than that excited by their strangeness. I thank you. "

She drew back, and McElroy, perforce, followed his way to theencampment, but he thought not this time of the red flower. 

Only within him was roused that same desire which had prompted DeCourtenay to snatch the bloom from the stockade wall, --a longing togive her something, to offer homage to this tall young woman with thewondrous face of beauty and wistful strength. Since she was but a childhad men who looked upon her felt this same longing, this stirring of theworshipper within. But few had dared the wall of quietness about her;therefore, she had remained apart. Only Prix Laroux of all those who hadseen her grow into her magnificent womanhood at Grand Portage had cometo her with his gift of faith and tied himself to hand for life, and hecame not with the love of man but rather as one who follows a goddess. Yet it was that aching desire to serve her which sent him. 

And now it gripped the young factor of Fort de Seviere and he lookedamong the Assiniboines for a gift. 

Here a squaw held forth to him a garment that took his eye at once. 

Of doeskin it was, soft and white as a lady's hand, and cut after thefashion of the Indian woman's dress, in a single piece from throat toankle, the sleeves straight from the shoulder, and at edge and seam, sewed with thorn and sinew, rippled and fluttered a heavy fringe thelength of a man's hand. 

Across the breast there gleamed and glittered a solid plastron of thebeadwork so justly famed for its beauty of colour and design, whichcame from the hands of none save the women of this tribe, and at hem andelbow, above the dangling fringe, there ran a heavy band of it. Abovethe hips there hung a belt made of the brilliant stained quills of theporcupine. 

The factor took the beautiful thing in his hands, and the purpose in hismind crystallised. 

In a swift moment he had bargained with the silent woman for a pricethat astonished her and was back within the post, walking hurriedlytoward the cabin of the Baptistes. 

At the door Marie met him, her bright eyes sparkling with the honour ofthis visit of him who was the Law, the Head of De Seviere, and at hereager greeting the first abating of the flush within took hold upon him. 

He stood like a boy, the gorgeous garment hanging in his hand and theword on his lips forgotten. 

"Madame, " he stammered, "I would--" and got no further. 

Sudden embarrassment took him and he grew angry with himself. 

What could he say, how dared he do what he had done?

He could have thrown the white garment into the river in his suddenvexation. Factor of the post, he had made of himself a stammering youth, all for sake of the compelling beauty of a woman's eyes. 

But at that moment, while Marie stood blankly on the sill holding to thedoorside and the silence grew unbearable, there was a step within thecabin and Maren Le Moyne came from the inner room. 

In one moment, so keen was the perception of her, she had seen the redblood in McElroy's face, the wonder on Marie's, and she, too, stood inthe open door. 

"Ah, M'sieu!" she said quickly, "do some of them, by chance, come fromthe west?"

The tone of her deep voice broke the spell, so subtly natural was it, and McElroy found his tongue. 

"No, Ma'amselle, " he smiled, the ease coming back to his blue eyes, "butI have found something very beautiful among them which I wish you tohave. It is more beautiful than a red flower. "

He held up to her the doeskin garment and his eyes were very anxious. 

For a moment Maren stared as she had stared at De Courtenay and acurious expression of perplexity spread on her face. 

Truly men were different here in this wilderness from those who lived atthe Grand Portage, and for a moment she drew herself up and the straightbrows began to frown. But as she had felt the whimsical charm of DeCourtenay, so now she felt the eagerness, the taut anxiety of this man, and she noticed that there was no smile on his face as she hesitated. 

Moreover, Marie was watching, sharp as a little hawk. 

"Why, M'sieu, " she said, and there was a baffling note to the voice thistime, "why, --you wish me to have this?"

"Yes, Ma'amselle, " said McElroy simply. 

The girl stooped and took it from him, and for a moment her hand layagainst his palm, a smooth warm hand. 

"And you wish me to wear it?" she asked. 

"If it shall please you. "

"Then it shall please me, " she said quite easily, "and I thank you. "

McElroy turned away and walked back to the factory, and all the way hedid not know what he had done. It had been an impulse, and he had rushedto its fulfilling without a thought. Had he bungled in giving her agarment where De Courtenay had played on a wind-harp in giving her alittle red flower?

He was hot and cold alternately, and the memory of that momentary frowncame turn and turn with that of the gentle manner in which she hadreached down for the lifted gift. 

And Maren Le Moyne?

Within the cabin she had turned to that portion which was her own, thewhile Marie's sharp eyes followed her with questions that were ripe onher tongue. 

"Maren, " she cried, as the girl passed the inner door, unable to longerhold herself, "know you the factor well?"

But Maren only shook her head and closed the slab door between. 

Once alone she laid the gift on the bed, covered with a patchwork quiltmade from the worn garments that had seen the long trail, and stoodbending above, looking closely at each beauty of colour, of softness anddesign. 

She spread the straight sleeves apart, smoothing out the danglingfringe, and her hand lingered with a strange gentleness a-down theglowing plastron of bright beads. 

This was the first gift a man had ever given her, other than DeCourtenay's red flower, and somehow it pleased her vastly. 

She fell to thinking of the factor, of his open face, his light headforever tilted back with the square chin lifted, of the mouth above andof the eyes, clear as the new day and anxious as a child's the while shehalted above his offering, and unconsciously she began within her mindto compare him with all other men she had ever known. 

There was Prix Laroux. Not like. Also Jean Folliere and Anthon Brisbeeof Grand Portage, who came to the wilderness each year. Neither werethey like this man, nor Cif and Pierre Bordoux, nor Franz LeClede, nor yet her brother Henri. These she knew and they were of a differentpattern. 

Also there was that venturer of the great beauty and the silken curlswho had spoken so prettily. With all his grace, he was unlike thisstrong young man whose tongue faltered and whose eyes were anxious. 

Verily, for the first time; this maid of the wilderness was thinking ofmen. 

And it was because he had seemed so ill-beset that she had taken thegift so readily. 

She would not have him stumble longer under the sharp eyes of Marie. 

And then thought of him faded from her mind and she fell tocontemplation of the doeskin garment again. Things of its like she hadseen at Grand Portage, but nothing of its great beauty, and for thefirst time she gave thought to self-adornment. She was strong, thiswoman, and given to serious dreams, and the small things of womanhoodhad left her wide apart in a land of her own wherein there were onlyvisions of afar country, of travel and of conquest, and perhaps of aman, old and rugged and kindly, who had followed the long trail, andthis small new thought lodged wonderingly in her mind. 

For the first time she was conscious of the plainness of the garmentthat folded her form, and she held up her arms and looked at them, brownbeneath the up-rolled sleeves. 

Yes, some day she would put it on, this gorgeous thing of white fringeand sparkling colour, because she had told that man she would. 

Unlike most women, she did not hold it up to her, pointing a footbeneath its pretty edge, gathering it into her waist, trying its effect. She was content to run a hand along its length, to feel the caress ofits softness. 

Yet even as she touched it she thought of the pretty creature which hadworn it first, the slim-legged doe bounding in the forest depth, and alittle sigh lifted her breast. 

But this had been the quick and merciful death of the bullet, thelegitimate death. That she could understand. 

More quick and merciful than that which would come in the natural lifeof the forest. Therefore this pelt held no such repugnance as thosestacked on the river bank. 

Suddenly, as she bent above the bed, she felt the presence of another, the peculiar power of eyes, upon her, and, turning quickly, she saw ablack head, black as her own and running with curls, that dipped fromthe window. 

There was no little head in all the post like that save one, andit belonged to little Francette, the pretty maid who had run by thefactor's side that day of the meeting of Bois DesCaut by the river. Withthe drop of that head from the sill there passed over Maren a strangefeeling, a prescience of evil, a thrill of fear in a heart that hadnever known fear. 

She left the tiny room with the gift of the factor still outspread, andjoined Marie in the outer space, where yawned a wide fireplace with itsdogs on the hearth, its swinging crane made from a rod of iron, its bedand its hand-made table. 

Here had come Anon Bordoux and Mora Le-Clede, drawn by the sight of thefactor at the Baptistes' door, their tongues flying in eager question. 

"--of such gorgeousness, " Marie was saying, "such softness of whitedoeskin, such wealth of the beading--"

"Marie, " said Maren sharply, "is there naught to do save gossip?"

Anon and Mora fell into confused silence, the habit of the trail wherethis girl's word had been the law falling upon them, but Marie, saucyand not to be daunted, was not so easily hushed. 

"Is it not true, " she cried, "that the factor brought it but now to thedoor in plain sight of all?"

Whereon Maren passed, out the open door and the tongues began again, more carefully. 

In the distance there flashed a crimson skirt at whose beaded edge therehung a great grey dog, his heavy head waist-high to the little maid whowore it. 

CHAPTER VIII FIRST DAWN

Throughout the week that followed Fort de Seviere was gay with thebustle of trading. Packs of furs went up the main way and loads ofmerchandise went down, carried on the backs of the braves, guns andblankets and many a foot of Spencer's Twist at one beaver a foot, powderand balls in buckskin bags, and all the things of heart's desire thathad brought the Assiniboines from the forks of the Saskatchewan. 

Kept close to the factory by the bartering, McElroy and Ridgar and thetwo clerks hardly saw the blue spring sky, nor caught a breath of thescented air of the spring. Within the forest the Saskatoon was bloomingand the blueberry bushes were tossing soft heads of foam, while many atree of the big woods gave forth a breath of spice. It came in at thedoor and the young factor raised his head many times a day to drinkits sweetness in a sort of wistfulness. At dusk he stood on the sill, released from the trade, and looked over his settlement as was hishabit, and ever his eyes strayed to that new cabin at the far end, ofthe northern row. 

What was she thinking, that dark-browed girl with the deep eyes thatchanged as the waters of a lake with each breath of wind, of him and theblundering gift he had carried to her door? What had she done with it, and would he ever see it clinging to those splendid shoulders, fallingover the rounded breast?

A feeling of warmth grew at his heart each day with thought of her, andwhen he saw her swinging down toward the well he felt the blood leap inhis veins. The very shine of the sun was different when it struck thetight black braids wrapped round her head. 

Verily the little kingdom had brought forth its Princess. 

And with her coming there was one heart that burned hot with passion, that fashioned itself after the form of hatred, for little Francette hadseen, first a glow in a man's eyes and then a gift in his hand, and shefingered a small, flat blade that hung in her sash with one hand, thewhile the other strayed on the head of Loup. Dark was the fire thatplayed in her pretty eyes, heavy the anguish that rode her breast. 

She hated the memory of that white garment spread out on Maren LeMoyne's bed. 

"Tessa, " she said one day, sidling up to that Tessa Bibye who had cast ataunt in her teeth, "know you the charm which that doctress of the Creesgave to Marci Varendree when she sickened for love of that half-breed, Tohi Stannard?"

"Oho!" cried Tessa gleefully, "a man again! Who lacks one now, Francette?"

"Nay, " said Francette, "but I know of one who sickens inwardly and Iwould give her the charm. "

"Go into the flats of the Beaver House after Marci and her Indian, whither they went, " Tessa laughed. "I know not the charm. But it wasgood, for she got him, and went to the wilds with him. Follow and learn, Francette. "

But Francette, with a gesture of disgust, turned away. 

The warm spring days passed in a riot of song from the depths outsidethe post, the Assiniboine rippled and whispered along its shores andover the illimitable stretches of the wilderness there hung the veryspirit of the mating-time. 

Within the stockade, mothers sat in the doors crooning to the babes thatclutched at the sunbeams, dogs slept in the cool shadows of the cabins, and here and there a youth sang a snatch of a love song. 

"Verily, Marie, it is good to be here, " sighed Micene Bordoux, sittingon her sill with her capable arms folded on her knees, and her eyes, cool and sane and tolerant, roving over the settlement lolling soquietly in the sun. "After the trail the rest is good, and yet I willbe eager long before the year has passed to follow Maren, --may Mary giveher grace!--into that wilderness which so draws at her heartstrings. "

"Oh, Micene!" cried Marie, a trifle vexed, "if only she might forget herdreams! What is it like, the heart of a maid, that turns from thought oflove to that of these wild lands, to the mystery of the Whispering Hillsthat lie, the good God knows where, in that dim and untracked West! Iwould that Maren might love! Then would we have peace and stop foreverat this pleasant place. "

Good Micene, with her brave heart and her whole-souled sense, smiled atMarie. 

"Love, " she said, --"and think you THAT could turn that exalted spiritfrom its quest? Still the stir of conquest within her bosom, hush thecall of that glorious country which we know from rumor, and plainhearsay lies at the heart of the Athabasca?

"Little do you know Maren, Marie, though the same mother gave you birth. There is naught that could turn the maid, and I love her for it. It isthat undaunted faith, that steadfast purpose, that white fire in herface which holds at her heels the whole of us, that turns to her thefaces of our men, as those legions of France turned to the Holy Maid. Love? She would turn not for it if she could not take it with her. "

Micene looked off across the cabins, and there was a warm light in hereyes. 

"Nay, Marie, " she said, "make ready for the trail the coming spring, forwe will surely go. "

It was this day, golden and sweet with little winds that wafted fromthe blossom-laden woods, that Maren Le Moyne, drawn by the dusky depths, passed, out the stockade gate, traversed slowly the length of theIndian camp, stopping here and there to hold out a hand to a frightenedpappoose peeking from behind its mother's fringed leggings, to watcha moment at the cooking fires, to smile at a slim young boy brave in acheckered shirt, and entered the forest. 

From the door of the factory McElroy saw her go and the call of thespring suddenly became unbearable. 

With a word to Ridgar he stepped off the long log step and deliberatelyfollowed. 

The Irish blood within him lifted his head and sent his hearta-bounding, while the half-holy mysticism that came from the Scottishhills drew his glance upward to the blue sky arching above. 

A tumult surged in his breast and every pulse in his body leaped atthought of speech with her, and yet again a diffidence fell upon himthat set him trembling. 

As the conqueror he went, pushing toward victory, yet humble in hisambition. 

He felt a mist in his eyes as he entered the high arched aisles, coolbeneath their canopy of young green, and he looked eagerly here andthere for sight of a tall form, upright, easy, plain in its dark garb. 

Along the river bank he went where he saw a footprint in the soft loam, and presently it turned deeper into the great woods and he swung forwardinto those depths whose sweetness had called him subtly for these manydays. 

She was a strong traveller, that straight young creature of the openways, and a full hour went swiftly before he caught the sight he wanted. 

At sight of her he halted and stood a moment in hushed joy, looking witheyes that knew their glory, for with every passing second Anders McElroywas learning that nowhere in all the world, as had said that flamingyouth Marc Dupre, was there another woman like this Maren Le Moyne. 

She stood in a little glade, cool, high-canopied, where the sunlightcame in little spots to play over the soft carpet of the pale forestgrass thick-starred with frail white flowers, and her back was to a treethat towered to heaven in its height. At her sides her brown arms hung, palms out in an utter abandon of pleasure, while her lifted face, withits closed eyes, communed with the very Spirit of the Wild. Like somepriestess she was, and McElroy felt an odd sensation of unworthinesssweep over him as he stood silent, his sober blue eyes on the beauty ofher face. He cast swiftly back across his life. Was there anything therewhich might forbid him now, when he would go forward to so pure a thingas this maid, dreaming her dreams of prowess in the wilderness?

Nay, he saw no unworthy deed, nothing to spoil the page of a commonplacelife spent at his old father's side across the sea, nothing of the socommon evils of the settlement. Within him there was that which thankedits Maker unashamed that he had kept himself from one or two temptationswhich had beset him in these stirring years of service on the fringes ofthe great country spreading from the bay. 

With that thought he went forward, and Maren did not hear his step onthe soft grass, so far was she on her well-worn trail of dreams, untilhe stood near and the feeling of a presence finally brought back thewandering soul. 

Then she opened her eyes and they fell full upon the factor, his lighthead bared to the dancing sun-spots, his blue eyes sober and touchedagain with that anxiety which had compelled her to take his gift. 

There was no sudden start of fear, no little startled breath, for thiswoman was calm as the dreaming woods and as serene. 

"Bon jour, M'sieu, " she said, and at sound of her voice, so deep andfull of those sliding minors, McElroy felt her power sweep over him in atumultuous flood. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said, "Ma'amselle!"

And in the next moment stopped, for the words of love were on his tongueand the wide dark eyes were looking at him wonderingly. 

"No longer could I withstand the call of the springtime and the woods, "he finished falteringly; "the trading-room and the bargain were grownhateful to me in these warm days with the scent of flower and leaf andheated mould coming in at the door and bidding me come. I left my post, a traitor, Ma'amselle, betrayed by the forest. Too weak am I for couragewhen the big woods call. "

Maren looked at him and the light grew up in her eyes, that little flamethat flickered and leaped and gave so baffling a charm to her beauty. 

"Ah!" she said softly; "you love it too, the great wilderness?"

"Aye, most truly. "

"And you can hear the whisper of the far countries, the ripple ofdistant streams, the wind in the pines that have never sheltered a whiteman? You know these things, M'sieu?"

She leaned forward from the great smooth-barked tree and looked at himeagerly. 

"They are what brought me over seas, " he said quietly, "what sent me toDe Seviere, what hold me to the tribes that come each year to my doors. "

Maren's lips were parted, the fire of her passion in her flaming face. "Then you know why I come to the woods, why I grieve that the springis passing, why I can scarcely hold my soul in patience through thisdelay!"

With the suddenness of her words her breath had leaped to a heavingtumult, the wide eyes, so calm, so cool, had filled first with fire andthen with a mist. That clouded them like tears. 

"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried tensely; "know you of that country which liesfar to the west and which the Indians call the Land of the WhisperingHills?"

"Aye. It lies circling a great lake, blue as the summer skies, itswaters forever rippled by the winds of the west which sing in the grassyvales and over the rounded knolls that stud the region, --a land ofwaving trees, of high coolness, or rich valleys thick with rank grassesand abounding with the pelt animals. It is the country of the Athabascaand from it came last year a band of the Chippewas heavily laden withfurs. They told fine tales of its beauty. It is for that land you arebound?"

"For that land, M'sieu, " said Maren Le Moyne, and her lips trembled;"for that virgin goddess of the dreams of years! I have seen its hills, its waving grass, wind-blown, its leaping streams, --I have breathedthe sweet air of its forests and gazed on its beauties since my earlychildhood, in dreams, always in dreams, M'sieu, until I could bear thestrain no longer. And now, when it beckons almost within my reach, whenits very breath seems in my nostrils, I must stop for a year's space!You know, M'sieu, --you comprehend?"

She leaned forward looking earnestly into McElroy's eyes, and a surgeof painful ecstasy shot to the man's heart, so near she seemed in thesuddenly created sympathy of the moment, so near and gracious, so strongin her pure passion, so infinitely sweet. 

"I know, " he said, and his voice sounded strange in his ears; "I knowevery pulse of your heart, Ma'amselle, every longing of your spirit, every pure thought of your mind, --for these many days I have trembled toevery vibration that has touched or thrilled you. Oh, Ma'amselle!"

With the surge of that overwhelming thing within him the young man hadforgot all things, --that this girl was near a stranger, that he hadquaked at his temerity of the gift, forgot all but that she leanedtoward him with the mist in her wide eyes, and he strode forward thestep between them, his arms reaching out instinctively to enfold her. 

With the swiftness of the impulse he swept her into them until the eagerface lay on his breast, the smooth black braids pressing his lips withtheir satiny folds. 

For one intoxicating moment he held her, as the primal man takes andholds his woman, tightly against his beating heart as though he woulddefy the world, lost in a sea of strange new emotions that rolled ingolden billows high above his head. 

Then from the depths there came a cry that cleared his whirling brain, a very embodiment of startled amaze, of indefinable horror, of mixedintonations. 

"M'sieu!"

Maren Le Moyne wrenched herself free and lifted her face to look at him. 

It was a warring field. 

Upon it lay a great astonishment, a wonder, and a newness. Behind thesethere came, creeping swiftly with each moment of her startled gaze, anodd excitement that mounted with each panting breath that left his lips, for it was from him that it took its life. Her red mouth dropped apart, showing the gleam of the white teeth between. She looked like a childrudely shaken from its sleep, startled, perhaps vaguely frightened atthe strange shapes of familiar things distorted by the vision not yetadjusted. 

"M'sieu!" she stammered; "M'sieu!"

And with her voice McElroy felt the arrested blood rush back to hisheart again, for it held no anger. Instead it was full of that startledwonder, and it was as gold to him. 

"Maren, " he said, the emotion choking him; "Maren--" and with that newcourage he put both hands on her shoulders and drew her near, lookingdown into the eyes so near on a level with his own. 

Deliberately, slowly, that she might fully catch the meaning of what hewas about to do, he drooped his lips until they rested square on the redmouth. 

This was the thing he had left the factory for, this was what had drawnhim, unconsciously perhaps, to the path along the river's bank, that hadmade him follow deliberately the light trail of the girl into the woods. 

"Maren, " he said, so thrilled that his words shook, "from this day forthyou are mine. Mine only and against the whole world. I have taken youand you are mine. "

He was full of his glory, dominating the dark eyes that had never lefthis own, and his soul was big within him. He was still very much a boy, this young factor, and the crowning moment of life had him in his grip. 

He knew no fear, no thought of her next word or action touched him untilshe, as deliberately as he had acted, reached up and took both his handsfrom her shoulders. 

"Adieu, M'sieu, " said Maren Le Moyne quietly, the excitement of thatbreathed "M'sieu! M'sieu!" quite lost in the calmness that was her usualcharacteristic, and turning she walked away down the glen toward theriver bank, the little spots of sun dancing on her black head like aleopard's gold as she passed in the checkered shade, and not once didshe turn her head to see the factor of De Seviere standing where she hadleft him beside the forest giant. 

CHAPTER IX GOLD FIRE

If that time in the tuneful spring was crowded full to the brim ofemotions scarce bearable to McElroy, how much more wonderful was itto Maren Le Moyne, for the first time in her life trembling in all herbeing from the touch of a man's lips?

To the outward world there was no sign of the tumult within her as shecame and went about the business of the new cabin by the stockade wall, but in her virgin heart there stirred strange new things that filled hercalm eyes with wonder. 

In the seclusion of the little room to the east she spread out on thepatchwork quilt the Indian garment and looked at it with a new meaning. 

Never before in her life had she thought of a man's eyes as she thoughtof McElroy's, thrilling to the very tips of her fingers at memory of theblue fire in them, and never before had she been conscious of anythingas she was conscious of the flesh on her shoulders where his hands hadrested, her lips sealed under the warm caress of his. Verily, there wasnowhere another such man as this one who knew the longing of the wild asdid she, whose heart responded to the same call of the great wilderness. 

Night and day she thought of him, and the memory of that day in theforest glade haunted her like a golden melody newly heard. 

Yet something within her held her back from his sight, kept her eyesfrom that part of the small settlement where stood the factory with itswide doorway. She could not bear to look upon him yet in the newness ofthis awakening. 

And McElroy, deep in the work of the trading, was eaten by a thousandqualms and torments. All those doubts that beset lovers tore at hisheart and made of his days a nightmare. 

With the cooling of his exalted intoxication what time the touch of thegirl's young body had fired him with all confidence, came a thousandcondemnations for his blundering haste, his stupid boasting of conquest. 

To what depths of scorn might he not now be fallen in the mind of sucha girl as Maren Le Moyne with her calm judgment; how far might he not befrom the object of his longing!

And the fact that he could catch no sight of her, no matter how often hestepped near the door nor how diligently he sought for a glimpse of theshining braids and plain garment among the women at the well, but addedfuel to the fire that scorched him. 

But the times were getting very busy at Fort de Seviere. Before theAssiniboines were ready to depart back up the waterways down which theyhad come, their canoes laden with the wealth of the coming season, otherflotillas were on the little waves of the river, other chiefs made theirentrance up the main way of the post, and the goods of the Hudson's BayCompany went out in a stream as the priceless pelts came in. 

"Lad, " said Edmonton Ridgar with that easy probing of the well-knownfriend, "there is something eating at your mind these days. The tradegoes differently from that of last year. It is not so all-absorbing. Ifear me that the Nor'westers, with their plundering and their tales ofdeportation, have entered a wedge of worry. "

"'Tis not of the Nor'westers I give a thought, Ridgar, " he smiled, accepting the veiled raillery, "for you well know that we of the Companyare above them, though it was but yesterday that an Indian brought wordof a trapper at Isle a La Crosse being maltreated in the woods by acouple of their sneaking cutthroats and two packs of beaver taken fromhim for which they laughingly offered him in payment a bundle of mangyskins cast out from the summer's pickings. 'Twas Peter Brins and I'llwager that those two are marked for a long reckoning when the tablesturn. And by the same Indian I hear that the young blade from Montrealwith his light-haired brigade who stumbled upon us a while back, hasreached his post on the Saskatchewan and has taken hold with a highhand, doing his utmost to intercept our Indians and turn the tide ofthe Company's furs into the trading-rooms of the Nor'westers. I thinkit will be a bootless process, for we hold our people with the hand ofsurety. "

"Aye, but what of the Nakonkirhirinons, making their initial trip byway of Rapid River and Deer Lake, coming through the country of theSaskatchewan and held by no bond of loyalty? I see trouble ahead if thisyoung De Courtenay gets wind of their coming, for they will be rich inpeltry and they are a warlike tribe. "

"But they are to celebrate the Peace Dance in the lodges of theAssiniboines. Surely they will come straight to their friends beforetrusting their trade to any. "

Edmonton Ridgar shook his head. 

"Hey fear nothing, these Nakonkirhirinons, and would as soon enter tradewith one as another, having come for trade, if the values were abovethose at York and Churchill. I hope they swing eastward to Winipigoosand thus miss that young hot-brain on the Saskatchewan. "

"By the way, Ridgar, Pierre Garcon says that Bois DesCaut is at SevenIsles on the Qui Appelle with Henderson. Since telling that wanton lieto the Nor'wester he has not had enough to show his face here. A bad lotBois, and one to be watched for tricks. "

"Aye, a bad lot, but salted with a prudence that savours of cowardice. His tricks are all turncoats that slip danger like an old garment. "

But for all Ridgar's hope, at that very moment the great tribe from thefar north country, even twelve leagues beyond the Oujuragatchousibi, was swinging down through the wilderness bound for the lodges of theAssiniboines, burdened with a wealth of peltry to make a trader's eyesstand out and clad in all the glory of the visiting tribes, and it washeading straight for the country of the Saskatchewan. 

Towering head-dresses swept above their moving columns, pomp andceremony showed in the panoply of carved spear-heads, feathered shafts, and slung bows of the white ash which decked them on their peacefulmission, while underneath fringed garments of buckskin, stained andbeaded with porcupine quills, were bands and stripes of war-paint. Theywere ready for anything that might happen in this unknown country intowhich they journeyed at the word of their friends the Assiniboines, given at the buffalo hunt the fall before, above the Great Slave Lake. 

Never before had the Nakonkirhirinons been so far in the south. 

And long before they reached Deer Lake word had been brought to that newventurer in his post on the Saskatchewan, Alfred de Courtenay, and hewas keenly alert. 

About the same time a half-breed trapper came into Fort de Seviere, loudin his lamentations, and sought McElroy. 

From the flats south of the Capot River, where he had wintered amid aband of Blackfoot Indians, a rare thing for a white man, he had comeladen with rich furs from that unopened country, bound for De Seviere, and on the banks of the Qui Appelle three men had come upon him who hadshared his lonely campfire. Rollicking fellows they were, brawny of formand light of head, and they had carried much liquor in flasks in theirleg-straps, which liquor flowed freely amid songs and fireglow. 

In the morning when he awoke late with, Mon Dieu! such a head! therewere no three men, who had vanished like dreams of the liquor, likewisethere was no well-strapped pack of fat winter beaver!

The man, a French half-breed, whimpered and cursed in impotent wrath, and showed McElroy one of the flasks that had been in the leg-straps ofhis visitors. It was covered with a fine light wicker weave, of the samepattern as that jug which De Courtenay had left at the post gate thatmorning in early spring. 

"Ridgar, " said the factor, showing the thing to him, "our friend fromMontreal is taking a high hand with the country. The freedom of the wildhas gone to his head. "

Indeed it seemed as though that were true, for the tales of the recklessdoings of that post of the Nor'westers on the Saskatchewan over whichDe Courtenay presided became more frequent and always they werecharacterised by a wildness and folly that were only exceeded by theirdaring. 

The young adventurer had already made a headlong sally into the fringesof that country which came too near his Tom-Thumb garrison, and alongwhich roving bands of the sullen Blackfeet trailed with a watching eyeon the white men at the forts, and returned without two of those longcurls of which he was so proud, a spear-head pinning them in the trunkof a tree which happened to form a convenient background. 

To add to the small resentment against him which began to rankle inMcElroy's heart, and which had never really left it since that eveningin De Seviere when Maren Le Moyne had passed behind the cabin of theSavilles with some voyageur's tot on her shoulder and the handsomegallant from Montreal had lost his manners staring, one day in this sameweek a Bois-Brules came to the post gates and asked for one Maren LeMoyne. 

He stood without and stubbornly refused to give his message, and at lastMcElroy himself went to the cabin of the Baptistes. 

He had not seen the girl since that day in the forest, and his heartbeat to suffocation as he neared the open door and caught the sound ofher voice singing a French love song. He stopped on the step, and fora moment his glance took in the interior: By a window to the north shestood at a table, its wooden surface soft and white as doeskin fromwater and stone, and prepared the meal for ash-cakes, her sleeves, asusual, rolled to her shoulder and the collar of her dress open at thethroat. 

To the young factor's eyes she was a sight that weakened the kneesbeneath him and set him quaking with a new fear. He dared not speak andbring her gaze upon him, the memory of his boastful words in the forestwas too poignant. 

But it needed not speech. Had he but known the wonder that had livedwithin her all these days he would have understood the force thatpresently stopped the song on her lips, as if her soul listenedunconsciously for tangible knowledge of the presence it already feltnear, that slowed her nimble brown fingers in the pan, that presentlylifted her head and turned her face to him. 

Instantly a warm flush leaped up to the dark cheeks, and McElroy feltits answer in his own. 

"Ma'amselle, " he stammered, far from that glib "Maren" of the glade, "there is one at the gate who demands speech of you. "

The words were commonplace enough and the girl did not get their importfor the intensity of her gaze into the eyes whose blue fire had set herfirst wondering and then a-thrill with these strange emotions. 

"Eh, M'sieu?" she smiled, and McElroy, revived through all his beingwith that smile, repeated his message. 

She took her hands from the yellow meal and dusted them on a hempentowel, and was ready to go forth beside him. 

That short walk to the stockade gate was silent with the silence ofshy new joy, and once the factor glanced sidewise at the drooped lashesabove the dusky cheeks. 

"Had you expected any messenger, Ma'amselle?" he asked indifferently asthey neared the portal with its fringe of peeping women and saw beyondthem the tall figure of the Bois-Brule, his lank hair banded back by ared kerchief. 

"Nay, M'sieu, " replied the girl, and went forward to stand in the gate. 

The messenger from the woods asked in good French if she were Maren LeMoyne, and being answered in the affirmative, he took from his huntingshirt a package wrapped in broad green leaves and placed it in herhands. 

The leaves were wilted with the heat of the man's body and came easilyoff in her fingers, disclosing a small square box cunningly made frombirchbark and stained after the Indian fashion in brilliant colours. Atiny lid was fastened with a thong of braided grass. 

Wonderingly she slipped the little catch and lifted the cover. 

Inside upon a bed of dampened moss there lay a wee red flower, the exactcounterpart of that one which Alfred de Courtenay had fastened in herhair that morning by the well. 

McElroy, at her shoulder, looked down upon it, and instantly the warmthin his heart cooled. 

When Maren looked up it was to find his eyes fixed on the messengerwhose tall figure swung away up the river's bank toward the northforest, and they were coolly impersonal. 

She was unversed in the ways of men where a maid is concerned, thiswoman of the trail and portage, and she only knew vaguely that somethinghad gone wrong with sight of the little flower. 

She stood, holding the box in her hand, among the women craning theirnecks for a glimpse of the contents, and looked in open perplexityat McElroy until a light laugh from the fringe behind her broke thesilence. 

"A gift!" cried the little Francette, her childish voice full of aconcealed delight; "a gift from the forest; and where do such trinketscome from save the lower branch of the Saskatchewan! It savours of ourpretty man of the long gold curls! Mon Dieu! The cavalier has made goodtime!"

Whereat there was a stirring at the gate, and the peeping fringe drewback while the factor turned on his heel and strode away toward thefactory, leaving the tall girl alone at the portal, holding her gift. 

There was a devilish light in the dancing eyes of Francette as sheflirted away. 

But Maren Le Moyne walked slowly back to the cabin, wondering. 

CHAPTER X THE SASKATOON

It was at dusk of that same day that McElroy, as near sullen angeras one of his temperament could be, sat alone on the log step of thefactory, his pipe unlighted in his lips and his moody eyes on the beatenground worn hard by the passing feet of moccasined Indians from the fourwinds. 

Edmonton Ridgar, with that keenness which gave him such tact, had shuthimself in the living-room, and the two clerks were off among the maidsat the cabins. 

Once again McElroy had made himself ridiculous by that abrupt turningaway because of a small red flower sent a maid by a man he now knew tobe his foe and rival in all things of a man's life. 

Down by the southern wall an old fiddle squeaked dolefully, and frombeyond the stockade came the drowsy call of a bird deep in the forestdepths. 

On the river bank young Marc Dupre sang as he fumbled at a canoeawaiting the morn when he was to set off up-stream for any word that hemight pick up of the coming of the Nakonkirhirinons. There was no moonand the twilight had deepened softly, covering the post with a softmantle of dreams, when there was a step on the hard earth and the factorturned sharply to behold a little figure in a red kirtle, its curly headhanging a bit as if in shame, and at its side the shadowy form of thegreat dog Loup. 

"M'sieu, " said Francette timidly, and the tone was new to that audaciousslip of impudence; "M'sieu. "

"What is it, little one?" said McElroy gently, his own disgust of hismorning's quickness softening his voice that he might not again play thehasty fool, and Francette crept nearer until she stood close to the logstep. 

The small hands were twisting nervously and the little breast liftingswiftly with an agitation entirely new to her. 

Presently she seemed to find the voice that eluded her. 

"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried at last, breaking out as if the words were thickcrowded in her throat; "a heavy burden has fallen upon me! Is it right, M'sieu, for a maid to die for love of a man, waiting, waiting, waitingfor the look, the word that shall crown her bondage? Love lives allround in the post save in the heart that is all the world to Francette!Why should there be happiness everywhere but here?"

With a gesture pathetically dramatic the little maid threw her handsacross her heaving breast and gazed at McElroy with big eyes, starry inthe dusk. 

Her emotion was genuine he could not help but see, even through hisastonishment, and he stared at her with awaking sympathy. 

"Is there some one who is so much to you, little one?" he asked. "Ithought there wasn't a youth in the post--no, nor in any other this sidethe Red River-who did not pay homage to France Moline's little daughter. Who is of such poor taste? Tell me, and what I can do I will do toremedy the evil. "

He was smiling at the little maid's pretty daring in coming straight tothe very head of De Seviere with her trouble, and he reached out a handto draw her down on the step beside him. There was never a woman indistress who did not pull at the strings of his heart, and he longed tosoothe her, even while he smiled to himself at her childishness. 

But Francette was not so childish, and he was one day to marvel at herartless skill. 

At the touch of his hand she came down, not upon the step beside him ashe meant, but upon her knees before him, with her two little hands uponhis knees and her face of elfin beauty upheld to him in the starlight. 

"Oh, M'sieu, there is one who is so much, --oui, even more than all theworld, more than life itself, --more than heaven or hell, for whose sakeI would die a thousand deaths! One at whose feet I worship, scorning allthose youths of the settlement and the posts. See, M'sieu, " she leanedforward so close that the fragrance of her curls blew into the man'snostrils and he could see that the little face was pale with a passionthat caused him wonder; "see! Today came one from the forest bringinglove's message to that tall woman of Grand Portage, --the little redflower in the birchbark case. It spoke its tale and she knew, "--subtleFrancette!--"she knew its meaning by the eye of love itself. So would I, who have no words and am a woman, send my message by a flower. "

The hands on the factor's knees were trembling with a rigour that shookthe whole small form before him. 

"See, M'sieu!" she cried, with the sudden sound of tears in the lowvoice; "read the heart of the little Francette!"

She took from her bosom a fragile object and laid it in his palm, thenclasped her hands over her face and bowed until the little head with itsrunning curls was low to the log step. 

McElroy strained his eyes to see what he held. 

It was a dried spray of the blossoms of the saskatoon. 

For a moment he sat in stupid wonder. Then swiftly, more by intuitionand that strange sense which recalls a previous happening by a touch, ora smell, than by actual memory, he saw that golden morning when he hadstopped by the Molines' cabin and watched the great husky balance on hisshaky legs. He had twirled in his fingers the first little spray ofthe saskatoon, brought in by Henri Corlier to show how the woods wereanswering the call of the spring. 

"Why, " he said, astounded beyond measure, "why, Francette, --little one, what does this mean?"

But Francette had lost her tongue and there was no answer from the bowedfigure at his knees. 

He put out a hand and laid it on her shoulder and it was shaken withsobs, --the sobs of a woman who has cast her all on the throw of the dieand in a panic would have it back. 

Off in the forest a night bird called to its mate and the squeaky fiddlewhined dolorously and a profound pity began to well in the factor'sheart. She was such a little maid, such a childish thing, a veritablecreature of the sunlight, like those great golden butterflies thatdanced in the flowered glades of the woods, and she had brought her onegreat gift to him unasked. 

Some thought of Maren Le Moyne and of that reckless cavalier with hiscurls and his red flowers crept into his voice and made it wondrouslytender with sympathy. 

"Sh, little one, " he comforted, as he had comforted that day on theriver bank when she had wept over Loup; "come up and let us talk ofthis. " He lifted her as one would lift a child and strove to raise theweeping eyes from the shelter of her hands, but the small head droopedtoward him so near that it was but a step until it lay in the shelterof his shoulder, and he was rocking a bit, unconsciously, as the sobbinggrew less pitiful. 

"Sh-sh-little one, " he said gently; "sh--sh. "

Meanwhile Maren Le Moyne sat in the doorway of her sister's cabin withher chin on her hands and stared into the night. Marie and Henri were atthe cabin of the Bordoux, laughing and chattering in the gay abandon ofyouth. She could hear their snatches of songs, their quips and laughterrising now and again in shrill gusts. Also the wailing fiddle seemed apart of the warm night, and the bird that called in the forest. 

All the little homely things of the post and the woods crept into herheart, that seemed to her to be opening to a vague knowledge, to belooking down sweet vistas of which she had never dreamed among her otherdreams of forest and lake and plain, and, at each distant focus whereappeared a new glory of light, there was always the figure of the youngfactor with his anxious eyes. Strange new thrills raced hotly throughher heart and dyed her cheeks in the darkness. She tingled from head tofoot at the memory of that day in the glade, and for the first time inher life she read the love-signs in a man. That change in his eyes whenhe had looked upon De Courtenay's red flower was jealousy. With thethought came a greater fulness of the unexplainable joy that hadflooded her all these days. Aye, verily, that red flower had caused himpain, --him, --with his laughing blue eyes and his fair head tilted backever ready for mirth, with his tender mouth and his strong hands. Thevery thought of that killed the joy of the other. If love was jealousy, and jealousy was pain, the one must be healed for sake of the other. With this girl to think was to do, and with that last discovery she wasupon her feet, straight and lithe as a young animal beside the door. She would go to this man and tell him that the red flower was less thannothing to her, its giver less than it. 

At that moment a figure came out of the dusk and stopped before her. 

It was her leader, Prix Laroux, silent, a shadow of the shadows. 

"Maren, " he said, in that deep confidence of trusted friends, "Maren, isall well with you?"

"All is well, Prix, " said the girl, her voice tremulous with pleasure, "most assuredly. Thought you aught was wrong?"

"Nay, --only I felt the desire to know. "

"Friend, " said Maren, reaching out a hand which the man took strongly inboth his own; "good, good friend! Ever you are at my back. "

"Where you may easily reach me when you will. "

"I know. 'Tis you alone have made possible the long trail. Ah! how longuntil another spring?"

But, when Prix had lounged away into the dusk and the girl had steppedinto the soft dust of the roadway, she fell to wondering how it was thatmention of the year's wait brought no longer its impatience, its olddissatisfaction. 

She was thinking of this as she neared the factory, her light treadmuffled in the dust. 

"Foolish Francette! What should I do with a gay little girl like you?Play in the sunshine years yet, little one, and think not of the bondsand cares of marriage. How could these little hands lift the heavykettles, wash the blankets, and do the thousand tasks of a household?You are mistaken, child. It is not love you feel, but the changingfancies of maidenhood. Play in the sun with Loup and wait for the realprince. He will come some day with great beauty and you will give nomore thought to me. He must be young, little one, a youth of twenty; notone like me, nearer the mark of another decade. It would not be fitting. Youth to youth, and those of a riper age to each other. " He was thinkingof a tall form, full and round with womanhood, whose eyes held knowledgeof the earth, and yet, had he been able to define their charm, wereyounger even than Francette's. 

The little maid had ceased her weeping long since and the face onMcElroy's shoulder, turned out toward the night, was drawn and hard. The black eyes were no longer starry with passion, but glittering withfailure. And the man, stupid and good of heart as are all men of histype, congratulated himself that he had talked the nonsense out of herlittle head. 

Suddenly he felt the slender figure shiver in his arms and the curlyhead brushed his cheek as she raised her face. 

"Aye, M'sieu, " she whispered, "it is as you say, but only one thingremains. Kiss me, M'sieu, and I go to--forget. "

The factor hesitated. 

He felt again his one passionate avowal on the lips of his one woman. 

This was against the grain. 

"Please, M'sieu, " begged the childish voice, with a world of coaxing;and, thinking to finish his gentle cure, he bent his head and kissed herlightly on the cheek. 

"And now--" he started to admonish, when she threw her arms about hisneck, stiffling the words in her garments. 

At the corner of the factory Maren Le Moyne stood looking through thetwilight at the scene. 

When Francette released him there were only they two and he had heard nostep nor seen the silent beholder. 

When the little French maid slipped away with the husky she fingered thecarved toy of a knife in her sash and tossed her short curls in triumph. 

Her failure had taken on a hue of victory. 

CHAPTER XI LEAVEN AT WORK

"M'sieu, " said Marc Dupre, coming up the slope from the river, hisbuckskins much tattered, showing a swift cross-country run, "I have newsof the great tribe. Like the forest leaves in fall in point of numbersthey are, and they wear a wealth of wampum and elk teeth, so much thatthey are rich beyond any other tribe. Their young men are tall and heavyof stature and wonderful in the casting of their great carven spears. Also do they excel in the use of the bow. Warlike and suspicious, scouting every inch of country before them, they come down by way ofDear Lake, --and the young Nor'wester at Fort Brisac has already sentforth his messengers to meet them. "

McElroy frowned. 

Double anger swelled suddenly within him. In two ways had De Courtenaycrossed his plane at opposing angles. It was evidently war that theadventurer wanted, the hot war of the two fur companies coupled to thatof man and man for a maid. He stood a while and thought. Then he turnedto Dupre. 

"You have done well, Dupre, " he said shortly. "Get you to your cabinand rest, for I may want your wit again. Only, on the way, send PierreGarqon to me. "

The young man touched his red toque, symbol of safety to all trappersin a land where the universal law is "kill, " for no wild animal of thewoods bears a crimson head save that animal man who is the greatestkiller of all, and turned away. He was draggled and stained from aforced march through forest and up-stream, over portage and rapid, carrying his tiny birchbark craft on his head, snatching a shortsleep on a bed of moss, hurrying on that he might learn of theNakonkirhirinons travelling slowly down from that unknown land to thefar north, even many leagues beyond York factory on the shores of thegreat bay. 

As he went toward his own cabin he glanced swiftly at the open door ofthe Baptistes. Always these days he glanced that way with a sick feelingin the region of his heart. Who was he, Marc Dupre, trapper of thebig woods, that he should dare think so often of that woman from GrandPortage, with her wondrous beauty and her tongue that could be like acold knife-blade or the petal of a lily for softness? And yet he wasconscious of a mighty change that had come over him with that day on theflat rock by the stockade when she had talked to him of the trapping, --achange like that which comes to one when he is so fortunate as to be indistant Montreal and sits in the dusk of the great church there amongthe saints and the incense. 

There was no longer pleasure in flipping jests and love words with thered-cheeked maids, and something had happened to the dashing spirit ofthe youth. All through those long days in the forest, those short bluenights under the velvet sky, one image had stood before him, calm, smiling, quivering with that illusive light which held men's hearts. Never a day that he could win forgetfulness of the face of Maren LeMoyne, and now he glanced toward her doorway. It lay in the sunlightwithout a foot upon its sill, and Marc sighed unconsciously. He was notto see her, perhaps, to-day. 

But suddenly, as he rounded a corner among the cabins, he came fullupon her, and his flippant tongue clove to the roof of his mouth withoutspeech. 

She came toward him with a bread-pan in her hands and her eyes were castdown. The heart in him ran to water at sight of her, and he stopped. 

Once more thought of his unworthiness abased him. 

Then she felt his presence and raised her eyes, and the young trapperlooked deep into them with that helplessness which draws the look of achild. Deep he looked and long, and the woman looked back, and in thatmoment there sprang into life the first thrill of that thing which wasto lead to the great crisis which she had predicted that day by thestockade. 

With it Marc Dupre found his tongue. 

"Ma'amselle!" he cried sharply, "what is it? Mon Dieu! What is it?"For the dark eyes, with their light-behind-black-marble splendour, werequenched and dazed and all knowledge seemed stricken from them. The lookof them cut to his very soul, quick and sensitive from the workingof the great change, made ready as a wind-harp by the silent days ofdreams, the nights of visions. To him alone was the devastation withinthem apparent. He stretched out a timid hand and touched her sleeve. 

"What is it, Ma'amselle?" he begged abjectly. "I would heal it with myblood!"

Extravagant, impulsive, the boy was in deadly earnest, and Maren LeMoyne was conscious of it as simply as that she lived. 

Just as simply she acknowledged to him what she would have to none otherin De Seviere, that something had fallen from a clear sky. 

"Nay, " she said, and the deep voice was lifeless, "I am beyond help. "

Dupre's fingers slipped, trembling, around her arm. 

"But I am a stone to your foot, Ma'amselle, --always remember that. Whenthe way becomes too hard there shall be a stone to your foot. I ask nobetter fate and you have said. "

The miserable eyes were not dead to everything. At his swift words theyglowed a moment. 

"Aye, --I have said, and I thank God, M'sieu, for such friendship. I amrich, indeed. "

"Oho! Marc Dupre does better at the lovemaking than at the trapping! Hisaccount at the factory suffers from les amours!"

A childish voice broke in upon them, and Francette's impish face peepedround the corner of the nearest cabin. 

"Let it be, Marc Dupre, " as the youth dropped his and from Maren's arm. "Ma'amselle does not object, --a trapper or a cavalier, all are fish toMa'amselle's net. Mon Dieu! If all were so attractive as Ma'amselle!"

The little maid sighed in exaggerated dolour. 

Dupre flashed round on his moccasined heel and reached her in a stride. 

"Aha! It is you, by all the saints!" he said beneath his breath, as hetook her none too gently by the shoulder. "I know your tricks. "

Aloud he said, "Francette, children should keep from where they are notwanted. Get you back to your mother. "

"Children, you say, M'sieu Dupre? Is eighteen so far behind twenty-two?Grow a beard on your cheek before you give yourself the airs of aman. And, anyway, grown men of twice eighteen have been known to lovechildren of that age. "

It was a dagger thrust, and it found its mark even as the girl glancedslily at her victim. Maren's full mouth twitched and she looked dullyaway to the fort gate. Dupre gave Francette an ungallant push. "Begone!"he cried angrily; "you little cat!"

With a ringing laugh the maid danced away in the sunshine, and Duprefaced Maren. 

"It is that imp of le diable, Francette?" he asked. "What has she doneto you, Ma'amselle?"

But Maren shook her head. 

"The maid is not to blame. She is but a child in spirit and what le bonDieu has seen fit to give her has gone to her head. That is all, save asyour quick eye has detected, M'sieu, I have received a heavy hurt. "

Suddenly, with that whimsical youthfulness of soul which glimmered attimes through her apparent strength, she looked at Dupre with a sort offright. 

"Merci, M'sieu! For what reason does the good God let some thingsbefall?... But I have still a stone. Throughout I will remember that. "

In a moment she was gone, walking toward the cabin of Micene Bordoux, and Marc Dupre went on his quest of Pierre, wondering and all a-tremblewith pity and thought of that promise. 

Where Marc, with the revelation of adoration, had seen sharply, Micenewith her good sense felt vaguely that something was wrong with theintrepid leader of the long trail. 

"Maren, " she said this day, as she took the bread pan which had beenborrowed, "I fear there is something troubling you. Is there bad newsfrom Athabasca?"

Always there lay behind Maren's eagerness a fear, sleeping like ahidden fawn but ever ready to quiver into life, a fear of news fromthe Whispering Hills, news that should make the promise of the trail asudden void. 

"Nay, Micene, " smiled Maren, "these latest Indians come from the south. "

"And all is well with the plans?"

The vague uneasiness was not stilled in Micene. 

"All is well with the plans. There is not a year now. "

The girl looked straight in her friend's eyes without a trace of thedazed misery which Marc Dupre had surprised in her own. 

Micene smiled back, but that night she lay far into the dark hoursthinking of the subtle change in the maid of the trail. With a woman'sintuition she knew that the girl had lied, that all was not well withher. 

And one other there was of that small party of venturers housed inthe new cabins of De Seviere who knew vaguely that something had gonewrong-Prix Laroux, the sturdy prow of that little vessel of progress ofwhich the girl was the beating heart, the unresting engine. 

He had felt its coming even before it fell, that mighty shadow whichblotted out the heavens and the earth, for to Maren, once given, therewas no recalling the gift, and with that day in the glade she had lostpossession of her soul and body forever. 

Dazed in all the regions of her being, enshadowed in every vista of hopeand scarce-tasted joy, she went quietly about the cabin, her mind a darkspace in which there flashed sudden, reiterated visions, --now McElroy'sblue eyes, anxious and eager as he held up the doeskin dress at thedoor-sill, burning with fire and truth and passion in the glade in theforest, again tender and diffident what time they walked together to thegate to meet De Courtenay's messenger, and again it was that sceneat the factory steps that haunted her, --McElroy with his arms aboutFrancette Moline, the grey husky crouching in the twilight. Throughoutthe whole sick tangle there went a twisting thread of wonder, ofstriving for understanding. What was this thing which had come clutchingsweetly at her heart, which had stilled the very life in her with holymystery, and whose swift passing had left her benumbed within as someold woman mumbling in the sun on a door-sill? Where was the glory of thespring? What had come upon the face of the waters, that the light hadgone from them? What was this thing that the good God wished her tolearn, where was the lesson?

Given to reason and plain judgment of all things, the girl tried tothink out her problem, to fathom the meaning of this which had befallenher, and to find if there was any good in it. But everywhere she lookedthere was the laughing face of the factor with his sunburnt hair and hisblue eyes. The spring days were heavy as those steel-grey stretches thatpass for the days in winter. 

Too dull for sharp pain, she went about in a sort of apathy. 

For several days McElroy watched uneasily for her, hoping for a chancemeeting. He was anxious to speak about his boyish jealousy, to begforgiveness for that abrupt leaving at the gate. So close did she stayat the cabin, however, that at last he was forced to go to her. It wastwilight again, soft, filled with the breath of the forest, vibrant withthe call of birds off in some marshy land to the south, and he found heralone, sitting upon the step, staring into the gathering dusk, listeningto the laughter of the young married folk from the cabin next whereMarie and Henri were loudest. 

A lump rose in his throat as he caught the outline of the braided headbowed lower than he had ever seen it, saw the whole attitude of thestrong figure, every line relaxed as if in a great weariness. 

"Maren, " he said, with the wonder of love in his voice, "Maren--mymaid!"

And he strode forward swiftly, stooped, and laid his hand on hershoulder. 

With a jerk the drooped head came up. She drew from his touch as if itburned her. 

"If you please, M'sieu, " she said coldly, "go away. "

McElroy sprang back. 

"What? Go away! You wish that, --Ma'amselle?"

The tone more than the words drove out of him all daring of her sweetname, took away in a flash all the personal. 

"Of a surety, --go away. "

The factor stood a moment in amazed silence. Did the red flower mean somuch to her, then? Had she accepted its message? And yet he knew in hisheart that the look in her eyes, the smile on her lips had told theirown tale of awakening to his touch. What but the red flower in itsbirchbark case had wrought the change?

He thought swiftly of De Courtenay's beauty, of his sparkling grace, hisbraided blue coat, his wide hat, and the long golden curls sweeping hisshoulder. Truly a figure to turn a woman's head. But within him thererose a tide of rage, blind vent of the hurt of love, that boded ill forthe dashing Nor'wester on the Saskatchewan. 

Sick to the very bottom of his heart, he bowed ever so slightly to thetense figure on the step and strode away in the shadows. 

So! Thus ended his one love. 

For this he had kept himself from the common lot of the factors in theirlonely posts; for this he had never looked with aught save friendlycompassion upon the maids of the settlements, the half breed girls ofthe wilderness, the wild daughters of the forest. 

Waiting for this one princess in his small kingdom, he had thrownhimself on the out-bearing tide of love only to be stranded on somebarren beach, to see her taken from him by some reckless courtier notfit to touch a woman's hand!

Thus they turned apart, these two meant for each other from thebeginning, and in each love worked its will of pain. 

Maren on the step stared dry-eyed into the night, uncomprehending, unrebelling, and McElroy strode ahead, blind with sudden anguish, scarceknowing which way his steps tended. 

And, like a ghoul behind a stone, a small dark face peeped keenly from acorner. 

Francette was watching her leaven work. 

CHAPTER XII THE NAKONKIRHIRINONS

In the week that followed the waters of the Assiniboine grew black withmyriads of canoes. Like the leaves in fall, truly, they came driftingout of the forest, long slim craft, made with a wondrous cunning ofbirchbark peeled from the tree in one piece, fitted to frames of ashfragile as cockleshell and strong as steel under the practised hand, andsmeared in every crinkle and crease and crevasse with the resinous gumof the pine tree. By scores and hundreds and battalions, it seemed tothe traders at De Seviere, they poured out of the wilderness, chokingthe river with their numbers, spilling their contents on the slope underthe bastioned walls until a camp was made so vast that it stretched intothe forest on each side the clearing of the post and even extended tothe marsh at the south. 

Half-naked braves stalked in countless numbers among the tepees thatwent rapidly up, tall fellows, mighty of build and fearless of carriageand of eagle eye, aloof, suspicious, watching the fort, guarding therich piles of peltry and exchanging a word with none. 

These were the great Nakonkirhirinons from that limitless region of thePays Ten d'en Haut. 

If McElroy's heart had not been so full of his own trouble he would haveexulted mightily in their coming, for did it not prove one failure forthat reckless Nor'wester on the Saskatchewan? They had come, past allhis blandishments of trade, to Fort de Seviere, and their coming spelleda number of furs this season far in advance of any other for that smallpost. If he wondered at first how they had held out against DeCourtenay it was all made plain when among the strangers he espied manyAssiniboines and saw in the great canoe of the chief Negansahima, oldQuamenoka, who had boasted of the coming of this tribe to De Seviere ashis work. 

He had spoken truly and had evidently made his word good by meeting theapproaching columns and returning with them. 

To him alone was due the failure of De Courtenay, McElroy felt at once, and determined in his mind on that present which he had promised forthis zeal. 

With the coming of the strangers Fort de Seviere was put under militaryrule. The half-moon to the right of the gate, with its small cannon, received a quota of men who strayed carelessly all day within reach ofthe low rampart; a guard lounged in the great gate, ready at a moment'snotice to clang it shut, and seemingly matter-of-course precautions weretaken throughout, for these Indians were as uncertain as the flickeringnorth lights crackling in a frosty sky. 

There was a scene not to be likened to any other outside the region ofthe Hudson Bay country, where strange relations existed between whitetrader and savage, when Edmonton Ridgar met the canoe of the chief atthe landing. 

Savage delight overspread the eagle features of Negansahima as he beheldthe white man. 

Towering mightily in the prow of his canoe, the sweeping head-dress offeathers crowning him with a certain majesty, he fixed his keen glanceon Ridgar and came gliding toward him across the rippled water. 

As the canoe cut cleanly up and stopped just short of scraping on thestones at the edge, obeying the paddles like a thoroughbred the bit, thechief trader of De Seviere stepped forward and held out his arms. 

"Who art thou?" he called. 

Deep and guttural as thunder from the broad chest, naked under the linesof elk teeth, came the reply, "Thy father, "

"And master of my goods. The heart of thy son melts as the snow inspring. Wiskendjac has sent thee. "

McElroy, standing near, saw the face of his friend illumined with areal affection as the savage landed and, contrary to the custom of theIndians in the lower country, embraced with every sign of joy the leanwhite man whose skin was nearly as dark as his own and whose greyingtemples bespoke almost a as many years as the chief's black locks couldboast. 

In the eyes of both, as they regarded each other, were memories knownto no one else. McElroy wondered what they were and what that year, ofwhich Ridgar had spoken only once, had held. 

The trader spoke their tongue as easily as he spoke any other that cameto the post, naturally and with quiet fluency. 

So deep was the apparent pleasure of the meeting that, when theinterpreting was done and the ceremonies over, Ridgar went with theIndian among the tepees and no more did McElroy see him until he came tothe factory at dusk. 

"Mother of Heaven!" he ejaculated, flinging himself down at the table inthe living-room where Rette's strong coffee tempted the nostril; "suchfurs! Beaver in countless packs, all the fat winter skins, no Bordeaux, no Mittain. Fox, also of the best only, --black fox, fine and shining, fox of those far-north regions where they hunt beyond the sun, white asthe snow it runs on, and Mon Dieu, McElroy! Seven silvers as I hope forsalvation! Verily are they a prize beyond price, these Indians that havecome in to us, and I fancy that young Nor'wester is swearing at his luckin losing them. Old Quamenoka struts as if their wealth belonged to hismeek Assiniboines.... But the furs! Ermine and nekik and sakwasew andwapistan, all the little fellows that, taken from those virgin northlands, are worth their weight in gold! Nowhere have I seen a commonpelt. They are connoisseurs, these wild Nakonkirhirinons, and they carrya king's ransom in their long canoes. White bear and brown arctic wolfand everywhere the best of its kind! To-morrow's trade will be worthwhile--but keep the guns in evidence and quiet above all things. "

"Ah!" said McElroy, "what is there to fear, think you? Is not the chiefbound to you by all ties of ceremony and regard?"

"Most assuredly, " returned Ridgar quietly, "but those young bravesare strung like a singing wire and swift as a girl to take suspiciousfright; and there are somewhere near five hundred of them, as near as Ican make out from the numbers seething among the lodges. They are in astrange country and watching every leaf and shadow. "

Thus the sun went down on De Seviere, with the eager maids and womenpassing and repassing near the gate to peep out at the rustling throng, at the tepees with their fine skin coverings painted with all thewonders of battle and the chase, at the comely squaws and maidens, thechubby brown children, the dogs snarling and savage, for they had fullcomplement of the grey northern huskies. 

To a woman they peeped at the gate from all the cabins of the post, save only that one who had been most eager before when the Indians came, Maren Le Moyne, sitting in idle apathy on her sister's doorstep. 

"Ma'amselle, " said Marc Dupre, stopping hesitant before her, "have youseen the Nakonkirhirinons?"

"Nay, " she said listlessly, "I care not, M'sieu. "

And the youth went gloomily away. 

"Something there is which preys on her like the blood-sucker on therabbit's throat. But what? Holy Mother, what?"

His handsome eyes were troubled. 

By dawn on the following day the trading had begun. Up the main waypassed a line of braves, each laden with his winter's catch of furs, to barter at the trading-room, haggle with the clerks by sign andpantomime, and pass down again with gun and hatchet and axe, kettle andbright blanket, beads, and, most eagerly sought of all, yards of crimsoncloth. 

There was babble of chatter among the squaws, shrill laughter, andcomparison of purchases. 

In the trading-room sat the chief with his headmen and old Quamenokaof the Assiniboines, smoking gravely many pipes and listening to thetrading. Like some wild eagle of the peaks brought down to earth heseemed, ever alert and watchful behind his stately silence. 

For two days the trading progressed finely, and McElroy had so far laidaside his doubts as to take delight in the quality of the rare furs. 

Never before had such pelts stacked themselves in the sorting-room. 

It was a sight for eyes tired by many springs of common trade. 

Then, like a bomb in a peaceful city, came a running word of excitement. 

The Nor'wester from the Saskatchewan was among the Nakonkirhirinons! Wasat the very gates of De Seviere! When Pierre Garcon brought the news, McElroy flushed darkly to his fair hair and went on with his work. 

This was unbearable insolence. 

"An', M'sieu, " pursued Pierre, "not only the man from Montreal, but, like the treacherous dog he is, among the Nor'westers is that vagabondBois DesCaut. "

"Turncoat?" said the factor. 

"Aye. "

True enough. When McElroy, after trading hours, strolled down to thegate between the bastions, whom should he behold but the hulking figureof his erstwhile trapper, sulky of appearance, shifty eyes flittingeverywhere but toward his old factor. And farther down the bank, amonga group of warriors, a brown baby on his shoulder and his long curlsshining in the sunset, was that incomparable adventurer, Alfred deCourtenay. 

Apparently he had not come for barter, nor for anything save the love ofthe unusual, the thirst for adventure that had brought him primarily tothe wilderness. 

"A fine fit of apoplexy would he have, that peppery old uncle atMontreal, Elsworth McTavish, could he see his precious nephew followinghis whims up and down the land, leaving his post in the hands of hischief trader, " thought McElroy, as he looked at the scene before him. 

While he stood so, there was a rustle of women behind him and voicesthat bespoke more eager eyes for the Indians, and he glanced over hisshoulder. 

Micene Bordoux and Mora LeClede approached, and between them walkedMaren Le Moyne. McElroy's heart pounded hard with a quick excitement ashe saw the listless droop of the face under the black braids andstopped with a prescience of disaster. His glance went swiftly tothe long-haired gallant in the braided coat. Surely were the elementsbrought together. 

It seemed as if Fate was weaving these little threads of destiny, forno sooner did Maren Le Moyne step through the gate among the lodges thanher very nearness drew round upon his heel De Courtenay. 

His eyes lighted upon her and the sparkling smile lit up his features. With inimitable grace he swung the child from his shoulder, tossed itto a timid squaw watching like a hawk, and, shaking back his curls, cameforward. 

"Ah, Ma'amselle!" he said, bending before her with his courtly manner, "you see, as I said in the early spring, --I have come back to Fort deSeviere. "

"So I see, M'sieu, " smiled Maren, with a touch of whimsical amusementat the memory of that morning, and his venturesome spirit. "Have you bychance brought me a red flower?"

"Why else should I come?" he returned, and, with a flourish, broughtfrom his bosom a second birchbark box which he held out to the girl. 

Over her face there spread a crimson flood at this swift, literalproving of a secret pact and she stood hesitating, at loss. 

The stretch of beach was alive with spectators. Near the wall a group ofgirls hugged together, with Francette Moline in the centre; down by thecanoes Pierre Garcon and Marc Dupre stood, the dark eyes of the latterwatching every move, while at the door of the chief's lodge, directlybefore the fort and between it and the river, Edmonton Ridgar talkedin low tones with Negansahima. Indeed, like father and son seemed thisstrangely assorted pair. Maren remembered afterward how near togetherthey had stood, the wild savage in his elk teeth and scant buckskingarments, an indiscreet band of yellow paint showing a corner above hisblanket, and the dark, wiry trader with the grey eyes. Scattered, hereand there among the braves were many Bois-Brules, lean Runners of theBurnt Woods, belonging she knew to the North-west Company. Also in thatmoment she saw the frowning face and ugly eyes of Bois DesCaut beneaththe white lock on his temple. Long afterward was the girl to recall thatevening scene. 

For another moment she hesitated, and then, from sheer loss of poise, reached out her hand. The dancing eyes of the cavalier lit with all thedaring of conquest. 

"My heart, Ma'amselle, " he said gallantly, as he pressed the fragilething in her palm; and in another second he had stooped and kissed her, as he had kissed many another woman, lightly, delicately, in the face ofthe populace, joying to the depths of his careless nature in the dare ofthe thing. 

With a cry the girl sprang back, crushing the birchbark case with itsred flower into shapeless ruin. There was a muffled word, the flash of afigure, and McElroy the factor had flung himself before her. She caughtthe thud of a blow upon flesh and in a moment there were two men lockedin deadly combat before the post gate. In less time than the telling, acircle of faces drew round, dark faces of Indians and Bois-Brules, lightfaces of De Courtenay's men, and in all there leaped swift excitement asthey saw the combatants. White with passion, his brilliant eyes flamingand dancing with fury, De Courtenay fought like a madman to avenge thatblow in the face, while McElroy, flushed and calmer, took with his handspayment for all things, --slighted kindliness, Company thefts, and, aboveall else, the stolen heart of his one woman. 

How it would have ended there is no telling, for these two were evenlymatched--what De Courtenay lacked in weight he made up in swiftness andagility, --had it not been for the side arm that hung at his hip, oneof those small pistols in use across the water where gentlemen fight atgiven paces and not across a frozen river or through a mile of brush. 

Once, twice, he tried to reach it, and twice did McElroy snatch thegroping hand away. Three times he passed swiftly for the inlaid handleand, as if there lay luck in the number, the weapon flashed in the redlight. 

Swift as was the draw, McElroy was swifter. 

With an upward stroke he flung up the hand that held it. There was ashot, ringing down the Assiniboine and echoing in the woods, and littleFrancette by the stockade wall screamed. With the first flash of metalMaren Le Moyne had gripped her hands until the nails cut raw, standingwhere she had sprung at the stranger's kiss. 

She could no more move than the bastioned wall behind her. 

For a moment there was deathly silence after that shot. Then pandemoniumbroke loose as Negansahima, chief of the Nakonkirhirinons, flung up hisarms, the dull metal bands with their inset stones catching the crimsonlight, and fell into the outstretched arms of Edmonton Ridgar. 

A long cry broke from his lips, the death-cry of a warrior. 

CHAPTER XIII "A SKIN FOR A SKIN"

For a moment the whole evening scene, red with the late light, was setin the mould of immobility. The two fighting men at sound of that cryfollowing hard upon the shot stopped rigidly, still clasped in the gripof rage, the women staring wide-eyed from the wall, the Bois-Brules, theleaning eager faces of the wild Nakonkirhirinons, the figure of thegirl in the foreground, all, all were stricken into stillness by thatdirge-like cry. For only the fraction of a second it held, that tensewaiting. 

Then from nine hundred throats there shot up to the sky, turquoiseand pink and calm, such a sound as all the northland knew, --the wildblood-cry of the savage. 

It filled the arching aisles of the shouldering forest, rolled down thebreast of the river, and echoed in the cabins of the post, and with itthere broke loose the leashed wildness of the Indians. There was onevast surging around the lodge where Ridgar knelt with the figure of thechief in his arms, another where a tumbling horde fought to get to thefactor and De Courtenay. 

At the stockade gate Prix Laroux, swift of foot and strong as twenty menin the exigency of the moment, swept the women into his arms and rushedthem within the post. Above the hideous turmoil his voice rose incarrying command, "Into the post! Into the post, --every man inside! Man the rampart!"

It fell on ears startled into apathy by the suddenness of the tragichappening, and there was a wild confusion of white people pulling outof the mass like threads, all headed for the open gate. Swift as lightthose guards of the guns on the rampart sprang to place, the watcher ofthe portal swung the great studded gate ready for the clanging close, and, in a twinkling, so alert to peril do they become who pierce thewilderness, there were without only that howling mass of savages, DeCourtenay, McElroy, and Edmonton Ridgar gazing with dimmed vision intothe fast glazing eyes of the dying chief. 

Only they? Standing where she had leaped at the cavalier's kiss, hereyes wide, her lips apart, was Maren Le Moyne. In the hurrying rush offrantic people she had been forgotten and she was utterly helpless. 

As in a dream she saw the leaping forms close in upon the two men whofought for her, knew that those of De Seviere were pouring past her tosafety, heard the boom of the great gate as it swung into place, and forher life she could move neither hand nor foot. Her body stood frozenas in those horrid dreams of night when one is conscious, yet held, in aclutch of steel. 

Over the heaving heads with their waving eagle feathers she saw the headand shoulders of De Courtenay rise, tipped sidewise so that his longcurls swung clear, shining in the light, and already he was bound withthongs of hide. 

She saw his handsome face again sparkling with that smile that was sobrilliant and that bore such infinite shades of meaning. 

Now it was full of devil-may-care, as if he shrugged his shoulders at aloss at cards, and in that second it fell upon her standing in horror. 

"Ah, Ma'amselle!" he called, across the surging feathers; "the tunechanges! But you have my heart, and I, --I have one kiss! Adieu, my Maidof the Long Trail! The chance was worth its turning. "

Then the shining head sank into the mass and she heard no more. 

She was conscious only of a giant form lurching, red-eyed and yelling, out of the turmoil, of brown hands that clutched her arms, and ofanother form which shot past her. For the second time in a few momentsone man had reached for her and another flung himself to her rescue. Shesaw the Indian reel back with a red line spurting across his eyes, felt herself lifted and flung across a shoulder, and knew that the gatebehind was swinging open. The next instant she slid down to her feetwith her face in the buckskin shirt of Marc Dupre, who leaned shakingagainst the stockade wall and held her in a grip like steel, while HenriCorlier shot the bolts into place. 

Huddled in white groups were the women, some of them already raisingtheir voices in weeping, others silent with the training of the womenof the wilderness. The men faced each other with lips drawn tight andbreath that came swiftly. Prix Laroux, his dark eyes cool and sharp, looked swiftly over the populace as they stood, for with that first shotevery man in Fort de Seviere had rushed to the gate, and in that firstmoment of getting breath he calculated their strength and their ability. 

A leader born himself, he was looking for a leader among McElroy's men;but, with that intrepid factor himself gone and Edmonton Ridgar also, there was nowhere a man with the signs of leadership upon him. 

Through Prix's mind this went while they stood listening to thedeath-wail that was beginning to rise from the tepees without. 

Then he quietly took command, knowing himself to be best fitted. 

"Corlier, " he said quietly, "leave the gate to Cif Bordoux. Take one manand get to the southwest bastion. You, Gifford, " turning to that youngclerk who worked in the sorting-room, "man the northwest. Garcon andDupre will take the forward two. The rest will stand ready with guns andammunition along the four walls and at the gates. We know not what willtranspire. "

As if their factor spoke, the men of De Seviere turned to obey, feelingthat strange compelling which causes men to follow one man to death onthe field of battle, and which is surely the gift of God. 

Out of his shaking arms Marc Dupre loosed Maren, the trembling lesseningas the danger passed. That sight of the defenceless girl among theIndians had shaken him like a leaf in the wind, had nerved his arms withiron, had worked in him both with strength and weakness. 

Now he looked into her eyes and said never a word, for once again he sawthat they were dazed and void of knowledge. 

As he set her upon her own strength, she swayed. Her eyes went round thehushed groups of faces with wild searching. At last they found the faceof her leader, and clung there, dark and dull. 

"Prix!" she cried. "Prix! Open the gate!"

"I cannot, Maren, " he said quietly; "'twould be but madness. "

"But they are without!"

All horror was in the cry. 

"They are among the Indians!"

"Aye, --and may the good God have mercy on them!"

Laroux hastily made the sign of the cross. 

"We must guard the post, Maren. "

"But--" She turned her eyes slowly around from face to face and not awoman there but read her secret plain, the open script of love, --but forwhich man?

"But-they-will--be--" She did not finish the sentence, staring atLaroux. Once she moistened her lips. 

"They will--Prix, --as I am your leader, open that gate!"

With sudden reviving the daze went out of her features and the old lightcame back to her eyes, the far-seeing, undaunted light that had beaconedthe long way from Grand Portage. She was every inch the leader again, tall, straight against the logs, her brown arm pointing imperiously tothe closed gate. 

"Open, I say!"

For a moment Laroux faced her squarely, the man who had tied himself toher hand, pledged himself to forge the way to the Whispering Hills, whofollowed her compelling leadership as these lesser men had turned tofollow his but now. Then he set his will to hers. 

"I will not, " he said quietly. 

With no more words she flung herself upon the gate and tore at thechains, her strong hands able as a man's. As the sight of her in perilhad worked for both weakness and strength in Dupre, so had McElroy'splight affected her. That helpless moment was the one defection of herdauntless life. 

Now again she was herself, reaching for the thing of the moment, and theroar outside the palisade, constantly rising in volume, in menace andsavagery, brushed out of her brain every cloud of shock. Laroux caughther from behind, pinioning her arms. 

"Maren, " he said quietly, "hear me. Out there are five hundred warriorswild as the heart of the Pays d'en Haut, howling over the body of theirdying chief. What would be the opening of the gate but the massacre ofall within? Could forty men take the factor from them? There would bebut as many more scalps on their belts as there are heads within thepost. See you not, Maren?"

In his iron grip the girl stood still, breathing heavily. As he ceasedspeaking a great sigh came from her lips, a sigh like a sob. 

"Aye, " she said brokenly, "I see, --I see! Mary Mother! Let me go, Prix. I see. "

Laroux loosed her, knowing that the moment was past, and went at onceabout his duties of throwing the post into a state of defence. 

Once more strong and quiet, Maren went to the cabin by the gate. HereMarie knelt at her bed with a crucifix grasped in her shaking hands, herface white as milk and prayers on her trembling lips. 

"Maren!" she gasped, with the child's appeal to the stronger nature. "Oh, Maren, what will befall? For love of God, what will befall?"

"Hush, Marie, " answered Maren; "'tis but a tragedy of the wild. Naughtwill befall us of the post. "

"But those without? What is that roaring of many throats? Little JeanBleaureau but now ran past crying that the Nakonkirhirinons were killingthe factor"

"No!" Marie jumped at the word like one shot, so wild and sudden it was. "No! No! Not yet!"

Even in the stress of the moment Marie stared open-mouthed at hersister. 

"Holy Mother! It is love, --that cry! You love the factor!"

"Hush!" whispered Maren, dry-lipped. 

The roar from the river bank had sharpened itself into one point ofutterance which pierced the calm heavens in a mingling of native speech, French and broken English from Nakonkirhirinon and halfbreed, and, worsethan both, dissolute "white Indian, " and its burden was, "A skin for a skin!"

CHAPTER XIV FELLOW CAPTIVES

After that tense moment of hush following the shot, McElroy had nodistinct recollection of what occurred. He was conscious of a sickeningknowledge of Negansahima with his banded brown arms stretching intothe evening light, of the tepees, of the river beyond, of the face ofEdmonton Ridgar, and of all these etched distinctly in that effect ofsun and shade which picks out each smallest detail sometimes of a rareevening in early summer. Then the whole scene went out in a smotheras an avalanche of bodies descended upon him. He could smell the heavyodour of flesh half-naked, the scent of the hidden paint, he felt armsthat fought to grip him and fingers that clutched like talons. Underit all he went down in the grass of the slope, fighting with all hisstrength, but powerless as a gnat in a pond. Above the turmoil of criesand guttural yells, even while he felt himself crushed at the bottomof that boiling mass, he heard the light voice of De Courtenay ringingclear in his whimsical farewell to Maren Le Moyne. Then he was wrenchedup through the mass, something struck him on the head with a sharp blow, a shower of stars fell like a cataract, and the sickening scents in hisnostrils faded away. 

When he again opened his eyes it was to behold real stars shining downfrom a velvet sky, to hear the river lapping gently at the landing, and the night birds calling in the forest. From the prairie beyond thefringe of woods to the east there came the yapping of the coyotes, andfar to the north a wolf howled. 

At first a sense of bewilderment held him. Then in a rush came back thememory of what had happened. He listened intently. Back and forth, backand forth somewhere near went a soft footstep, the swish and glide ofa moccasin. He strained his eyes, which smarted terribly, into thedarkness, and presently descried a tall form pacing slowly up againstthe skyline of his vision and back again into the shadows. A singlefeather slanted against the stars. A guard pacing the place of captives. 

With a slight movement McElroy tried to lift a hand. 

It was immovable. He tried the other. It likewise refused his will. 

So with both feet when he attempted, ever so cautiously, to move them. 

He was bound hand and foot, and with cruel tightness, for with that tinyslipping of his muscles there set up all through him such a tingling andaching as was almost unbearable. 

His head seemed a lump of lead, glued to whatever it lay upon, and bigas a buttertub. 

Turning his eyes far as he could to the right, he looked long in thatdirection. Faintly, after a while, he picked out the straight line ofthe stockade top, the rising tower at the corner. The line of the wallfaded out in darkness the other way, strain as he might. To the leftwere the ragged tops of the tepees, their two longer sticks pointingabove the others. 

From the sound of the river, he must be between it and the stockadegate. 

Presently his numbed hearing became conscious of a sound somewhere near, a sound that had rung so ceaselessly since his waking that it had seemedthe background for the lesser noise of the sentry's slipping moccasin. It was the weird, unending, unbeginning wail of the women, thedeath-song of the tribe mourning the passing of a chief, the voices ofsome four hundred squaws blending indescribably. 

McElroy listened. 

With consciousness of that his mind grew clearer and he began to think. 

What a fool he had been!

Once more had he played like an unbalanced boy at the game of love. 

What right had he to strike De Courtenay for kissing the woman whom hehad won with his red flowers and his curls before the populace? That hehimself had fancied for a brief space that she was his was no excuse forplunging like a boy at his rival's throat. If he had held his peace, allwould be well now and the old chief would not be lying stiff and starksomewhere in the shadowed camp, the women wailing without fires. 

It was no balm to his sore heart that he in his blundering wrath hadwrought this fresh disaster. And his post, De Seviere, which he had wonby daring service and loyalty to the H. B. C. , what would become of it?

Who after him would rule on the Assiniboine?

For well he knew that death, and death thrice, --aye, a million timesrefined, --awaited so luckless a victim as he whose hand had killed thegreat chief. But he had not killed Negansahima. It was the gun in DeCourtenay's hand. Ah, De Courtenay! Where was De Courtenay? A captiveassuredly, if he was one. They had both gone down together under thefoam of that angry human sea. And, if he was here, his antagonist mustbe somewhere near. With exquisite torture, McElroy slowly turned hishead to right and left. At the second motion his face brushed somethingclose against his shoulder. It was cloth, a rough surface corrugatedand encrusted with ridges, --what but the braid on the blue coat of theMontreal gallant!

There was no start, no answering movement at his touch. The roughsurface seemed strangely set and still. 

He lay silent and thought a moment with strange feelings of new horrorsurging through him. 

Was De Courtenay dead?

Or was it by chance a stone under the braided coat, a hillock where ithad been thrown? That strange feeling of starkness never belonged to ahuman body soft with the pulse of life. 

For hours McElroy lay staring into the night sky with its frosting ofgreat northern stars, and passed again over every week, every day, --nay, almost every hour, --since that morning in early spring when she hadstepped off the factory-sill to accompany little Francette to the riverbank where Bois DesCaut stood facing a tall young woman against thestockade wall. 

With dreary insistence his sore heart brought up each sweet memory, eachthrill of joy of those warm days. He saw every flush on her open face, every droop of her eyes. Again he saw the white fire in her featuresthat day in the forest glade when she spoke of the Land of theWhispering Hills. He pondered for the first time, lying bound andhelpless among savages, of that unbending thing within her which droveher into the wilderness with such resistless force. Granted that she hadloved him as he thought during that delirious short space of time, would love have been stronger than that force, or would it have beensacrificed? She was so strong, this strange girl of the long trail, sostrong for all things gentle, so unmoving from the way of tenderness. Proving that came the picture of the tot on her shoulder, "dipping asthe ships at sea, ma cherie, " and the look of her face transfigured. Andyet home for her was "the blue sky above, the wind in the pine-tops, thesound of water lapping at the prow of a canoe. " So she had said on thatlast day they spoke together in happiness, passing in diffident joy tothe gate to meet De Courtenay's fateful messenger. 

Of all women in the vast world she was the one woman. There was neveranother face with that strange allurement, that baffling light ofstrength and tenderness. 

Sore, sore, indeed, was the heart of the young factor of Fort de Seviereas he lay under the stars and listened to the death-wail in the darkenedcamp. 

Nowhere was there a fire. 

Desolation sat upon the Nakonkirhirinons. 

Along toward dawn, presaged by the westward wheeling of the big stars, tom-toms began to beat throughout the maze of lodges. They beat oddlyinto the air, cold with the chill of the coming day. 

McElroy's thoughts had left the great country of the Hudson Bay andtravelled back along the winding waterways, across the lakes, and atlast out on that heaving sea which bore away from his homeland. Oncemore he had been in the smoke of London town, had looked into the lovingeyes of his mother and gripped the hand of his tradesman father. Oncemore he had wondered what the future held. 

The sudden striking up of the tom-toms answered him. 

This. 

This was to be the end of his eager advance in the Company's favour, the end of that good glass of life whose red draught he had drunk withwholesome joy, the end of love that had but dawned for him to sink intoaching darkness. 

He sighed wearily. So poignant was his sense of loss and the pain of itthat the end was a weariness rather than a new pain. 

The thing that hurt was the fact that he himself had juggled the cardsof fate to this sorry dealing. 

The sudden rage concerning De Courtenay had spent itself. There remainedonly the deep anger of the man who has lost in the game of love. Andyet, what right had he to cherish even this wholesome anger against hisrival when the maid had chosen of her own free will? As well holdgrudge to the great Power whose wisdom had given the man such marvellousbeauty. As he lay in the darkness listening to the unearthly noises heworked it all out with justice. 

He alone was to blame for the sorry state of things. 

De Courtenay was but a man, and what man, looking upon Maren Le Moyne, could fail to love her?

Therefore, he freed his rival of all blame. 

And Maren, --oh, blameless as the winds of heaven was Maren!

What had she given him that he could construe as love?

Only a look, a blush to her cheek, the touch of a warm hand. 

In his folly he had hailed himself king of her affections when perchanceit was but the kindliness of her womanly heart. 

And what maid could be blind to De Courtenay's sparklinggrace, --compared to which he was himself a blundering yokel?

Thus in bound darkness he reasoned it all out and strove to wash awaythe anger from his heart. 

And presently there came dawn. First a cold air blowing out of theforest, and then a deeper darkness that presently gave way to faint, shadowy light. 

Here and there tall figures came looming, ghostly-fashion, out of chaos, to take slow shape and form, to resolve themselves into tapering lodges, into hunched and huddled groups. 

And with light came action. 

McElroy saw that around the central lodge before the gate there was asolid pack of prostrate Indians covering the ground like a cloth, andfrom this centre came the tom-toms and the wailing. 

It was the lodge of the chief and within lay the stark body of themurdered Negansahima. 

As the faint light grew, one by one the warriors rose out of the masslike smoke spirals, drawing away to disappear among the tepees. Soonthere came the sound of falling poles and McElroy knew that they werestriking the camp. 

For what?

Why, surely, for one thing. 

A chief must go to the great Hunting Ground from his own country; in hisown country must his bones seek rest. 

They would journey back up the long and difficult trail down which theyhad just come to that vague region from which they hailed. 

But what of him, and of De Courtenay, if he was yet alive?

He wondered why they had been reserved. 

The light came quickly and he looked eagerly around on the moving camp. 

With quickness and precision the whole long village was reduced in a fewminutes to rolled coverings, gathered and tied utensils, stacked packsof furs, and ranged canoes already in the water lining the shore. 

He could not help a feeling of regret for this wild people, coming butfew suns back with their rich peltry, their pomp, and their hopes ofgain, as they prepared for the back trail, the whole tribe in deepestmourning. 

Of all the tents, that one before the post gate alone stood, silentreproach to the white man's ways. 

Around it still knelt a solid pack, wailing and beating the drums. 

As the grey light turned whiter, he turned his stiffened neck for aglance at the thing against his shoulder. 

He looked into the smiling eyes of Alfred de Courtenay. 

"Bonjour, M'sieu, " whispered that ardent venturer; "you nuzzled myarm all night. Apparently we are fellows in captivity, as we have beenopposed in war, --and love. "

"Aye, M'sieu, " whispered back McElroy, not relishing the turn of thesentence but passing it by; "and a sorry man am I for this state ofevents. I owe you my regrets, --not for what I did, mark you, --butfor the way and the time and place. Had I waited and proceeded as agentleman, we should not be in this devilish plight, nor that fine oldchief a victim to our blunder. "

"Tish!" said De Courtenay lightly; "'tis all in a day's march. And, besides, I have, --memories, --to shorten the way. "

The pacing guard came back and the two men fell silent. 

At that moment a stentorian call pealed above the dismantled camp, andthere began a vast surge of the mass of Nakonkirhirinons toward thewaiting canoes, a dragging of goods and chattels, a hurry of cryingchildren, a scurrying of squaws. In the midst of it the flaps of thebig lodge were opened and, amid redoubled wailing, a stark wedge of thelength of a tall man came headforemost out, carried on the shoulders ofsix gigantic warriors; and walking beside it, bareheaded in the new day, was Edmonton Ridgar, his face pale and downcast. He paid no heed to thetwo men on the ground, though one was his factor and his friend. 

CHAPTER XV LONG TRAIL

The women changed their wail as the procession started for the waitingcanoes, and from all the long camp there drew in a horde of savages, their eagle feathers slanting in the light, bare shoulders shining underunhidden paint, skin garments and gaudy shirts alike cast to the winds. 

They surged along chanting their unearthly song, and the mass of themswept by where lay the two men. 

Not a glance was given them, no taunts, no jeers with which the tribesof the North-west were wont to torment their captives. 

The swish of the moccasined feet was as the sound of many waters. 

"No time for play, " thought McElroy; "that will come later, --when wehave reached the Pays d'en Haut. "

For he knew now that he and De Courtenay were to be taken along. 

The body of Negansahima was placed in the first canoe, covered witha priceless robe of six silver foxskins laced together; the six bigwarriors, their halfnaked bodies painted black, manned the paddles, andat the prow there stood the sad figure of Edmonton Ridgar. 

At one side had drawn out old Quamenoka and his Assiniboines, their waylying to the west. They raised a chant as the first canoe circledout and headed down the stream. Behind it fell in five canoe-loads ofBois-Brules, their attachment a mystery, and the river became alive withthe great flotilla. 

Not until the death-boat had passed the far bend did the pacing Indiangive way to a dozen naked giants, who lifted the captives with ceremonyand carried them down the slope. 

As he swung between his captors McElroy looked back at the closed gatesof De Seviere and a sharp pain struck at his heart, a childish hurt thatthe post he had loved should watch his exit from the light of life withunmoved front. It seemed almost that the bastioned wall was sensate, asif the small portholes here and there were living eyes, cold and hardwith indifference, nay, even a-glitter with selfishness. 

But quick on the sense of hurt came the knowledge which is part of everyman in the wilderness; and he knew well that every face in the littlefort was drawn with the tragedy, that from those blank portholes lookedhuman eyes, sick with the thing they could not avert, that whoever hadtaken charge within was only working for the safety of the greatestnumber, and with the thought his weakness passed. 

Only one more pang assailed him. 

He gave one swift thought to Maren Le Moyne. Where in Fort de Sevierewas she, and what was in her heart?

Then he was swung, still bound, into the bottom of a canoe, sawDe Courtenay tossed into another, felt the careless feet ofNakonkirhirinons as the paddlemen stepped in, and existence became athing of gliding motion, the lapping of water on birchbark, and thepassing of a long strip of cloud-flecked sky, pink and blue and goldwith the new day. 

Lulled by the rocking of the fragile craft that shot forward like athing of life beneath the paddles dipping in perfect unison, McElroy layits a sort of apathy for hours, watching the sliding strip of sky andthe bending bodies of the Indians. He knew that the end awaited himsomewhere ahead, but it was far ahead, very far, even many leaguesbeyond York factory, and his mind, again dropping into the dulness ofhis early awakening, refused to concern itself with aught save the bluesky and the sound of water lapping on birchbark. That sound was sweet tohis befuddled brain, suggesting something vaguely pleasant. 

Ah, yes, it was the deep voice of the maid of the long trail speakingof the streams and the waving grass of that visionary Land of theWhispering Hills. 

He fell to wondering at broken intervals if she would ever reach it, tosee drowsy visions of the tall form leading its band of venturers intothe wilderness beyond Lac a la Croix, penetrating that country whichtried the hearts of men, and with the visions came a sadness. 

She would go without love, mourning her cavalier of the curls, and whowould be responsible for the desolation of the heart he would fain havemade happy but himself?

McElroy sighed, and the visions faded. 

When he again awakened it was evening and camp had been made. Firesdanced and crackled all up and down the reach of shore set like ahalf-moon of pearl in a sea of emerald, where the forest shouldered downto the stream, and the smell of cooking meat was poignantly sweet. Womenwere busy at the work of the camp, carrying wood, mending the fires, tending the kettles swung from forked sticks, and scolding thescrambling children. 

Here and there a half-naked Indian stalked silently, his long featherslanting in the light, but for the most part the warriors were gatheredin a silent mass a little way apart where the big tepee had been set up. 

The clouds were gone from his brain, and he was keenly conscious ofhunger. 

He was still bound, though not so tightly, some of the thongs havingbeen taken off entirely, and he found that he could sit up withcomparative ease, though his hands were still fast behind him and hisankles tied. 

There was no pacing guard this time, distance and possession making suchprecaution needless, for well the Nakonkirhirinons knew that none fromthe little post on the Assiniboine would attempt rescue in face of sogreat a horde as an entire tribe. 

McElroy sat up and looked around. 

One of the first things he encountered was the face of the cavalier, still smiling and looking very much as it had looked in the dawn. 

Like that encounter, too, De Courtenay was the first to speak in this. 

"Aha, my fighter of the H. B. C. , " he laughed from his seat against atowering maple, "have your laggard wits come in from wool-gathering?"

He, too, was more comfortably bound, and McElroy noticed that therewere little rubbed creases in the sleeves of the gay blue coat where thenumbing bonds had cut. The sparkling spirit was as high in his handsomeface as it had been that long past morning morning by the well. Thefactor wondered if there was in heaven or earth anything with power todim it. 

He was to see, and marvel at, the test. 

"Aye, " he answered the cheerful query; "it has been a weary day, M'sieu, it would seem, with my senses drifting out and in at ragged intervals ofwhich I have only vague impressions. How has it fared with you?"

"Much as another day. There has been plenty to see and enjoy, even fromunder the feet of our hasty friends of the paddles. "

"Enjoy! Holy Mother! Have you not been thinking over your sins, M'sieu?"

"Sins? I have none. Who thinks of sins while the red blood runs? Ratherhave I dreamed dreams of, --memories. Ah, no, M'sieu, it has not beena weary day to me, but one of swift emotions, of riots of colour ina strip of racing sky when the sun turned his palette for a gorgeousspread. The sunset was stupendous at its beginning. Now the darker greyscome with so much forest. "

McElroy fell silent, biting his lip. 

Sorry as he felt for the plight of his rival, the old anger was close tohis heart, and it seemed that the rascal knew it and probed for a weakspot with his smiling allusions to his memories. Memories of what but ofthe red lips of a girl?

The young factor, too, had memories of those red lips, though they gavehim only a pain so bitter as not to be borne. 

Almost it forced from his heart the gentle justice he had striven sohard to keep in sight. 

As he sat thinking and staring at the twilight river rippling below, aman came from the forest at the back of the camp and passed near on hisway to the fires. 

It was Bois DesCaut, and he did not lift his evil eyes. 

The white lack on his temple gleamed with a sinister distinctness amidhis black hair. 

"Double foe, " thought McElroy; "I am to pay for my own words and Maren'sblow. "

As the trapper passed he sidled swiftly near the Nor'wester andsomething dropped from a legstrap. It was a small knife, and it tumbledwith seeming carelessness close to De Courtenay's knee. 

"So, " thought McElroy again; "by all rights that should have been forme. "

DesCaut went on into the heart of the camp among the women, and DeCourtenay began moving ever so cautiously toward the priceless bit ofsteel. 

With that hidden in one's garments what not of hope might rise within adaring heart?

What not, indeed! Life and liberty and escape and a home-coming to arival's very hearthstone, and more, --soft lips and arms of a woman. 

The cavalier was smiling still as he edged inch by inch along the littleway, his back against the maple. 

"See you, M'sieu, " he whispered; "how loyal are the servants of theNorth-west Company?"

McElroy did not answer. Bitterness was rife within him. Even his onefriend in the wilderness, Edmonton Ridgar, on whose sound heart he wouldhave risked his soul, had passed him by without a look. 

Verily, life had suddenly been stripped, as the hapless birch, of allits possessions. 

He was thinking grimly of these things when a young squaw came lightlyup from somewhere and stopped for a second beside De Courtenay. Shelooked keenly at him, and stooping, picked up the knife. 

"Another turn to the wheel, M'sieu, " said that intrepid venturer; "whatnext?"

As if his thought had reached out among the shadows of the wood wherestood the death tepee and touched its object, Edmonton Ridgar appearedamong the lodges. He was bare-headed, and McElroy saw that his facewas deep-lined and anxious, filled with a sadness at which he could butmarvel and he passed within a stone's throw without so much as a glanceat his superior. 

No captive was this man, passing where he listed, but McElroy noticedthe keen eyes watching his every move. 

What was he among this silent tribe with their war-paint and theirdistrust of white men?

It was a hopeless puzzle, and the factor laid it grimly aside. Next tothe closed and impregnable front of his own post what time he passedfrom its sight, this cold aloofness of his chief trader cut to inmostsoul. 

But these things were that life of the great North-west whoseunspeakable lure thralled men's souls to the death, and he was content. 

It was chance and daring and danger which drew him in the beginning tothe country, love of the wild and breath of the vast reaches, somethingwithin which pushed him forward among these savage peoples, even as thesame thing pushed Maren Le Moyne toward the Whispering Hills, sent DeCourtenay to the Saskatchewan. 

At any rate he was very hungry, and when a bent and withered crone of asquaw brought food and loosed his right hand, the young factor tossedup his head to get the falling hair out of his eyes and fell to with arelish. 

"Faugh!" said De Courtenay with the first mouthful; "I wonder, M'sieu, is there nothing we can do to hasten the end? Many meals of this wouldequal the stake. "

Whereat the gallant smilingly tossed the meat and its birchbark platterat the woman's feet. 

"If you would not prefer starvation, I would suggest that you crawl forthat, M'sieu, " said McElroy gravely; but the wrinkled hag gathered itup, and left them to the night that was fast settling over the forest. 

Thus began the long trail up to the waters of Churchill and beyond intothat unknown region where few white men had yet penetrated, and fewerstill returned. 

CHAPTER XVI TRAVEL

Day followed day. Summer was upon the land, early summer, with the sweetwinds stirring upon the waters, with gauze-winged creatures flittingabove the shallows where willow and vine-maple fringed the edges andsilver fish leaped to their undoing, with fleecy clouds floating in asapphire sky, and birds straining their little throats in the forest. 

McElroy and De Courtenay were loosed of their bonds and given paddles inthe canoes, a change which was welcomed gladly. 

At night a guard paced their sleeping-place and the strictestsurveillance was kept over them. 

Down the Assiniboine, into Red River, and across Portage la Prairie wentthe great flotilla, green shores winding past in an endless pageant offoliage, all hands falling to at the portages and trailing silently formany pipes, one behind the other, all laden with provisions and packs offurs, the canoes upturned and carried on heads and shoulders. 

Of unfailing spirits was Alfred de Courteray. 

"'Od's blood, M'sieu, " he would laugh, oddly mixing his dialect, "butthis is seeing the wilderness with a vengeance! Though there is no lackof variety to speed the days, yet I would I were back in my post ofBrisac on the Saskatchewan, with a keg of good-liquor on the tableand my hearty voyaguers shouting their chansons outside, my clerks andtraders making merry within. Eh, M'sieu, is it not a better picture?"

"For you, no doubt. For me, I had rather contemplate a prayer-book andrecall my mother's teaching in these days, " answered McElroy simply. 

"What it is to have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer. "Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts. " And he fell to humminga gay French air. 

Presently the foaming river, growing swifter as it neared the greatlake, leaped and plunged into the wide surface of Winnipeg, shooting itsburdens out upon the glassy breast of the lake like a spreading fan. 

Here the blue sky was mirrored faithfully below with its lazy clouds, the green shores rimmed away to right and left, and the swarming canoes, with their gleaming paddles, made a picture well worth looking at. 

The Nakonkirhirinons were going back to the Pays d'en Haut by anotherway than that by which they had come. 

Hugging the western shore, the flotilla strung out into the formation ofa wedge, with the canoe of the dead chief at the apex, and went on, dayafter day, in comparative silence. 

With the passing of the sleeping green shores, the ceaseless slide ofthe quiet waters, a tender peace began to come into McElroy's soul. 

With the gliding days he could think of Maren without the poignant painwhich had been unbearable at the beginning, could linger in thoughtover each detail of her wondrous beauty, the clear dark eyes, sane andearnest and full of the hope of the dreamer, the full red mouth withits sweetness of curled corners, the black hair banded above the smoothbrow, the rounded figure under the faded garment, the shoulders swingingwith the free walk after the fashion of a man. 

Verily, the wilderness held healing as well as hurt. 

So followed each other the dawns and the summer noons and the marvelloustwilights, with pageantry of light and colour and soft winds attuned tothe songs of birds, and the two men neared the mystery of Fate. 

CHAPTER XVII THE COMPELLING POWER

Back in De Seviere the gloom of the forest in bleak winter sat heavilyon every cabin. 

Women went about with misty eyes and men were oddly silent. 

Not one of all his people who did not love the whole-hearted factor withhis ready laugh, his sympathy in all the little life of the post, hisunfailing justice; not one who did not strive to keep away the hauntingvisions of leaping flames above fagots, and all the ugly scenes thatimagination, abetted by grim reality, could conjure up. 

On that fateful morning when the rising sun saw the slim canoes of theNakonkirhirinons trailing around the lower bend, Maren Le Moyne stoodby the little window in the small room to the east of the Baptiste cabinand covered her face with her hands. 

Great breaths lifted her breast, breaths that fluttered her open lipsand could not fill the gasping lungs beneath, that sounded in the littleroom like tearless tearing sobs. 

"Heavenly Mother!" she gasped between them; "Thou who artwoman... Mary... "

But the prayer hung aborted between the shuddering sighs.... Who shallsay that it is not such a cry, torn from the depths of the spiritby instinct groping for its god, which reaches swiftest the EternalInfinite?

Until the last sound had faded into the morning, until the last littleripple had widened to the shores and died among the willows, until thescreaming birds, startled from the edges of the river, had settled intoquiet, she stood so, fainting in her Gethsemane. She alone of allthe post had remained away from the great gate where was gathered thepopulace at the nearest vantage point. 

Silence of the young day hung in the palisade, a silence that cut thesoul with its tragic portent. 

Even little Francette Moline, weeping openly, pressed close in the massand jerked with unconscious savagery of spirit the short ears of thehusky at her heels, --that Loup whom no man dared to touch save only themaster his fierce spirit must needs acknowledge. It had been DesCaut bybrutality. Now it was the little maid by love. 

Strange cat of the woods, Francette could be as riotous in hertenderness as in her enmity. 

In the bastions Dupre and Garcon and Gifford watched the scene with thegrim quiet of men born in the wilderness, while at the portholes trapperand voyageur and the venturers from Grand Portage handled their guns andwaited. 

None knew what might happen, for these Indians were not to be judged byany standard they knew. 

Henri Baptiste held the trembling Marie in his arm, while Mora and Anonand Ninette clung together in a white-faced group. A little way asideMicene Bordoux comforted a frightened woman and held a child by thehand. 

Big Bard McLellan stood by a porthole, his eyes always pensive with hisown sadness, gazing with grave sorrow to where McElroy swung down theslope between his captors. 

Thus they watched his going, and he had been spared that sick pain hadhe known. 

When it was over, Prix Laroux turned back to the deserted factory andstood hesitating on its step. 

This was one of the crises which so commonly confronted the fur industryin the North-west. 

What had he a right to do?

The simple man considered carefully. What right but the right ofhumanity to do the best for the many could send a servant into the seatof power?

And yet who among them all was fitted?

Not the clerks, youths from the Bay, not the traders nor the trappers. 

With a daring heart the venturer from Grand Portage went in across thesill. 

To a man the men of De Seviere rallied to him and council was held. 

Everywhere in the trading-room, the living-room behind, were evidencesof the factor and Ridgar. It seemed as if the two men had but juststepped out-were not in hostile hands drifting down the river toward anunspeakable fate. 

In the midst of the grave-faced council another step sounded on thesill and once again Maren Le Moyne stood looking in at the factory door, though this time there was no eager interest on her face, only a drawntenseness which cut to the heart of her leader like a knife. 

"Come in, Maren, " he said in aching sympathy. 

"Men, " she said straightly, "is there none among you who will turn ahand to save his factor?"

Over every face her eyes travelled slowly, hot and burning. 

In every face she read the same thing, --a pitying wonder at the folly ofher words. 

"Aye, " spoke up Henri Corlier, grizzled and weathered by his years ofloyal service to the Great Company, "not a man among us, Ma'amselle, butwould give his life if it would serve. It would not serve. "

"And you?" her gaze shifted feverishly to Laroux; "you, Prix?"

"'Tis useless, Maren. What would you have us do?"

"Do?"

She straightened by the door, and the hand on the lintel gripped untilthe nails went white. 

"Do? Anything save sit with closed gates in safety while savages burnyour factor at the stake! The Hudson's Bay brigade comes from York thisvery month. What easier than to meet it and get help of men and guns?"

"Nay, " said Laroux gently; "you do but dream, Maren. "

Whereat the girl turned abruptly from the doorway and went down amongthe cabins. 

Here and there in the doorways groups of women stood together, theirvoices hushed and trouble in their eyes. 

As Maren passed, seeing nothing to right or left, they looked in pityupon her. 

The heart of this woman was drifting with the canoes, --but with whichman?

"'Tis the gay Nor'wester with his golden curls, " whispered Tessa Bibyesympathetically. 

"The Nor'wester? 'Tis little you know, truly, Tessa, " said the youngwife of old Corlier. "What maid in her senses would look twice at yonderbe-laced dandy when a man like Anders McElroy stood near?"

"Aye, an' may the Good God have mercy on our factor!" whimpered awithered old woman, wife of a trapper, making the sign of the cross;"nor hold back His mercy from the other!"

Night seemed to fall early on Fort de Seviere, waiting sadly for itshealing touch on fevered hearts. 

Throughout the long day a waiting hush had lain upon the post, anexpectancy of ill. 

Over the dark forest the stars came out on a velvet sky, and a littlewind came out of the south, nightbirds called from the depths, and peacespread over the Northland like a blanket. 

While the twilight lasted with its gorgeous phantasmagoria there werenone of the accustomed sounds of pleasure in the post, --no fiddlesqueaked by the stockade wall, no happy laughter wafted from the cabins. Even the sleepy children seemed to feel the strangeness and hushed theirpeevish crying. 

Night and darkness and loneliness held sway, and in one heart theshadows of the world were gathered. 

What was the meaning of this Life whose gift was Pain, where was theglory of existence?

By the window to the east Maren Le Moyne stood in the darkness, with herhands upon her breast and her face set after the manner of the dreamerwho follows his visions in simpleness of soul. 

Once again a great call was sounding from the wilderness, as that whichlured her to the Whispering Hills had sounded since she could remember, once more the Long Trail beckoned, and once more she answered, simplyand without fear. 

She waited for the depth of night. 

Long she stood at the little window, facing the east like someworshipper, even until the wheeling stars spelled the mid hour. 

To Marie she gave one thought, --child-like Marie with her dependence andher loving heart. But Marie, to whom she had been all things, was safein the care of Henri. There remained only the dream of the WhisperingHills and the illusive figure of a man, --an old man, sturdy of form andwith blue eyes set in swarthy darkness. 

Poignant was the pain that assailed her at that memory. Would she everreach that shadowy country, ever fulfil the quest that was hers from thebeginning? Did she not wrong that ghostly figure which seemed to gazewith reproach across the years? Her own blood called, and she turnedaside to follow the way of a stranger, an alien whose kiss had broughther all sorrow. 

And yet she was helpless as the water flowing to the sea. The primalquest must wait. Her being turned to this younger man as the needle tothe pole, even though his words were false, his kiss a betrayal. 

When the mid hour hung in silence over the wilderness a figure came outof the darkness and stood at the gate beside that watcher, Cif Bordoux, who paced its length with noiseless tread. 

A strange figure it was, clad in garments that shone misty white inthe shadow, whose fringes fluttered in the warm wind and whose glowingplastron glittered in the starlight. 

"Cif Bordoux, " said the figure, "I would go without. "

Wondering and startled, Bordoux would have refused if he dared; but thiswas the leader of the Long Trail and her word had been his law for manymoons, nor had he ever questioned her wisdom. 

Therefore he drew the bolts and opened the gate the width of a man'sbody, and Maren Le Moyne slipped outside the palisade into the night. 

A rifle hung in her arm and a pouch of bullets dangled at her knee. 

Swiftly and silently she pushed a canoe into the water at the landing, stepped in, and with one deep dip of a paddle sent the frail craft outto midstream. She did not turn her head for a farewell glance toward thepost, but set her face toward the way that led to the Pays d'en Haut andthe man who journeyed thither. 

Deep and even her paddle took the sweet waters and the current shot herforward like a racer. The dark shores flowed by in a long black ribbonof soft shadow, their leaning grasses and foliage playing with theripples in endless dip and lift. No fear was in her, scarce any thoughtof what she did, only an obeying of the call which simplified allthings. 

McElroy was in danger, and she followed him. 

That was all she knew, save the mighty sorrow of his falseness whichnever left her day or night. 

He had taught her love in that one passionate embrace in the forest, andit was for all time. 

What mattered it that he had turned from her for another? That was thesorry tangle of the threads of Fate, --she had naught to do with it. 

Love was born in her and it set a new law unto her being, the law ofservice. 

Every fibre in her revolted at thought of his death. If it was to bedone beneath the pitying Heaven, he should be saved. He must be helpedto escape. The other was insupportable. Nothing mattered in all theworld save that. Therefore she set herself, alone and fearless, tofollow the tribe of the Nakonkirhirinons to the far North if need be, tohang on their flank like a wolverine, to take every chance the goodGod might send. Chief of these was her hope of the Hudson's Bay brigadewhich should be coming into the wilderness at this time of year. Somewhere she must meet them and demand their help. 

There was no rebellion in her, no hope of gain in what she did. Love wasof her own soul alone, since that evening by the factory when she hadseen the factor bend his head and kiss the little Francette. 

No more did she think of his words in the forest, no more did she dreamof the wondrous glory of that first kiss. 

Far apart and impersonal was McElroy now, --only she loved him with thatvast idolatry which seeks naught but the good of its idol. 

Even if he loved Francette he must be saved for that happiness. 

Therefore she knelt in a cockleshell alone on a rushing river and spedthrough, a wilderness into appalling danger. 

Such was the compelling power of that love which had come tardily toher. 

CHAPTER XVIII "I AM A STONE TO YOUR FOOT, MA'AMSELLE"

At dawn Maren shot her craft into a little cove, opal and pearl inthe pageantry of breaking light, and drawing it high on shore, wentgathering little sticks for a micmac fire. 

The bullet pouch held small allowance of food. She would eat and sleepfor a few hours. 

Deep and ghostly with white mist-wraiths was the forest, shoulderingclose to the living water, pierced with pine, shadowy with tremblingmaple, waist-high with ferns. She looked about with the old love of thewild stirring dumbly under the greater feeling that weighted her soulwith iron and wondered vaguely what had come over the woods and thewaters that their familiar faces were changed. 

With her arms full of dead sticks she came back to the canoe, --and faceto face with Marc Dupre. His canoe lay at the cove's edge and his eyeswere anguished in a white face. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said simply, "I came. "

No word was ready on the maid's lips. She stood and looked at him, withthe little sticks in her arms, and suddenly she saw what was in hiseyes, what made his lips ashen under the weathered tan. 

It was the same thing that had changed for her the face of the watersand the wood. She had learned in that moment to read a man better thanshe had read aught in her life beside the sign of leaf and wind. 

"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried out sharply; "God forbid!"

The youth came forward and took the sticks from her, dropping them onthe ground and holding both her hands in a trembling clasp. 

"Forbid?" he said and his voice quivered; "Ma'amselle, I love you. Though my heart is full of dread, I am at your feet. By the voice ofmy own soul I hear the cry of yours. We are both past help, it seems, Ma'amselle, -yet am I that stone to your foot which we pledged yonder bythe stockade wall. You will let me go the long trail with you? You willgive me to be your stay in this? You will let me do all a man can do tohelp you take the factor from the Nakonkirhirinons?"

The infinite sadness in Dupre's voice was as a wind across a harp ofgold, and it struck to Maren's heart with unbearable pain. 

Her eyes, looking straight into his, filled slowly with tears, and hiswhite face danced grotesquely before her vision. 

"M'sieu, " she said quite simply, "I would to God it had been given meto love you. We have ever seen eye to eye save in that wherein we shouldhave. And I know of nothing dearer than this love you have given me. Ifyou would risk your life and more, M'sieu, I shall count your going oneof the gifts of God. "

"I cannot ask you to return, Ma'amselle, --too well do I know you, --norto consider all you must risk for, this, --life and death and the certainslander of the settlement, --though by all the standards of manhood Ishould do so. The heart in me is faithful echo of your own. Thistrail must be travelled, --therefore we travel it together. And, oh, Ma'amselle! Think not of my love as that of a man! Rather do I adore theground beneath your foot, worship at the shrine of your pure and gentlespirit! See!"

With all the prodigal fire of his wild French blood, the youth droppedon his knee and, catching the fringe on the buckskin garment, pressed itto his lips. 

For once Maren, unused to tears, could speak no word. 

She only drew him up, her grip like a man's upon his wrists, and turnedto the making of the fire. 

Dupre drew up his canoe and took a snared wild hen from the bow. 

 * * * * * * * * *

"I think, Ma'amselle, " said the youth when Maren awaked some hours laterfrom a heavy sleep, during which Dupre had killed the little smoke ofthe fire and kept silent watch from the shore, "that we had best leaveyour canoe here and take mine. It is much the better craft. "

"So I see. Mine was but the first I could put my hands upon in thedarkness. "

"'Tis that of old Corlier, and sadly lacking in repair. If you willsteer, Ma'amselle?"

Thus set forth as forlorn a hope as ever lost itself in that vast regionof hard living and daily tragedy, with the strength of the man setbehind the woman's wisdom in as delicate a compliment as ever breatheditself in silken halls, and the blind courage of the dreamer urged iton.. 

At the forks of Red River they passed the signs of a landing. 

Here had the Indians summarily sent ashore all of the Nor'westers whohad been with De Courtenay and who had followed in the uncertainty offear, not daring to desert lest they be overtaken and massacred. 

All, that is, save Bois DesCaut and the lean, hawk-faced Runners of theBurnt Woods. 

Thanking their gods, the North-west servants had lost no time in takingadvantage of the fact that they were not wanted, leaving their Montrealmaster to whatever fate might befall him. 

Dupre went ashore and examined the reach of land, the trampled grass, abroken bush or two. 

"Ten men, I think, " he said, returning, "and all in tremendous haste. The Nor'westers escaping, I have no doubt. Would our captives were amongthem. "

"No such fortune, M'sieu, " said Maren calmly, "Heard you not the crybefore the gate in that unhallowed scramble what time they took thefactor and the venturer? 'Twas 'a skin for a skin. ' There are manyguards. "

The summer day dreamed by in drowsy beauty, like a woman or a rosefull-blown, and Maren, who would at another time have seen each smallestdetail of its perfection through the eye of love, saw only the rushingwater ahead and counted time and distance. 

Dupre, kneeling in the bow, his lithe brown arms bare to the shoulder, where the muscles lifted and fell like waves, was silent. Sadness satupon him like a garment, yet lightened by a holy joy. 

Odd servers of Love, these two, who knew only its pain without itspleasure, yet who were standing on the threshold of its Holy of Holies. 

Of nights they sat together at the tiny fire of a few laid sticks andtalked at intervals in a strange companionship. 

Never again did they speak of love, nor even so much as skirt itsfringes, though the young trapper read with wistful eyes its workingin the woman's face. Out of her eyes had gone a certain light to bereplaced by another, as if a star had passed near a smouldering worldand gone on, changed by the contact, its radiance darkened by a deeperglow. 

The firm cheeks, dusky as sunset, had lost something of their contour. 

Like comrades, too, they shared the work and the watches, the girlstanding guard with rifle and ball while Dupre snatched heavy sleep, herself dropping down like the veriest old wolf of the North on mossybank or green grass for the rest they sternly shortened. 

"'Tis near the time of the Hudson's Bay brigade, is it not, M'sieu?" shewould ask sometimes. "Think you we shall meet them surely if we skirtthe eastern shore of Winnipeg?"

And Dupre would always answer, "Assuredly. By the third week in Julythey will be at the upper bend where the river comes down from York. TheNakonkirhirinons will hold to the west, going up Nelson River and westthrough the chain of little lakes that lie to the south of Winnipeg, thence gaining Deer River and that Reindeer Lake which sends them forthinto their unknown region beyond the Oujuragatchousibi. We, then, willmake straight for the eastern shore, skirting upward to the interceptionof the ways, and we will surely meet the brigade. "

"And they will surely lend help, think you, to a factor of the Companyin such grave plight?"

"Surely, Ma'amselle. "

So the hours of day and darkness slipped by with dip of paddle and withportage, with snatched rest and fare of the wild. 

In a plentiful forest and on an abundant stream Dupre was at no loss forfood. Trout, sparkling and fresh from the icy water, roasted on forkedsticks stuck in the ground beside a bed of coals, made fare for anepicure, and the young trapper, watching Maren as she knelt to tendthem, shielding her face with her hand, thought wistfully of a cabinwhere the fire leaped on the hearth and where this woman passed back andforth at the tasks of home. 

"'Tis too great a thing to ask of le bon Dieu, " he said in his heart;"'tis not permitted even that one dream of such joy, --'twould be heavenrobbed of its glory. "

So he fished and hunted for her, as the primal man has hunted and fishedfor his woman since time began, tended her fires and guarded her sleep, and the wistful sadness within him grew with the passing days. 

Down that northbound river the lone canoe with its two people hurriedafter the great flotilla, silent and determined, like a starved wolf onthe flanks of a caribou herd. 

Out on the breast of the great blue lake it, too, was shot by therushing waters, lone little cockleshell, to head its prow to theeastward, where the green shore curved away, to take its infinitesimalchance of victory against all odds. 

When the sun came out of the eastern forest, a golden ball in a cloudof fire, it saw the light craft already cutting the cool waters ofWinnipeg. When it sank into the western woods the bobbing dot was stillshooting forward. 

Child of the wilderness by birth was Dupre, child of the wilderness bydream and desire was Maren, and its simple courage was inborn in both. 

The Indians were a day and night ahead, hurrying by dawn and dusk to thenorth, that the body of the dead chief, cured like a mummy by thesmoke curling from the big tepee at every stop, might have burial, theearth-bound spirit begin its journey to the shadowy hunting-grounds. 

When McElroy took his last look backward at the blue lake from thenorthern end, Maren and Dupre were making their last camp before the BigBend on the eastern shore. 

"How soon, think you, M'sieu?" she asked that night, standing beside thelittle fire; "how soon will they come, --the H. B. C. 's from York?"

"To-morrow, most like, or in a few days at most. "

This evening luck had deserted his fishing, so the trapper took a rifleand went into the woods after a fool-hen. Thoughts kept him company;thoughts of love and its strangeness, of the odd decrees of Fate and thehelplessness of man. How all the world had changed with its coming, this love which hail been born in an hour what time he had listened to awoman's voice beside the stockade wall, and how the very soul within himhad changed also. 

Where had been lightness and the recklessness of youth there was now awistful tenderness so vast that it covered his life as the pearly mistcovered the world at dawn. 

Where he had taken all of joy that post and settlement, friend and foecould give, lived for naught but his sparkling pleasures, he was nowpossessed of a great yearning to give to this woman, this goddess of theblack braids; to give, only to give to her; to give of his strength, ofhis overwhelming love; aye, of even his heart's blood itself as he hadtold her in the beginning. 

He was long in finding a fat grouse this evening, and when he returnednight was thick on forest and shore. 

Light of tread in his moccasins, Dupre came quietly out not far from theblaze of the small fire, and stopped among the shoulder-high brush thatfringed the forest. 

In the glow of the fire Maren knelt before a green stake set upright inthe earth, from a fork of which there hung a black iron crucifix, itsivory Christ gleaming in the light. On either side of this pitiful altarthere flamed, in lieu of candles, a fagot taken from the pine. 

On her knees, her hanging hands clasped and her face, raised to theSymbol, she spoke, and the deep voice was sweet with its sliding minors. 

"Jesu mia, " she said softly, "forgive Thou our sins--Ours. Teach me Thylesson, --me with pain that will not cease. For him, --Oh, Thou Lord ofHeaven, comfort him living, --shrive him Thyself in dying! Let notthe unspeakable happen! Send, send Thou that help without which I amhelpless, and failing that, send me the strength of him who wrestledwith the Angel, the wisdom of Solomon! Not for my love, O Christ, but for him, grant that I may find help to save him from death! Andmore, --deliver also that venturer who, but for my thoughtless words ofthe red flower, would be now safe on the Saskatchewan. These Iimplore, in mercy. And for this last I beg in humbleness of spiritcomplete, --Grant Thou peace to the friend whose eyes eat into my heartwith pity! Peace, peace, Jesu of the Seven Scars, have mercy on him, for he is good to his foundations! I beg for him peace and forgettingof unhappy me! Reward him in some better fate, this youth of the tenderheart, of the great regard! Save us, Thou Lamb Jesus--"

In the dark eyes there was a shine of tears, the lips, with their curledcorners, were trembling. The face upturned in the fitful light was alltenderness. The calm brown hands clasped before her were all strength. 

Marc Dupre, in the forest's edge, felt his breast heave with an emotionbeyond control as he stood so, looking upon the scene, listening to thesliding voice. Darkness hid the wilderness, out on the face of the lakea fish leaped with a slap, and a nightbird called shrilly off to thesouth. With aching throat the trapper turned softly back into the woods. When he came later along the shore, with heavier step than was his wont, the fagot and the forked stake were gone, there was no black crucifix, and Maren waited by the fire, water brought from the lake in Dupre'ssmall pail, the little sticks ready for the roasting. 

"Let me have the grouse, M'sieu, " she said; "the hunt was long?"

But Dupre did not answer. 

CHAPTER XIX THE HUDSON'S BAY BRIGADE

The two days that followed were heavy ones to Maren. 

No farther did they dare venture lest they pass to the west and missthe brigade coming down from the north and entering the lake at thenortheast extremity. 

So they waited on the shore in anxiety of spirit, watching the brightwaters with eyes that ached with the intensity of the vigil, and Duprehunted in the forest and over the sand dunes, among the high meadowsthat broke the heavy woods in this region, and down along the reaches ofthe water. 

"Farther with each day!" thought Maren to herself. "Holy Mother, sendthe brigade!"

And Dupre echoed the thought in sadness of soul. 

"More pain for her heart in each hour's delay. Would the trial weredone!"

About three of the clock on the first day of waiting there came soundsof singing and a string of canoes rounded a bend of the shore at thesouth. 

"M'sieu!" cried Maren swiftly; "who comes?"

Dupre, tinkering at the canoe overturned on the pebbly beach, straightened and looked in the direction she indicated. 

He looked long with hand to eye, and presently turned quietly. 

"Nor'westers, I think, Ma'amselle. They come from Fort William to theWilderness. "

Fort William!

Back along the trail went memory with mention of the post on the distantshore of Lake Superior. How oft had she peeped with fascinated eyes frombehind her father's forge at sturdy men in buckskins who spoke with theblacksmith about the wonders of the country of the Red River, and theyhad come from Fort William. She saw again the bustle and activity ofGrand Portage, the comfortable house of the Baptistes. Once more shefelt the old yearning for the unknown. 

And this was it, --this gleaming stretch of inland sea, one man who stoodby her and another who betrayed her with a kiss, yet who drew her afterhim as the helpless leaf, fallen to the stream, is whirled into thewhite destruction of the rapids. 

Aye, verily, this was the unknown. 

She was looking down the lake with the sun on her uncovered head, on thesoft whiteness of the doeskin garment, and to young Dupre she had neverseemed so near the divine, so far and unattainable. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said presently, "if these newcomers speak us, heed younot what I may say. There are times in the open ways when a man must liefor the good of himself--or others. "

The girl turned her eyes from the canoes, some twenty of them, to hisface. It was grave and quiet. 

"Assuredly, " she said after a moment's scrutiny. "Had I best hide in thebushes, M'sieu?"

"No, they have seen us. "

Sweeping forward, the brigade of the Nor'westers, for such it proved tobe, headed near in a circle and the head canoe turned in to shore. 

"Friend?" called a man in the prow; whom Dupre knew for a winteringpartner by the name of McIntosh of none too savoury report. 

"Hudson's Bay trapper, M'sieu, " he said politely, going a step nearerthe water. "I wait, with Madame my wife, the coming of our brigade fromYork, now one day overdue. "

"Ah, --my mistake. I had thought the H. B. C. 's this fortnight gone down. As ever, they are a trifle behind. "

While he addressed Dupre his bold eyes were fastened on Maren, where shehung a dressed fish on a split prong. 

"Not behind, M'sieu, " said the young man gently. "They but take the timeof certainty. A Saulteur passing this way at daylight reported them asat McMillan's Landing. "

"Then your waiting is short. I am glad, --for Madame. So lone a camp mustbe hard for a woman. "

With the words the Nor'wester scanned the girl's face with a glance thatpierced her consciousness, though her eyes were fixed on her task. Not atinge of deeper colour came to her cheeks. There was no betrayal of thepart Dupre had assigned her, and with a word of parting the canoe swungout to its place, though McIntosh's eyes clung boldly to her beauty solong as he could see her. 

"Ah-h, --a close shave!" thought the trapper as he picked up a splinterand once more fell to upon the boat. 

Twenty-four hours later there came out of the north the thrice blessedbrigade of the H. B. C. , bound down the lake to Grand Rapids, where thecanoes would separate into two parties, one going up the Saskatchewan toCumberland House, the other down to the country of the Assiniboine. 

Eager as a hound for the quarry Maren stood forth beside Dupre to hailthem. 

Head of the brigade was Mr. Thomas Mowbray, a gentleman of fine presenceand of gentle manners. 

In answer to the hail from shore he came to, and presently he stood inthe prow of his boat listening to an appeal that lightened his graveeyes. 

"Men we must have, M'sieu, " Maren was saying passionately; "men of theHudson's Bay. Against all odds we go of a truth, but strategy and witaccomplish much, and the Nakonkirhirinons have no thought of rescue. Besides, the farther north they get the less keen will be theirvigilance. With men, M'sieu, we may retake, by strategy alone of course, the factor of Fort de Seviere. Therefore have we come across your way, In the Name of Mary, M'sieu, I beg that you refuse me not!"

She was like some young priestess as she stood in the westering light onthe green-fringed shore, one hand caught in the buckskin fringe at herthroat and her eyes on Mr. Mowbray's upright face. 

"Upon my word, Madame--?" he said when she had finished. 

"Ma'amselle, M'sieu, " she corrected simply. 

"Ma'amselle, --your pardon, --upon my word, have I never seen suchappalling courage! Do you not know that you go upon a quest as hopelessas death? This tribe, --I have heard a deal too much about them, andonce they came to York two seasons back, --are unlike any others of theIndians of the country. Ruled by a peculiar justice which takes 'askin for a skin'--not ten or an hundred as do the Blackfeet or theSioux, --they yet surpass all others in the cruelty of that taking. Haveyou not heard tales of this surpassing cruelty, Ma'amselle?"

"Aye, we have heard. It hastens our going. M'sieu the factor awaitsthat cruelty in its extremest manner with the reaching of the Pays d'enHaut. "

"Mother of God!" said Mr. Mowbray wonderingly. "And yet, --I see!"

"And he is Hudson's Bay, M'sieu, " said the girl sharply; "a good factor. Would the Company not make an effort to save such, think you?"

Mr. Mowbray stood a moment, many moments, thinking with a line drawndeep between his eyes. Out on the burnished water the canoes lay idly, the red kerchiefs of the trappers making bright points of colour againstthe blue background. 

Presently he said slowly

"What you ask is against all precedent, Ma'amselle, and I may lose myhead for tampering with my orders, --but I will see what can be done. "

The brigade drew in, and when dusk fell upon the wilderness a dozenfires kept company with the lone little spiral from Dupre's camp. 

Sitting upon the shingle with her hands clasped hard on her knees, Maren shook her head when the young trapper brought her the breast of agrouse, roasted brown, along with tea and pemmican from the packs of theH. B. Men. 

"I thank you, my friend, " she said uncertainly; "but I cannot--not now. Not until I know, M'sieu. Without many hands at the paddles how can weovertake the Nakonkirhirinons?"

Thus she sat, alone among men, staring into the fire, and it seemed asif the heart in her breast would burst with its anxiety. A woman was atall times a thing of overwhelming interest in the wilderness, and sucha woman as this drew every eye in the brigade to feast upon herbeauty, each according to the nature of the man, either furtively, withtentative admiration, or openly, with boldness of daring. 

And presently, after the meal was over, she saw Mr. Mowbray gather hismen in a group. For a few moments he spoke to them, and a ripple ofwords, of ejaculations and exclamations, went across the assemblage likea wave. 

"Nom de Dieu! Not alone?"

"To the Pay d'en Haut, --those two?"

"A woman? Mother of God!"

Wondering eyes turned to the figure in the glow of the fire, to thebrown hands hard clasped, the face with its flame-lit eyes. 

"Five men and a good canoe I send with them, " said Mowbray quietly; "whogoes? Know you it is a quest of death. "

"Who goes, M'sieu?" cried a French trader. "I! 'Tis worth a year of thefur trade!"

"And I!"

"And I!"

"And I!"

Once more she had made her appeal to man, man in the abstract, and oncemore he had come to her, this maid of dreams. 

Mr. Mowbray had lost half his brigade had he not fixed on those who werethe strongest among the volunteers, the best canoe-men, the best shots. 

Such were these men of the wilderness, excitable, ready for any hazard, drawn by the longest odds, and to serve a woman gave the last zest todanger. 

Seldom enough did a woman appeal to them in such romantic wise. 

"Brilliers, --Alloybeau, --Wilson, " picked out Mr Mowbray, with a fingerpointing his words; "McDonald, --Frith, --make ready the fourth canoe, Take store of pemmican and all things necessary for light travel andquick. From to-morrow you will answer to Ma'amselle. When she is throughwith you report to me, either at Cumberland or York, according to thetime. "

And he left his men to walk over and seat himself beside Maren Le Moyneon the shingle. 

It was dark of the moon and the night was thick with stars and forestsounds. Out on the lake beyond the ranged canoes at the water's edge, the fish were slapping. 

"Ma'amselle, " said Mr. Mowbray gravely, "I have detailed you five men, acanoe, and stores. May God grant that they may serve your purpose. "

A long sigh escaped the girl's lips. 

"And may He forever hold you in His grace, M'sieu!" she saidtremulously; "and bless you at the hour of death!"

"And now, Ma'amselle, " he said gently, "tell me more of this strangeadventure. How comes it that a young maid, alone but for a youthfultrapper, goes to the Pays d'en Haut after a factor, of the Company? Whydid this duty not fall to the men of the post?"

"They said, as you, M'sieu, but an hour back, that it was a quest ofdeath. They love life. I love the factor. "

She made her explanation simply, in all innocence, looking gravely intothe fire, and Mr. Mowbray gasped inwardly. 

"I see. So Anders McElroy is your lover. A fine man, worthy of the loveof such a woman, and blessed above men in its possessing if I may makeso bold, Ma'amselle. "

"Nay, --you mistake. "

Maren shook her head. 

"Not my lover. I but said that I love the factor He does not love me, M'sieu. "

"What? Heaven above us! What was that? Does not love you! And yet you gointo the Pays d'en Haut after the North Indians? You speak in riddles. "

"Why, what plainer? Life would die in me, M'sieu, did I leave him todeath by torture. I can do no less. "

Mr. Mowbray sat in silence, amazed beyond speech. 

When he rose an hour later to go to his camp he laid a hand on thebeaded shoulder wet with the night dew. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said, "I have seen a glimpse of God through the blindeyes of a woman. May Destiny reward you. "

Thus it came that before the dawn reddened the east the camp of thebrigade broke up for the start to the south and west, and one big canoewith six men waited at the shore for one woman, who held both the handsof Mr. Mowbray in her own and thanked him without words. 

As the lone craft shot forth upon the steel-blue waters the leader ofthe Hudson's Bay brigade looked after the figure in the bow, glimmeringwhitely in the mists, and an unaccustomed tightness gripped his throat. 

He had two daughters of his own, sheltered safe in London, --two maids asfar from this woman of the wild as darkness from the light, soft, gentlecreatures, and yet he wondered if either were half so gentle, so trulytender. 

Ere the paddles dipped, the men in the canoes with one accord, touchedoff by some quick-blooded French adventurer, set up a chanson, --abeating rhythmic song of Love going into Battle, --and every throat tookit up. 

It flowed across the lightening face of the waters, circled around thelone canoe and the woman therein, and seemed to waft her forward withthe God-speed of the wilderness. 

She lifted her hand above her without turning her head, and it shonepale in the mist, an eerie beacon, and thus the boat passed from view inthe greyness, though as the paddles dipped for the start the song stillrung forth, beating along the shore. 

 * * * * * * * * * * *

"Men, " said Maren Le Moyne at the first stop, "this is a trail of greathazard. There is in it neither gift nor gain, only a mighty risk. YetI have asked you forth upon it as men of the H. B. C. Because the man Iwould save is a factor of the Great Company. "

"Ma'amselle, " said Bitte Alloybeau, a splendid black-browed fellow, "itis enough. "

"Aye, --and more. " So was bound their simple allegiance. 

CHAPTER XX THE WOLF AND THE CARIBOU

Northward along Nelson River went the concourse of the Nakonkirhirinons, turning westward into the chain of little lakes above Winnipeg of whichDupre had spoken, sweeping forward over portage and dalle, and afterthem came the lone canoe, leaping the leagues like a loup-garou, for itnever rested. 

Day and night it shot forward, pulled by sturdy arms, half its peoplesleeping curled between thwarts, the other half manning the paddles, stopping for snatched rations, reading the signs of passing. So it creptforward upon the thing it sought, untiring, eager, absurd in its daringand its hope. 

Like an embodiment of that very absurdity of courage so dear to thehearts of these men, the girl sat in the prow, taking a hand in thework with the best of them, beaconing the way as she had done before herventurers of Grand Portage, firing them with her calm certainty, bindingthem to her more firmly with each day. 

To each bit of courtesy done eagerly to her there was her grave "I thankyou, "--at each portage and line her hand to the rope, her shoulder tothe pack, and all in the simple unconsciousness of her womanhood thatmade her what she was, --a leader. 

Before forty-eight hours had passed they would have followed her to thebrink of death, --to the Pays d'en Haut, to the heart of an hostile camp. 

They fixed their eyes on her shining braids, bare to the sun, andanticipated her commands, obeyed her few words implicitly, and who shallsay that many a dream did not weave itself around her in the summerdays, for every man in the boat was young. 

Who knew?

Perhaps the Nakonkirhirinons had already yielded to the savage wraththat takes a "skin for a skin, "--perhaps they had passed somewherein the forest, hidden from view from the water, the too well-knownblackened stake, the trodden circle. Perhaps there was no factor of Fortde Seviere. 

Only Marc Dupre, nearest Maren in every change and arrangement, had nosuch thoughts. Dreams enough he wove in all surety, but they had todo with the blinding heights of sacrifice, the wistful valleys ofrenunciation. 

His heart was full to overflowing with idolatry. From shadow andfireglow his dark eyes looked upon her with a love that had passed farbeyond the need of word or touch, that buoyed her up and supported herin strength and purity, like the silver cloud beneath the feet of theMadonna. 

And Maren, too, dreamed her dreams, for she had dreamed since the daysof the forge in Grand Portage, and they were sad as death. No moredid she list the sound of a western wind in the bending grass of a farcountry, the rush of virgin rivers, the whisper of pine-clad hills. The joy of the great quest was dead within her, the love of forestand stream, the lure of trail and trace. Sadness sat upon her like agarment. She only knew the pain that had birth that night in De Sevierewhen she sought McElroy to disclaim the giver of the red flower andfound him kissing the red-rose cheek of the little Francette. 

So went forth this little barque o' dreams. 

Meanwhile what of the two men who journeyed ahead?

With each day they lost a little of the love of life, for with thecunning which gave them their hazy fame the Nakonkirhirinons weretightening the screws of cruelty. 

Work beyond a man's strength was meted out to them. Alone in a longcanoe heavily laden, McElroy and De Courtenay were forced to keep thepace set by the boats, each of which carried five men. Blisters camein their hands, broke and rose again, sweat poured from their strainingbodies, and if they fell slow a spear-prod from the boat behind sentthem forward. 

How much more exquisite could be made the torture of a victim alreadyworn to the ragged edge, how much sooner the scream be wrung from histhroat. With each passing league that brought them nearer the end of thejourney could be seen the fiendish eagerness rearing in the glitteringeyes. 

Turn and turn they took, these two, of the hindmost seat in the canoe, for the back of each was unspeakable from the spear-prods. Without aword McElroy took his punishment as the lagging became more pronouncedfrom arms overtaxed at the paddles, but the long-haired adventurer fromthe Saskatchewan taunted them to their faces. 

Taunt and fling were unavailing. Of an unearthly poise were thesesavages from the distant north. With grinning good humour they withheldtheir anger, knowing full well that time would doubly repay. 

Here and there among them appeared those worst monsters of the wilds, INDIANS WITH BLUE EYES AND SQUARED-OUT TOES. 

Far up ahead went forward the canoe of the dead chief, with EdmontonRidgar sitting in silence among the blackened warriors. 

Never once did he glance backward, never once at the night camps did hecome near his factor. 

Throughout the long days McElroy pondered this in his heart and turnedit over and over without satisfaction. Unable to form any conclusionhe fell to thinking of their friendship and of the gentle nature of theman, the unbending faith of him. 

It was all a sorry riddle. 

"Brace up, M'sieu, " De Courtenay would laugh, even in the midst ofexhaustion; "sing, --smile, --perhaps it will be only the stake, notsomething worse. Console yourself, as do I, with--memories. "

And McElroy would say nothing, trying in his heart to hold back hiswrath against this man for whose death he was to be responsible. 

So went the uneven chase. Day's march of the savages and night's rest onthe green shores, mummying fires in the big tepee and the captiveslying in the sleep of exhaustion with one guard pacing the lodgeopening, --day's pursuit of the lone canoe, brief landings for teamade at a micmac fire, scanning of lake and river and forest, night'sunceasing forging ahead with Maren asleep in the prow, her head onDupre's blanket. 

When the last hard portage was made which carried them into Deer River, the girl looked to the west with a sudden fire of the old passion in hereyes. 

"So, M'sieu?" she said to Dupre, "it lies yonder, the Land of theWhispering Hills? Would God our course lay there!"

And Dupre, wondering, answered, "Aye, at the Athabasca, " for it wasto McElroy alone that she had uncovered her soul concerning the greatquest. 

In Deer River the signs began to be plainer and fresher, showing thepassing of the Indians, --here a camp but two days deserted, there scrapsof refuse not yet cleared away by forest scavengers, and the pursuersknew they drew close to danger and excitement. 

All day the men of Mowbray's brigade bent to the paddles in growingeagerness, and at the evening's stop Maren spoke to them, gatheredaround with cold rations in their hands, for no fire was lighted now. 

"To-morrow we will overtake the Nakonkirhirinons, " she said simply, asif that meant no more than speaking a brother brigade of Hudson's Bays, "and then will come the time of action. At night-camp we will make oureffort of deliverance. You, Alloybeau, and you, McDonald, will keepwithin my call whatever happens, while Frith and Brilliers and Wilsonwill stay with the canoe, ready for instant flight. M'sieu, " she laid ahand on Dupre's arm and her voice deepened softly, "is scout and captainand he goes at my side. More I cannot say until we know the lie of landto-morrow. "

So they again took boat, this little band of venturers than whom therewere no more daring threaders of the wilderness in all the vast unknowncountry; and Maren sat in the prow, her hands idle in her lap, for shehad paddled since four by the sun. 

Beside her, huddled half under the feet of Wilson on the foremostthwart, Dupre watched the stars as they came out in a turquoise sky, forthe sleep that was due him would not come. He thought of the morrowand what it would bring, and the sadness in his heart grew with thedeepening shades. 

The fringed garment of white doeskin lay under his elbow and a fold ofit brushed his cheek, and, boy that he was, its touch brought the quicktears to his eyes. 

"Ma'amselle, " he said presently, when the turquoise had faded to purpleand the purple to velvet black, with the stars like a dowager's diamondsthickset upon it, "Ma'amselle, what think you is behind the stars?"

Maren turned her face to him like a sweet young moon, pale in the night. 

"Behind the stars? Why, Heaven, M'sieu, where all is glory; Heavenassuredly. "

"Aye. Where all is glory. Yes, for those who keep the holy mandates, whose hearts are pure as that heaven itself. For such as you. Oh, HolyMother!--" his voice fell to a whisper; "there is no heaven, Ma'amselle, so pure as the white heart of you! But for him whose days have gone likethe butterfly's flight from one prodigal joy to the next, whose hearthas known neither love of God nor love of a good woman, save for alittle space, whose tongue has boasted and blasphemed, and whose lifehas been worth no jot of good, --what, think you, a waits so lost a manas this?"

The light "whoosh, --sst--whoosh" of the dipping paddles, the occasionalrattle of a handle on a gunwale, formed a blending background againstwhich his low words were distinguishable only to the girl beside him. 

She looked long into his upturned face. The wistfulness sat heavyupon it. The youthfulness of this dashing trapper of the posts andsettlements came out plain in the starlight. She saw again thepliant strength beneath the slender grace, caught the suggestion ofcontradicting forces that she had felt one day in Marie's doorway whenyoung Dupre swung up the main way of Fort de Seviere, and beneath it allshe saw that which had caused her to say on that first morning of thelong trail when he faced her in the hidden cove, "Would it had beengiven me to love you, M'sieu!"

All this passed through her aching heart, and presently she said with alittle catch in her deep voice, "What awaits a man like this? A man who has done all these things andwho speaks of their folly, who thinks of God in the nighttimes, whose heart turns with longing to that land behind the stars, and whogives, "--she paused a moment, --"I cannot say the rest, --But--but--Oh, there awaits this man the smile of that Christ of the Seven Scars, theloving tears of Our Lady of Sorrows, the very grace of the Good God!"

"Truly, --Ma'amselle?" asked Marc Dupre wistfully, "in your heart--notout of its goodness?"

"In my heart of hearts I think this, M'sieu. "

They fell silent for a long time, while the stars travelled with them inthe broken water and the ripples lapped and sucked at the shores and theswift stream hurried to the bay. 

At length the trapper tentatively raised his hand and touched the barearm of Maren where it shone brown beneath the white of the fringedsleeve. 

"I thank you for those words, Ma'amselle, " he said simply; "they arehealing as the Confessional to my ragged soul. "

CHAPTER XXI TIGHTENED SCREWS

"M'sieu, " said De Courtenay, "what think you? It would seem thatsomething stirs in this camp of squaws and old men. Gaiety and festivegarb appear. Behold yonder brave with a double allowance of paintedfeathers and more animation than seems warrantable. What's to do?"

The man was worn to the bone with the day's work, yet the old brillianceplayed whimsically in his eyes. This day a wearing burden of skin packshad been added to the canoe, ladening it to the water's lip, and thevicious prodding from behind had been in consequence of redoubledvigour. 

McElroy, reclining beside him on his face, --to lie on his back wasunbearable, --to one side of the camp, looked at the scene before them. 

Surely it seemed as if something was toward. 

Here and there among the Indians appeared strangers. More Bois-Brules, lean half-breeds more to be feared than any Indian from the Mandanecountry to the polar regions, decked half after the manner of white manand savage, all more animated than was the wont of these sullen Runnersof the Burnt Woods, they passed back and forth among the fires, andpresently McElroy caught the gleam of liquid that shone like rubies ortopaz in the evening light. 

"Aha!" he said, "these Bois-Brules that have joined our captors appearto have had dealings with the whites. Yonder is the source of yourdiscovered animation. Whiskey, as I live, and circling fast among thebraves. It bodes ill for us, my friend. "

"So? Why so?"

"Because never was redskin yet who could hold fire-water and himselfat the same time. No matter how determined they are to reachtheir stamping-ground before the ceremonies of our despatch, theirdetermination will evaporate like morning mists before the sun inthe warmth of the spirit, or I know not Indian nature. Prepare forsomething, M'sieu. "

As the evening fell and the fires leaped against the darkness, soundsincreased in the camp. Groups of warriors gathered and broke, voicesrose; and shrill yells began to cut above the melee of the noise. 

From time to time a brave would come running out of the bustle and, stopping near, glare ferociously at the captives. Twice a hatchetcame flittering through the firelight, its bright blade flashing asit circled, to fall perilously close, and several times a squaw or twoprodded one or the other with a moccasined toe. 

Once a young brave, his black eyes alight with devilishness, sprang outfrom the bushes behind and caught McElroy's face in a pinching claspof fingers. With one bound the factor was on his feet and had dealtthe stripling a blow which sent him sprawling with his oiled head ina squaw's fire. Instantly his long feather was ablaze and his yelp ofdismay brought forth a storm of derisive yells of laughter. 

McElroy sat quietly down again. 

"It has begun, M'sieu, " he said grimly. 

All night the liquor circled among the savages, as the spirit fired thebrains in their narrow skulls the uproar became worse. A huge fire wasbuilt in the centre of the camp, tom-toms placed beside it in the handsof old men, and, forming in a giant circle, the braves began a dance. 

At first it was the stamp-dance*, harmless enough, with bending formsand palms extended to the central fire and the ceaseless "Ah-a, ah-a-a, ah-a, " capable of a thousand intonations and the whole gamut ofsuggestion and portent, blood-chilling in its slow excitement. 

*I have witnessed this. --V. R. 

Without the circle the squaws fought and quarrelled over the portionof liquor doled out to them by their lords, and their clamour was worsethan the rest. 

No sleep came to the two white men lying at the foot of a tree to thewest of the camp, with a guard pacing slowly between them and liberty. 

Instead, thoughts were seething like dalle's foam in the mind of each. 

If only this giant guard might drink deep enough of the libations of theothers, --who knew?--there might be the faint chance of escape for whichthey had watched ceaselessly since leaving Red River. 

But, with the irony of fate, this one Indian became the model warriorof the tribe. As the confusion and uproar grew in intensity, one afteranother joined the dancing circle, until it seemed that every brave inthe camp was leaping around the fire. Blue-eyed Indians, Bois-Brules, Nakonkirhirinons, they circled and uttered the monotonous "Ah-a, ah-a, "and in the light could be seen the white lock on the temple of BoisDesCaut. 

"I should have killed him long ago, " thought McElroy simply, "as onekills a wolf, --for the good of the settlement. "

As they lay watching the unearthly orgy at the fire a plan slowly tookshape in McElroy's mind. They were unbound as they had been for manydays, the silent guard proving sufficient surety for their retention, and they were two to one in the wild confusion of the growingexcitement. What easier than a swift grapple in the dusk, one man lockedin combat with the sentinel and one lost in the forest and the night? Itwas a desperate chance, but they were desperate men with the post, thehatchet, and the matete before them. As the thought grew it took onproportions of possibility and the factor threw up his head with the oldmotion, shaking out of his eyes the falling sun-burnt hair. 

"M'sieu, " he said, in a low voice, carefully modulated to the carelesstone of weary speech which was their habit of nights; "M'sieu, I have aplan. "

The cavalier looked up quickly. 

"Ah!" he said; "a plan? Of what, --conduct at the stake? The etiquette ofthe ceremony of the Feast of Flame?"

"Peace!" replied McElroy sternly; "you jest, M'sieu. We are in sorestraits and a drowning man snatches at straws. It is this. The fire ofliquor is rising out there. Hear it in the rising note of the blendedvoices. How long, think you, will they be content with the dance andthe chanting, the tom-toms and the empty fire? How long before we aredragged in, to be the centre of affairs? In this plan of mine there isroom for one of us, a bare chance of escape. This guard behind, --he is apowerful man, but, with every warrior wild in the circling mass yonder, he might be engaged for the moment needed for one to dart into thedarkness and take to the river. Once there, the mercy of night andbending bushes might aid him. What think you?"

"Truly 'tis worth the try. My blood answers the risk. At the most itwould but hasten things. But give the word and we'll at it. "

"Nay, --we must understand each other, lest we bungle. As the plan wasmine, I take the choice of parts. There is a stain upon my conscience, M'sieu. " McElroy spoke simply from his heart, as was his wont. "Throughout this long journey it has lain heavy. Though I hold againstyou one grave offence, yet I grieve deeply that it was through my hastyanger you were brought to such sorry plight. As I am at fault, so wouldI heal that fault. This the way I find given me. When I spring for ourfriend of the painted feather, do you, M'sieu, waiting for nothing, taketo the bush with all the speed there is in you. And before we part knowthat, were we free, I would punish you as man to man for that momentbefore the gate of De Seviere with all pleasure. "

"Ah! You refer to Ma'amselle Le Moyne? By what right?"

"By the right of love, whose advances were more than half-reciprocatedbefore the advent of your accursed red flowers, --the right of man tofight for his woman. "

"Nom de Dieu!" De Courtenay threw back his head and laughed, the flecksof light from the fire flittering across his handsome features. "Youspeak a lost cause, my friend! She was mine since that first morning byyour well when the high head bent to my hand. What a woman she is, --Maidof the Long Trail, Spirit of the Woods and Lakes! A lioness with adove's heart! I have seen the Queen of the World in this God-forsakenwilderness; therefore is it worth while. "

"Stop!" cried McElroy sharply; "let the old wound be. Only make ready toact at once. "

"Aye, --I am ready now. "

"Then rise with me, --swiftly as possible, --when I count to three. One--"

The two men strained their bodies, leaning forward, for both had risento sit facing the fire when the dance began. 

"Two, --" breathed McElroy, "ready, M'sieu, --three!"

With one accord they leaped to their feet, and the factor in a flashwas upon the Indian just passing behind him. He had leaped high, forthe Nakonkirhirinon was taller than a common man, and he clutched themuscled neck in a grasp of steel, pressing his shoulder against hisadversary's face, to still the outcry he knew would come. 

The orgy at the fire was lifting its tone of riot into one of savageryand menace, the tom-toms beat more swiftly with gaining excitement, andthe yapping yells were growing more frequent. 

It was an auspicious moment and the heart of McElroy throbbed with asavage pleasure, but suddenly he felt other hands disputing his grip onthe astonished Indian, who was raining blows upon him having dropped hisgun in the first shock. Over the bare shoulder of the warrior, shininglike bronze in a gleam of light, he saw the face of De Courtenay, itsblue eyes alight. 

In a flash his grip was torn from behind, and, as the Indian reared hishead and threw back his great shoulders, lifting him clear of the earth, he heard the joyous voice of the cavalier. 

"Run!" it cried, as he fell clear; "run! And tell Maren Le Moyne thather name is last upon my lips, --her face last before--"

Out above the words there rang the shrill cry of the guard, his mouthuncovered by McElroy's shaking off. 

The Indian had whirled and grappled with De Courtenay, and, beforeMcElroy could tear him loose, fighting like a madman, out from theyelling circle there poured an avalanche of lunatics, jerked fromGehenna by that ringing cry. 

Foremost was Bois DesCaut, his evil eyes glinting like a witch's omen. 

Yelling, jumping, flaming with the liquor of the Bois-Brules, they fellupon the two men and dragged them, half-falling, half-running, towardthe circle, into it, and up to the fire. 

"Ho-ho! ho-ho-o! Ha-ha! ha-ha-a! ha-ha!"

Faces wild as the devil's dreams pushed close, hands plucked at them, and suddenly a dozen painted braves caught up handfuls of live coals andflung them upon them. 

In the midst of it McElroy looked stupidly at De Courtenay. 

"For the love of God!" he said, "why did you not run?"

"Why didn't you?"

The cavalier was laughing. 

"I could not, M'sieu, " he added; "the charm of the hazard was toogreat. "

And that was the last word he offered the man who would have deliveredhim, turning to face the savages. 

"Dogs!" he cried in French; "dogs and sons of dogs!"

Stooping suddenly, he snatched a horned headdress from the crown of anaged medicine man, scooped it full of glowing brands, and tossed itscontents straight into the wild faces before him. 

Then he straightened, crossed his arms, and smiled upon them incontempt. 

Pandemonium was loose. 

In breathless swiftness the captives were stripped to the skin, tiedhand and foot, and fastened to stakes set hastily up on either side thefire. 

"It begins to look, M'sieu, " called De Courtenay, across the space andthe roaring flames, "as if the Nor'westers and the Hudson's Bays mustscratch up a new wintering partner and a fresh factor, --though, 'odsblood! this one is fresh enough! Will they cure us as as they haveNegansahima?"

At mention of the dead chief a dozen missiles cut the night air andstruck the speaker. One, a lighted torch, landed full in his face, andMcElroy groaned aloud. 

If De Courtenay hoped by his taunts and his jeers to reach a swifterend, he was mistaken in that hope. No fire was kindled at their stakes, no sudden stroke of death maul or tomahawk followed his words. TheNakonkirhirinons had keener tortures, torments of a finer fibre thanmere physical suffering, and the Bois-Brules' liquor had stirred thehidden resources. 

Again the dancing commenced, but this time it was not the harmlessmeasure of the stamp-dance. Instead of the bending bodies, the rhythmicstamping of soft-shod feet, the extended palms, there were unspeakableleapings, writhings, and grimaces revolting in their horror, brandishingof knives, and yelling that was incessant. 

McElroy closed his eyes and forced his mind to the Petition for Mercy. 

Through the tenor of the beautiful words there cut from time to time DeCourtenay's voice, cool, contemptuous, a running fire of invective, nowin French, now in English, and again in the Assiniboine tongue, whichwas familiar to the Nakonkirhirinons, they being friends with thattribe. 

As the hubbub rose with the liquor two slabs were brought, roughsections of trees hastily smoothed with axe and hatchet, of the heightof a man and the thickness thereof, with a slight margin at top andsides. These were set up behind the stakes that held them, thus forminga background, and the two naked forms stood out in the firelight likepictures in white frames. 

A wise old sachem, hideously painted, drew a line on the ground atthirty feet, facing the central fire, and with a bony finger picked outa certain number of warriors. 

Full fifty there seemed to McElroy when he opened his eyes to see themranged before the line, all armed with knives that shone in the glow, and (grim irony of fate!) in the blades of some there was a familiarstamp--H. B. C. !

"Ah! Yuagh!" called the sachem, and two young men stepped forward, toeon the line, glanced each at a framed picture, drew up an arm, and, "Whut-t-t t-e-e-p, " whined two knives that flittered through the lightand struck quivering, one with its cool kiss on McElroy's cheek, theother just in the edge of the slab at De Courtenay's shoulder. 

A shout of derision greeted this throw, and two more took the place ofthe retiring braves, this time a Runner of the Burnt Woods, wearing thegarments of the white man, but smeared with bars of red and yellow paintacross the cheeks, and a white renegade. 

"A Nor'wester's man once, " thought McElroy; "another DesCaut. "

Again the "whut-t" of the whimpering blades, again the little impactin the wood behind, this time with more indifferent aim; for never waswhite man yet who sank or rose to Indian level in the matter of spear ortomahawk. 

They were brave men, these two, and they faced the singing kniveswithout a quiver of muscle, a droop of eye, while the joy of thesavages, at last turned loose, rose and rose in its wildness. 

For an hour the mob at the line threw and shifted, the vast circlesitting or standing in every attitude of keenest enjoyment. The slabsbristled with steel, to be cleaned and decorated anew, while the fire inthe centre leaped and crackled with an hundred voices. 

A stone's-throw away the grim tepee of the dead chief glimmered now outof the shadow, now in, and to the east behind a rocky bluff, throughwhich led a narrow gorge, the river hurried to the north. 

Blood-painted brilliant splotches here and there against the whitepictures, but neither man was limp in his bonds, neither fair headdrooped, neither pair of blue eyes flinched. De Courtenay's long curlshung like cords of gold against his bare shoulder, enhancing thegreat beauty of him, while his brilliant smile flashed with uncannysteadiness. McElroy's face was grave, lips tight, eyes narrow, andforehead furrowed with the thought he strove in vain to make connected. 

Suddenly every shade of colour drained out of his countenance, leavingit white as the virgin slab behind. 

On the outskirts of the concourse, just at the edge of shadow and light, Edmonton Ridgar stood apart and the look on his face was of mortalagony. As his eyes met those of his factor all doubt was swept away. This was his friend, McElroy knew in that one swift moment, even as hewatched his torture, his friend on whose faith and goodness he wouldstake his soul anew. It was strange what a keen joy surged through himwith that subtle knowledge, what smart of tear-mist stung his eyes. 

Long their gaze clung, filled with unspeakable things, things that werehigh as Heaven itself, that pass only between men clean of heart on theCalvaries of earth. 

Then, as gleaming eyes began to follow the fixed look of McElroy, headsto turn with waving of feathers on scalp-locks, the factor with aneffort took his eyes from Ridgar's. 

"Dog-eaters!" De Courtenay was laughing. "Birds of carrion! Old men!Squaws of the North!"

And above the hubbub the ritual chanting in his brain turned into an Actof Thanksgiving. 

CHAPTER XXII "CHOOSE, WHITE WOMAN!"

Another day had gone into the great back country of time, from which thehand of God alone can pluck them and their secrets. Soft haze of blueand gold hung over forest and stream, sweet breath of summer fondled thehigh carpet of interlaced tree-tops, blew down the waters and wimpledthe bending grasses, and the wolf had sighted the caribou herd. 

In a shelter of spruce within sight of the Indian smoke the lone canoeand its people lay hidden, awaiting the coming of night. 

"Now, Ma'amselle, " said Dupre earnestly, "do you remain close here withFrith and Wilson and Alloybeau while Brilliers and McDonald go with meto reconnoitre. "

Maren knelt beside a fallen log binding up the heavy ropes of herhair. Before her were spread the meagre adjuncts of her toilet, in allconscience slim enough for any masculine runner of the forest, --a dozenlittle pegs hand-whittled from hard wood and polished to finest gloss bycontact with the shining braids. 

She looked up at him with eyes that were unreadable to his simpleunderstanding. 

"Remain?" she said; "and send you into my danger alone? You know me not, M'sieu. "

Purple dusk was thick upon the underworld of lesser growth beneath thetowering woods. In its half-light the trapper saw that her face, usuallyof so sad a calm, was glowing with excitement. 

"Brilliers, " she said, rising and fastening the last strand, "bring methe brown no-wak-wa berries from the pail yonder. "

She stood crushing the ripe fruit in her hands and looked into the facesof her little band. In every countenance she read what she had read inmen's faces all of her life, the dumb longing to serve, and it liftedher heart with tenderness. 

"My men, " she said presently, "remember we are Hudson's Bays, and thatwe have behind us the Great Company which punishes guilt and upholdsloyalty, and that we go to rescue a factor of the Company. Alloybeau andMcDonald go with me, flanking either side. You, Frith, take up positiona hundred yards inland to cover what retreat may happen. Wilson andBrilliers stand at the canoe, and, M'sieus, keep hand at prow ready forinstant action. We know not what may happen. I, who am most concerned, go first. You, Marc Dupre, go with me. "

Her voice dropped as it ever did of late when she spoke to this goodfriend. 

"And now we wait only for full darkness. "

"You must go, Ma'amselle?" said Alloybeau miserably. "Cannot anothermake the first scouting? Send me. "

"And me!" Frith pushed softly forward. "At the last, Ma'amselle, we areold women. We cannot let you go. "

"Cannot?" said Maren sharply. "Do Mr. Mowbray's men so soon forget hisorders? I am good as a man, M'sieus. See!"

She held up her right arm, with the fringed sleeve falling loose. Themuscle sprang up magnificently. 

"Fear not for me, --and yet, --I thank you! Now we wait. "

One hour, --two, --passed and the last light crept, afraid, out of theforest to linger a trembling moment on the waters and be drawn up to thedarkening sky. 

At last the maid arose, tall and quiet, save for the excitement in hereyes, and one by one her chosen followers stepped noiselessly after. 

Silent as the wood around, the forlorn hope crept forward. 

"Here, Frith, " commanded Maren, when they had reached a vantage pointof higher ground, "and here you, Alloybeau and McDonald, separate. Ifduring this night the good God shall deliver into our hands Mr. McElroyand the venturer from Montreal, you will hear a panther's far-off call. Make for the canoe, for that will mean swift flight. If, on the otherhand, aught should befall us ahead, a night-hawk will cry once. Hide andwait. Wait one day, two, three. There is always hope. So. We go now. "

Thus they separated, that small band, as hopeless together as apart incase of discovery, and at last Dupre followed alone, his heart heavywithin him and a grip in his throat of tears. On through the leafyforest, parting the lacing vines, holding each branch that it might notswish to place, they went, far from safety and the commonplace of life, and a prescience of disaster weighed on the trapper's soul like lead. 

At last it grew more than he could bear, and he reached a hand toMaren's shoulder, a tentative hand, hesitating, as if it felt its touchblasphemy. 

"Ma'amselle, " he faltered, "forgive me! But, oh! without confessionthis night I am sick to my heart's core! I lied to you back at the cove, though with a clean conscience, for it is love, --love of a man warm andwild that tears my soul to tatters! I love you with all love, of saintand sinner, of Heaven and earth, and I would have you know it!"

His low voice was shaking, as was his whole slim body, and Maren felt itin the hand on her shoulder. 

"As a man, Ma'amselle, I would give my life for one touch of your lips!As a lost monk I would kiss your garment's hem! See!"

He dropped to his knee and, catching her beaded skirt, pressed it to hislips again and again, passionately, swept away by his French blood. 

"As I live I love you as the dog loves his master! I am naught save thedust under your feet, the thorn you brush in the forest, yet like them Icatch and cling! Forgive, Ma'amselle, and if the future is fair for you, think sometimes in the dusk of Marc Dupre!"

"Hush!" said Maren, catching the hand at her knee, a shaking hand moreslender than her own; "hush, my friend! You break my heart anew. I knowthe inmost grace of you, the glory of the love you tell, and be it ofheaven or earth, of angel or man, I would to the Good God there was yetlife enough within me to buy it with my own! I have seen naught so holy, so worth all price, in the years of my life. It is dear to my heart asthat life itself. Dear as yourself, my more than friend. "

In all tenderness she stooped from her fair height and laid her armaround the shoulders of the youth, drew his head against the beadwork ofMcElroy's gift, and kissed him upon the lips, --once, twice, yearningly, as a mother kisses a weakling child. 

At that moment there came, borne on a waking breeze of the night, thesound of the tom-toms, the yapping of many throats. 

"The gods beckon, " she said sadly; "this life and love is all awry andwe who are bound against our will must but abide the end. "

"Aye, " whispered young Dupre, from the warm depths of her shoulder, andhis voice was like gold for joy; "aye, --the end. "

He rose swiftly. 

"Forgive the passion that could forget the great business of the night, "he said, and they went forward, though Maren's fingers still rested inhis clasp. 

Through the thinning wood which neared the stream presently there came aglow and then the shine of a great fire ahead, with massed figuresthat leaped and sprang, fantastic as a witch's carnival, and a roar offrightful voices. 

"Stay now, Ma'amselle!" begged Dupre, at last, for he had caught a sightthat shook him through and through; "stay you here in the wood while Igo forward!"

But his protest was lost on the maid. Eagerly she was pushing on, hid bythe shadows, --nearer and nearer, until suddenly she stopped and staredupon the scene, the fingers in his clasp gripping Dupre's hand likesteel. 

"God! God! God!" breathed Maren Le Moyne at the forest's edge as shelooked once more upon the face of the factor of Fort de Seviere. 

Unspeakable was that scene. All reason had fled from the North savages. 

What small veneer of docility had been spread over them by their threeyears' dealing with the Hudson's Bays and their intercourse with thequiet and tractable Assiniboines, had vanished. They were themselves asnature made them, cruel to the point of art. 

The work of the day was visible upon the captives tied to their stakeson either side the fire. Half-clothed, for they had been thrown intoa lodge to recuperate for the night's festivities, they stood inweariness, that from time to time drooped one head or the other, only tolift again with taunt and jeer. 

De Courtenay, his thin face between the curls thinner, was still facingthe mob with the smile that would not down. McElroy was as Maren hadever known him, patient and strong, and from time to time he tossed upthe light hair falling in his eyes. 

"We are none too soon, " she said tensely; "tonight it must end. Go youaround to the east, M'sieu, between the camp and the river. Look for thelodge of the dead chief, for there will be the trader, Ridgar. Look forhim and read his face, --whether or no he will help us. I will skirt tothe north. "

"I--Ma'amselle! Stay far from their sight, for love of Heaven!"

"Sh! Go, my friend;" and Maren turned into the darkness. 

"Mary Mother, now do thou befriend!" she whispered, as she felt her wayforward. With touch of tree trunk and slipping moccasin, lithe bend andsway and turning, as sure in the forest as any savage, this Maid of theTrail took into her hands the saving of a man. It was simple. Wit mustplay the greater part, wit that invades a sleeping camp, risks its life, and laughs at its victory. So would she work in the late hours whenrevelry had worked its own undoing. Now she would learn the camp and thesafest side of it, the place of the captives and a way of escape. Withthought and eager plan she pushed from her mind the look of McElroy'sbody. 

She would--

In the darkness she stopped with inheld breath. Her groping foot hadtouched an object, a soft object that stirred and rolled over on itsside and presently sat up. So near it was that she could feel themovements of its garments, which fact told her it was human. 

Then, without warning, a hand shot out and caught her knee in a grip ofsteel. With all her strength the girl tore away, leaping backward. But atangle of vines snatched at her foot and she fell crashing forward witha figure prone upon her, and in the darkness she fought silently forlife. 

As in the camp of the Nakonkirhirinons the thin veneer had slipped away, so now in the forest its heavier counterpart fell from this woman andshe turned savage as the thing with which she fought. 

Of superb stature and strength, she was a match for the man, and twopairs of hands searched for a throat, two bodies strained and struggledfor the mastery. It seemed that the noise of the conflict, the snappingof dry dead wood, the swish and crash of leafy brush, must drawattention from the camp, but it was too engrossed in its own madhilarity to heed so small a sound. 

Over and over strained the strangely-met foes in silence, and presentlythey struggled up, barehanded, face to face, for Maren had dropped herrifle when she fell. As they whirled into a more open space the lightfrom the fire struck through the foliage and glistened on a tuft ofwhite hair on the swarthy temple before her. 

"Hola! DesCaut!" gasped the girl. 

"Oho! I win!"

For, with the sudden illumination, she forgot for a moment the presentand DesCaut; for it was the turncoat awaked from a drunken sleepapart, who pushed swiftly forward, took the moment's advantage of herhesitation, and pinioned her arms to her sides. 

She might still have had a chance, for she was as strong as he, but thathe raised his voice in a call for help. 

Thus it was that, in less time than the telling, Maren Le Moyne, rescuer, leader of the long trail, was dragged, fast bound by a dozengripping hands, into the firelit space in the great circle, a captiveunder the eyes of the man she had come to save. 

Stumbling, jerked this way and that, one white shoulder gleaming againstthe brown stain of throat and face where the doeskin garment was pulledawry, she came into the central space before the great fire. 

Every inch an Indian woman she looked, with the no-wak-wa berriesdarkening her bright cheeks, her moccasins and beaded garment beltedwith wampum got from the Indians by Henri, save for one thing, no Indianwoman in all the wilderness wrapped her braids around her head andpinned them with whittled pegs. There alone had she blundered. 

As the renegades loosed her and dropped away, leaving her alone in theappalling light, for one instant she flung her hands over her face. 

The quick disaster stunned her. 

There was no longer hope within her for the moment. But, with the riseof the roar of triumph, that part of her nature which joyed in thefacing of odds snatched down her hands, lifted her head, and set the oldfires sparkling in her eyes. 

"White! White! White!" was the cry lifting on all sides. "A white womanof the Settlements! Wis-kend-jac has sent the White Doe! A sign! A sign!The Great Spirit would know the slayer of Negansahima!"

"The White Doe shall choose!"

CHAPTER XXIII THE PAINTED POST

When McElroy's eyes fell upon the woman he loved the breath was stoppedin his throat. For a moment it seemed he would suffocate with the surgeof emotions that choked him. Then a great sigh filled his lungs and acry was forced from him which pierced the uproar like an arrow. 

"Maren!" he cried, in anguish; "Maren!"

It drew her eyes as the pole the faithful needle, and across the firethey stared wide-eyed at each other. 

Then De Courtenay's silver voice cut them apart. 

"Again, Ma'amselle!" he cried, with the old magic of his smile. "Doyou bring by any chance a red flower to the council of theNakonkirhirinons?"

But the Indians closed in around her, pulling and plucking at her witheager fingers, and they saw her fighting among them like a man. 

McElroy for the first time loosed his tongue in blasphemy and cursedlike a madman, tugging at the bonds which held him. 

"'Tis all in a day's march, M'sieu, " said De Courtenay, "and the sweetspirit of Ma'amselle is like to cross the Styx with us. "

But for the first time, also, there was in his tone a note of weariness, a breath of sadness that sang under the light words with infinitepathos. 

The new attraction drew the crowd, and the old ones were left insolitude, while the Nakonkirhirinons surged and scrambled for a lookat the white woman fallen from a clear sky, leagues from where they hadseen her. Half-breeds, dissolute renegades, and Indians, they pushedand peered and in many a face was already burning the excitement of herbeauty, especially those of the savage Bois-Brules. 

McElroy prayed aloud to God for the heavens to fall, for some greatdisaster. 

But soon it became apparent that something of importance was to takeplace. A hundred headmen gathered in knots and there was dissensionand brawling and once near a riot, while the girl stood in a circle ofmalodorous, leering humans with her back against a tree, warding offhands with man-like blows. 

There was no order in the tribe. Negansahima, whose iron hand had ruledwith power and justice above the average, was dead. The new chief hadnot yet come into power with fitting ceremony, and thus the old men ofthe tribe were for the moment authority, and, as too many cooks spoilthe broth, so too many rulers breed dissension. 

But finally a conclusion was reached. 

A hundred hands scurried into preparation and the shouts were filledwith anticipation. 

In the open space a post was set up, tall as a man's head and sometwo feet thick, adzed flat on one side and painted in two sections, perpendicularly, one half in red, the other in black. A medicine man, hideous in adornments of buffalo horns and bearskin, approached DeCourtenay and with a feather painted on his bare breast a circle ofblack with little red flames within. 

McElroy was decorated in like manner, save that his circle was red andit enclosed a death-maul, a dozen little arrows, and two knives. 

Thus was foreshadowed the manner of their death. 

Then arose a babble of voices. 

"The White Doe! The White Doe that runs in the forest! Now shall She whoFollows decide!"

And into the midst of the vast circle once more Maren Le Moyne wasbrought. She stood panting as they drew back and left her, and McElroylooked upon her as he had never looked upon living being in all hisdays. 

There was the same high head, shining in the light, the same tall formsweet in its rounded womanhood, the same strong shoulders, and fromthem hung the white garment that he had carried to her door that day, in spring. He had wondered then if he would ever see it cling to theswelling breast, set up the round throat from its foamy fringe. Andthus he saw it again as he had dreamed, though, Holy Mother! in what sadplight!

She had told him she would wear it. She had relied upon it to help herget to De Courtenay! Of what depth and glory must be the love that senther after the savages! Even in the stress of the moment the old paincame back an hundredfold. But events went forward and he had soon notime to think. 

They drew a line upon the earth as they had done before, squabblingover its distance from the painted post; Bois-Brules, their keen eyesgleaming, haggling for a greater stretch, and presently Maren stood uponthat line and they had pressed into her hand a bright new hatchet, oneof those bought from McElroy himself in the first days of trading. 

Then an Indian, naked and painted like a fiend, whose toes turned out, stepped forth and spoke in good English. 

"Woman Who Follows, " he said distinctly, "one of these two dogs is amurderer, --having killed the Great Chief when his people came inpeace to trade at the Fort. Therefore, one of them must die. TheNakonkirhirinons take a skin for a skin, --not two skins for one. So didthe Great Chief teach his people. But none know which hand is red withhis blood. For two sleeps and a sun have the braves given them thetests, --the Test of the Flying Knives, the Test of the Pine Splinters, the Test of the Little Lines, but neither has shown Colour of the Dog'sBlood. Therefore, justice waits. Now has Wiskend-jac, the Great Spirit, sent the White Doe from the forest to decide. Throw, White Woman, andwhere the tomahawk strikes shall Death sit. Hi-a-wo!"

The renegade stepped back and a silence like death itself fell upon theassembly. 

Then did the colour drain out of the soft cheeks under the berry stainand the girl from Grand Portage stand fingering the bright hatchetin her hand. Her eyes went to McElroy's face and then to that of thecavalier leaning forward between his swinging curls, and both men sawthe shine that was like light behind black marble, so mystic was it andthrilling, beginning to flicker in them. 

"Bravo!" cried De Courtenay, his brilliant face aglow with the splendidhazard. "Bravo! We are akin, Ma'amselle, --both venturers, and my bloodleaps to your spirit! Throw, Sweetheart, throw! And may the gods ofChance guide your hand!"

"Think not of me, Maren!" cried McElroy, in deadly earnest. "You owe menaught! Throw for M'sieu, whose peril is my doing!"

For many moments she stood so, fingering the white handle of the weapon, and there was no sound in all the vast assemblage save the crackle ofthe flames. Then they saw her muscles tauten throughout her wholeyoung body, saw her draw herself up to her full height, and again for asecond's space she stood still. In that moment she had deliberately putherself back in the surging turmoil of Grand Portage, was listening tothe words of old Pierre Vernaise: "Well done, Little Maid! Again now!Into the cleft! Into the cleft! Ah-a! Little One, well done! Alas, butyou beat your old teacher!"--was feeling again the surge of a childhoodtriumph which scorned to bring nearer that wilderness of her dreams. 

With a swift motion her arm shot up and forward and the tomahawk lefther hand, flying straight as an arrow for the target. It struck with aclean impact and stood, the handle a little raised and the point wellset in the green wood. There was a rush of the medicine men, who seemedto act as judges, and then a silence. Peering, bending near to lookcloser, they gathered with confusion of voices and presently steppedback, that all might see. 

Neither in black nor red, but directly between the two, the bladecleaved cleanly down the dividing-line. 

They surged forward, gathering round like flies with buzzing andexcitement, examining it from all sides, while the girl stood upon theline with her hands shut hard beside her. 

She did not glance again at the two men beside the fire. 

A sachem pulled out the hatchet and carried it back to her, while thecircle formed and widened again. 

Again she stood at poise, again they saw the tension of her body, againthe little wait, while the two men held their breath and De Courtenay'seyes were shining like stars. 

"A fitting close!" he was saying to himself, in that joy which was ofhis venturer's soul and knew not time or place. "Heart of my Life! Whata close to a merry span!"

Again the swift, sure motion, unmeasured of the brain, coming out ofhabit and pure instinct, again the "thud" of the strike, again the rush, and again the wondering buzz of talk. 

Once more the hatchet stood upon the line between the black and the red, directly in its own cleft!

There was wondering comment, gesticulation, and swarthy faces turnedupon the woman on the line. 

Once more the sachem in his waving feathers and tinkling ornaments drewthe blade from the post and gravely carried it back to her. 

Excitement was riding high in the eager faces bending forward onall sides, and everywhere a growing admiration. A tribe of prowessthemselves, the Nakonikirhirinons knew a clever feat when they saw it. 

For the third time the tall woman in the beaded garment took the hatchetand squared her shoulders. 

"What does it mean?" McElroy was thinking wildly; "why does she not savehim while there is time?" And, even as the words went through his brain, something snapped therein and he was conscious of the circle of faces inthe forest edge waving in grotesque undulations, of the arm of Maren asit straightened forward, of the flash of the hatchet as it flew for thepainted post, and then of great darkness sewn with a thousand stars. 

As Maren had raised her hand for the throw, from somewhere out of thedarkness behind the fire a stone death-maul had hurtled, aimed at herwrist, but he who threw was sorry of sight as a drunken man, for itstruck the head of McElroy instead and he sagged down against themoosehide thongs, even as the hatchet once more clicked snugly in itsformer cleft. 

Then from all the concourse there went up a shout, half in anger andhalf in wild applause. 

"Nik-o-men-wa!" they cried; "the Thrower of the Seven Tribes! But theWhite Doe plays with the decree of Gitche Manitou! Bring the spear!Fetch forth the spears, oh, Men of Wisdom!"

But in the midst of the excitement a figure walked slowly forth in thelight and held up a hand for silence. 

It was Edmonton Ridgar. 

Reluctantly they obeyed, sullenly, as if bound by a bond against theirwill. 

In the sudden hush he spoke. 

"What do ye here, my brothers?" he asked, and waited. 

There was no reply from the mass before him. 

"Wherefore is the spirit of my Father vexed that it disturbs my watchinside the death-lodge?"

The small rustling of the excited crowd ceased in every quarter. 

They stilled themselves in a peculiar manner. 

"Oh, ye sachems and Men of Wisdom, " he said, turning to the headmengathered together, "come ye to the tepee of Negansahima and behold whatye have done!"

Slowly, as he had come, the chief trader of De Seviere turned aboutand passed out of the light. One by one, in utter silence, their faceschanged in a moment into masks of uneasiness, the sachems and medicinemen rose and followed. In the wavering shadows thrown by the centralfire the big tepee stood in awesome majesty. Ridgar raised the flap andentered, dropping it as the savages filed in to the number of all itwould hold. 

"See!" he said dramatically. 

Over the bier of piled skins which held the wrapped and smoke-driedfigure of the dead chief there danced upon the darkness, eerie inpale-green living fire, the ghost of the crested and sweeping head-dressthat he had worn in life. 

There was never a word among them, but, with one accord, after oneawe-struck look at the ghostly thing, they fled the lodge in a mass. 

For several moments Ridgar stood in the darkness as those outside peeredfearfully in, and, when the last moccasin had slipped silently away, he reached up and took down the fearsome thing, folding it beside thechief. 

"We were wise together, old friend, " he said sadly; "would I had yourknowledge and your power. "

Outside the word was spreading wildly. 

"The spirit of Negansahima rests not in the lodge! The medicine men havenot dreamed true! Silence in the camp while They who Dream repair to theforest fastnesses and seek true wisdom!"

And while the sachems and the headmen, the beaters of the tom-toms, andthose who tended the Sacred fires of the Dreamers formed into processionand slowly filed out into the forest, Edmonton Ridgar drew a long breathof relief. Maren had postponed the sure culmination of the tests by herclever feat, he had postponed it a little longer by his own. Full wellhe knew that the girl could not go on forever after the manner of herbeginning. She knew the hatchet, but would she know the spear, thearrow, and the Test of the Flaming Ring? Sooner or later she would fail, and then would come the last orgy of the rites of a Skin for a Skin. Hethought of the whimsical fate which so oddly gave the "Pro pelle cutem"of the H. B. C. To this unknown tribe of the North, and flayed one withthe other. 

This night was the last wherein there lay one chance of help for the twomen and this woman who had so strangely followed from the post, and helay in the darkness of the death-lodge watching the hushing of the camp, the loosing of the captives, the carrying of his factor, a limpfigure, to the lodge of captives on the edge, the leading thither of DeCourtenay and Maren. 

"Fool woman!" he said in his heart; "sweet, brave, loving fool with thewoman's heart and the man's simple courage!"

CHAPTER XXIV THE STONE TO THE FOOT OF LOVE

Long Ridgar lay in the darkness listening to the hushed sounds that camefrom lodge and dying fire--vague, awed sounds, that presently diedinto silence as night took toll of humanity and sleep settled among thesavages. 

Here and there low gutturals droned into the stillness, and at thewest there was oath and whispered comment where the Bois-Brules campedtogether. Not wholly under the spell of mystery were these half-breeds, but restless and suspicious under the conflicting promptings of theirmixed blood. Slower than the Indians were they to obey the mandate ofsilence and peace that the Spirits of Dreams might descend upon theforest, but at last they were quiet, the tires burned down to red heapsof coals, then to white ashes, the great fire in the centre flamed anddied and flamed again like some vindictive spirit striving for vengeancein the grip of death, and the utter stillness of the solitude fellthick as a garment on all the wilderness. It seemed to Ridgar that onlyhimself in all the earth was awake and watching, save perhaps the twoguards pacing without a sound the lodge of the captives, and those twowithin, so oddly brought near. 

As for McElroy, his friend of friends, an aching fear tugged in hisheart that he had waited too long for the chance to help, that thepatient strength was sapped at last, that the end had come. He had seenthe flight of the maul, the sagging of the sturdy figure. 

Who had thrown it, if not that brute DesCaut? Who save DesCaut was sokeen on the trail of the factor and the girl? True, De Courtenay was hislatest master, and his spoiling of Maren's aim might as easily send theblade into the black as the red, but in either case he would cause herto decide the death she was trying so bravely to postpone. 

DesCaut, surely. 

The stars wheeled in their endless march, the well-known ones of theforenight giving place to strangers of the after hours, and Ridgar hadbegun to move with the caution of the hunted, inch by inch, out from theshelter of the lodge, when he felt a hand steal from the darknessand touch him with infinite care. He lay still and presently a voicewhispered, "M'sieu Ridgar?

"Aye?" breathed Ridgar. 

"'Tis I, --Marc Dupre from De Seviere. "

"Voila! Another! Are there more of you?"

"I would know first, M'sieu, --where is your heart, with savage orHudson's Bay?"

"Fair question, truly. I but now am started for yonder lodge on quest oftheir deliverance, though without hope. Your appearance lends me that. "

"Sacre! 'Tis done already. Listen, M'sieu, with all your ears. Justbeyond earshot, up the river to the south there lies a big canoe, withat its nose for instant action two men of Mowbray's brigade, while ahundred yards inland another waits, armed and ready to cover a hurriedflight. There needs but loosing of those yonder, M'sieu, and here arewe. Two Indians pace the lodge.... You one, me one. What easier?

"Many things, my young hot-blood. Yet it is our only way. Here aredeath-mauls, --two. Take you, --they make no sound, provided a practisedhand is behind. Strike near and ease the fall, there are those who sleeplightly here. Even the earth has ears to-night. "

"Think you Ma'amselle is bound?" whispered Dupre next; "I could not seefor the swinging of the factor's body. "

"No, " replied the trader; "both she and the Nor'wester walked free. Buthow, for love of Heaven, comes she here?" he added. 

Dupre sighed softly in the darkness. 

"For love, " he said; "for love of a man. "

"I had guessed as much, --how how did she pass the many miles of lake andstream and forest? And how overtake us?"

"I brought her. By day and night also, without camp, have we come, aidedby canoe-men from Mr. Mowbray's brigade, which we met on the easternshore of Winnipeg coming down from York, bound for the Assiniboine andCumberland House. "

"But for which man? She is unreadable, that woman, though love livesnaked in her face. "

But a sudden ache had gripped the throat of the young trapper and he didnot answer. 

"Let us be off, M'sieu, " he whispered; "now is the time. "

"Aye, --if ever. "

Slowly, inch by inch, lifting their bodies that they might not rustlethe loose earth and trampled leaves of the camp, Ridgar and Dupre drewforth into the shadows. 

Meantime, within the skin tepee, where all three had been summarilyplaced, Maren Le Moyne sat with her head upon her arms and her armscrossed on her drawn-up knees. Across the opening, just inside the flap, the body of McElroy lay inert, though she knew that a low breath roseand fell within him, for she had laid a hand upon his breast. Besideher, close in the darkness, De Courtenay sat upright and alert, as ifno forty hours of torture had hail their will of him. She could hear hisquick breathing. 

Anguish rode her soul like a thousand imps and the slow tears werefalling, bitter as aloes, the symbol of defeat. Every fibre of her beingtrembled with love of the man stretched beyond; she longed with all thepassion of her nature to gather the tawny head in her arms, to kissthe silent lips, the closed eyes. Through the dim cloud that seemed toenvelop him since that night at the factory steps, holding her from himlike bars of iron, she heard again the ringing sweetness of his voice:

"From this day forth you are mine! Mine only and against the wholeworld! I have taken you and you are mine!"

False as Lucifer, but, O bon Dieu! sweet as salvation to the lost

A hundred feelings tore at her heart, --bitterness and unbearable scornof her own blundering, and wild protest against failure, but chief ofall was the love that drew her to this man like running water to thesea. 

Now that death was near, so near that even now it might be callinghis earnest spirit out of the darkness, she would do more--athousandfold!--to give him life. Only life, the gentle, strong soul ofhim safe in the sturdy body!

And she had but hastened the end she had come to avert!

"Jesu mia, " she prayed, from the shelter of her arms, "help! HelpThou--Lord of Heaven, give him to be spared!"

And not once did she think of the great quest, broken by a meagrewaiting by the way; no thought crossed her mind in this crisis of theLand of the Whispering Hills, of an old man, dreaming his dreams in thewilderness. 

Thus had love set aside like a bauble the thing for which her lifehad been lived, for which she had grown and prepared herself in theattainments of men. 

She had felt the magic touch of the great mystery, and henceforth shewas captive, servant to its will, and its mandate had been service. Andhere was the end--

A hand touched her shoulder, a hand infinitely soft of pressure, infinitely gentle. 

"Ma'amselle, " whispered the cavalier in her ear, "one more turn of thewheel of Fate, --and we take the plunge together. Kin are we, truly;kin of the tribe of Daring Hearts. A lioness are you, oh, maid with theMadonna face! No woman, but a creature of the wild, superb in courageand unknown to fear! I saw it in your face that day in De Seviere, --thesomething alien to the common race, the spark, the light; oh, I know notwhat it is, save that it is Divine and yet splendidly of the earth! Weare matched in heart. Venturers both, and like true venturers we shalltake the longest trail with a laugh and our hands together, --and trustto the Aftermath to give us largess of that love which has its beginningin such glorious wise. Pledge me, oh, my Queen of the World!"

With a grace beyond compare he drew her into his arms, silent and velvetsoft, light and inimitable in his love way. 

In utter astonishment Maren felt his silken curls sweep her cheek, hislips on hers. Her tears were wet on his face. She put up her hands andpushed him loose. 

"M'sieu!" she said, "what do you do?"

"Do? Why, bow to the One Woman of my heart, " he said; "my Maid of theRed Flower, whom love has led to share my fate. "

"In all pity! M'sieu, you do mistake most grievously!"

"What? Was it not confession at the post gate when this painted rabblefell upon us? Or is it still the maiden within fearing the word of love?In such short space, Sweetheart, there is no time for girlish fears. Bestrong in that as in the courage of the lone trail. Speak!"

"Speak?" said Maren, with her old calmness; "of a surety, M'sieu. ThoughI have thrilled at your careless bravery, your laughing daring which, as you say truly, is kin of my heart, --though I have taken your redflowers, yet there is in me no spark of love for you, no thought beyondthe admiration of a true son of fortune. That alone, M'sieu. "

De Courtenay was staring at her in the blackness of the lodge, his armfallen loose about her shoulders. 

"Name of God!" he whispered wonderingly, "it is not love? Then what, inthe living world, has brought you over the waste to this camp of hostilesavages?"

"This, " said Maren, and she reached a hand to the body of McElroy. 

"Sancta Maria! This factor? This heavy-blooded man?... But he did speakof half-requited--Oh, Saints of Heaven! What a jest of the world! Thethreads of tragedy are tangled into a farce!"

De Courtenay threw up his head and took a silent laugh at the ways ofFate. 

"Three fools together! And the riddle's key too late! At least I can setit straight for one--"

He broke his laughing whisper to listen to new sounds without, a dullblow, muffled and heavy, the slight whisper of garments sliding againstgarments, the crunch and rustle of a body eased down to earth, --nay, twoblows, coming at a little interval, and from either end the beat walkedby the two guards, and from the southern end there came a grunt, a crychoked in the throat that uttered it. Instantly the venturer was up andat the flap, peering outside. A figure loomed against the stars, pacedslowly by with an audible step, passed and turned and passed again. 

It was Marc Dupre, an eagle feather, snatched from the quivering form ofthe guard lying in the darkness by the wall of the lodge, slanting fromhis head against the heavens. 

A little way beyond at the ashes of a fire a warrior stirred, lifted ahead, and peered toward the tepee of captives; then, satisfied thatall was well, lay down again to slumber. Back and forth, back and forthpaced the solitary watcher. De Courtenay within was quivering from headto foot with the knowledge that something was happening. As he stood sothe pacing figure halted a moment before the opening. 

"S-s-t!" it whispered; "warn Ma'amselle!" then walked away. 

Swift on the words another figure crept noiselessly to the lodge door. 

"M'sieu, " said Edmonton Ridgar, beneath his breath, "give me thefactor's shoulders. Do you take his feet and follow, --softly, for yourlife. Bring the maid. "

De Courtenay stepped back, groped for Maren, took her head in his hands, and brought her ear up to his lips. 

"Rescue!" he breathed; "Ridgar and Dupre. We carry our friend of thefort here. Follow. "

He loosed her and bent to lift McElroy. 

With all her courage leaping at the turn, Maren quietly raised the flapand in a moment they were all outside among the sleeping camp. 

With measured tread Dupre came up to them, walked with them as theymoved silently back, and was on the turn when Maren touched his arm. 

"This way, " she whispered; "straight ahead. "

One more step, --two, --the youth took beside her. It seemed that theheart within him was breaking in his agony. The shadows of the wood weredrawing very near, the chances of escape multiplying with every step. 

Another sweet moment of nearness and the misty white figure beside himwould fade into the darkness forever, pass forever out of his sight. 

Dearer than all the joys of Paradise was that black head, that wondrousface with its strength and its tenderness so adoringly mingled. The onesupreme thing in all the universe was this woman, --and she was passing. With an involuntary motion he touched her softly and she stoppedinstantly, even at that great moment. It thrilled through him, thatquick perception of his desire. 

"Ma'amselle, " he whispered, "fare thee well!"

She caught his hand swiftly, pulling him forward. "Eh?" she said. "Whatmean you?"

There was startled anxiety in her voice and the heart of Dupre leapedexultantly. 

"Naught, " he lied bravely, "save that I must hang behind for a moment orso to cover any sound with my sentry's step, but I cannot part from youeven so small a space without, --God-speed. Hurry now, Ma'amselle! Theypass from sight!"

He pushed her gently after, but she turned against his hand. 

"Come!" she commanded; "I will not leave you!"

"Nay, --how long, think you, before utter silence awakes that mob? Youmust be at the water's edge before I follow. Go now, --quick, for love ofHeaven!"

He pushed her away and turned back toward the camp, pacing slowly by thehuddled heap that attested Ridgar's hand, past the empty lodge, and onto the northern turn, where lay that other figure prone upon the earth, yet still quivering in every muscle. He died hardly, this strong Northwarrior, and Dupre almost regretted the need, though the trapper of thePays d'en Haut took without thought whatever of life menaced his own andconsidered the deed accomplishment. 

Back and forth, back and forth he walked the beat of the watcher and aholy joy played over his soul like a light from the beyond. He turnedhis mind to that hour in the woods, to the memory of the lips of MarenLe Moyne, the warm sweetness of her beaded breast, the tender affectionof her embrace, and the present faded into that land of dreams whereinwalk those who love greatly. 

Meanwhile Ridgar and De Courtenay pushed silently forward with the limpbody of McElroy swinging between, while the girl stepped softly in theirtrail, straining her ears for sounds from the camp, and carrying theonly weapon among them, a rifle which Ridgar had taken from the Indianhe had killed. 

"To the east, " she whispered, "down the little defile to the river, thensouth along the shore, --it is shingled and open, --to the canoe. Walkfast as you can, M'sieu. "

It was riskful going through the strip of woods, but when they enteredthe little canon that cleft a ridge of cliffs, rising impudently out ofa level land, they mended their pace. Here was solid, dry rock beneaththem, walls of rock on either side, and a narrow strip of star-strewnsky above. 

"Thank God!" Ridgar was saying, under his breath, "the distance widens!"

But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than a cold chill shotthrough him, and Maren pushed forward with compelling hands on DeCourtrnay's shoulders. 

"Hurry, M'sieu!" she cried; "they have awakened!"

"Hi! Hi! Hi-a! He-a! Hi!"

Danger was waking in the camp behind, first with one sharp cry, thenanother and another, until throat after throat took up the sound and theyapping turned into a roar. 

They were but half-way through the narrow gorge. The two men broke intoa stumbling run. Ridgar was going backwards, half-turned to see ahead, and suddenly his foot struck a loose pebble and he fell headlong. DeCourtenay stumbled, and in the scramble to right themselves they lostmore time than they could spare. Before they were up and started, ashrill voice came into the gorge, yelling its "Hi! Hi! Hi-a!"

De Courtenay suddenly stopped. 

"'Tis useless!" he said breathlessly; "We'll never make it! Here, --doyou take my place, Ma'amselle!"

He caught Maren's shoulder and pushed her forward. 

"Take his knees, --so! You are strong, --give me the rifle. Make haste, Ridgar, --Ma'amselle!"

He bowed in the darkness. 

"The last turn of the wheel, Ma'amselle, --and I take the plunge alone. All in the day's march!"

With the last words he turned back to face the way they had come, shookhis long curls back across his shoulder, and lifted the rifle to hischeek. 

The footsteps of Ridgar and Maren were echoing down the rocky gap. 

It had been a promising escape, a neat plan well carried out, and therewas but one thing lacking to its fulfilment, --another step to pace thedeserted lodge of captives. 

Across in the darkness among the Bois-Brules one ear had lain close tothe tell-tale earth, one evil face peered unsleeping among the duskyshapes of the camp, a swarthy face with a white lock on its temple. 

Keener than all the rest, Bois DesCaut, driven by personal hate, listened to all the sounds of night. 

And he had heard a changing in the steps that passed and repassed, that separated and came together, before that lodge across the sleepingmob, --a change, a little silence, and then the steps again thatpresently thinned to ONE, --one step that paced evenly, with a measuredtread, a moccasined step like that of an Indian, yet somehow alien inits firmness and swing. 

One step where there should have been two, --and the half-breed trapperraised himself and gave the first "Hi! Hi!"

Like startled wolves they were up all around him in a moment and down onthat empty tepee with its one sentry!

A torch flared redly with the sudden revealing of a slim youth inbuckskins and two Nakonkirhirinon warriors deep in the Great Sleep. 

What was there for Marc Dupre in that moment of roused fury, --that tensemoment of awaking rage, of baffled rights of payment?

What but death too swift and unrestrained for torture?

A dozen weapons reached him from as many crowding hands and he went downon the last earth her feet had trod, the spot where she had last touchedhis hand. 

Her golden voice, sweet with its sliding minors, was in his ears, thesweetness of her lips on his. 

"A stone to your foot, Ma'amselle, " he whispered, as the darkness brokeand the stars began to dance on a sky of blood-red fire; "serve youwith my life, --no better fate, --oh, I love you! I--a stone to yourfoot, --Ma'amselle!"

And at that moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her youngbody to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left thedefile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waitedwith the canoe. 

She saw the sudden flaming of the torch, the slim, boyish figure in itsbuckskins, the ring of faces, and the flash of weapons; saw the formsclose in and the slim boy go down like a reed in the winter storm, anda cry broke from her lips as De Courtenay's rifle began to sound in thegorge. 

With tears on her cheeks and her face drawn hard, she raised her headand gave a panther's far-off call. 

CHAPTER XXV ANSWERED PRAYERS

Out of the forest at the signal came running Alloybeau and McDonald andFrith, alert, ready for anything, wondering beyond wonder at the callthat meant deliverance. Not one of them had thought to see again thisstrange, intrepid woman who pierced the forbidden places and wound menlike Mr. Mowbray around her fingers. It would have been a toss-up formen to attempt what she had done. 

She was coming to the canoe, and she was victorious. Yet they knew thatdeath was up and at her heels, from the sound of the shots. 

The big canoe was in the water, the men were ready, paddle in hand, withWilson knee-deep in the stream ready to push off, when along the reachof shore there came that sorry ending to the gallant venture, --Ridgarand the girl, staggering, stumbling, trying to make what haste theycould, with swinging roughly between them the apparently lifeless bodyof the factor of Fort de Seviere. 

Breathless and exhausted they reached the boat. Brilliers and Wilsonreached for their burden, threw it into the bottom, and hauled Maren onher knees among the thwarts. 

There was a shove, a word, a dip of the paddles, and the canoe shotout to the deeper waters, and none aboard her saw the form of EdmontonRidgar draw back into the shelter of tangled vines on shore. 

"Give me a blade!"

From the rocking bottom Maren was reaching for a paddle, got it, thrustby some one into her hands, and was cleaving water with the best ofthem, deep stroke after deep stroke, the rush and suck of the eddy inher ears. 

In the cold blue darkness the stream whispered and warned like some oldwitch at her cauldron, the night was clammy, and behind the new firesflared against the towering trees. 

A babble of voices told of pursuit, --shouts and gutturals that strungout from the camp all through the gorge and were beginning to flow withthe river. 

"Only a matter of time, --a little time, " thought Wilson, at the prow, but never a word was uttered in the canoe. 

Exerting every atom of strength, calling on all the will-power aboard, they shot forward into the night and the current. 

The noise behind increased, as the tones of a bell blown by the windincrease when the wind sets in one's direction. 

"Not now!" Maren was saying to herself. "Not now, --when we are so fartoward the winning! Not now, --oh, Friend of my heart! why was thatprice demanded? Holy Mary rest him, that young Marc Dupre--and senddeliverance for this--"

Ahead the river swept around a turn. Keeping close to the shore theycaught shallow water and cut round into a wider opening. 

The cries behind veered and deadened, and suddenly Wilson in the prowraised his blade. 

Maren leaned behind him and looked into the shadows. 

On every side dark shapes covered the face of the stream likewater-bugs, from every side there came the "whoo-sh-st-whoo-sh" ofdipping paddles, the little plank and rattle of their shafts againstgunwales. 

They had glided into the midst of a flotilla of canoes travelling atnight and in silence. 

The maid from Grand Portage threw up her head. 

"In among them, " she whispered, "quick! Deep as we can!"

"But, Ma'amselle, " whispered back Wilson, "they may be Indians. "

"What matters? A chance is a chance, and who would not risk itsturning?"

Unconsciously she was quoting that kinsman whose dauntless courage andlove of venture had found its last thrill in covering her retreat in thegorge. 

"In among them! Deep!"

Softly, as one of their number, the fugitive craft crept out tomidstream and forward, usurping boldly place and speed. 

Leaning low at each stroke the little company strained eye and ear forsight and sound, but, look as they might, they saw no eagle feathersagainst the stars, heard no word or whisper. 

Barely had they reached their uncertain sanctuary when the light oftorches shot southward across the bend and next moment circled, afar-reaching arm, to spread out and illumine the river broadcast as theNakonkirhirinons swept into view, their savage faces peering under theraised flambeaux, their eyes like fiery points--searching their prey. 

It fell on all the river, that light, on the running waters disturbedby myriad blades of white ash, on the banked background of the trees, on the drooping foliage at the stream's edge, --frail triflers of thewilderness, stooping from the sweet winds of Heaven to the water'swanton kiss, --and on a swarm of canoes, each manned by full complementof men, most of whose faces were eagle-featured and dark, blackeyed andhigh-cheekboned, though here and there were the fair hair and white skinof white men. 

Odd, indeed, was the effect of this tableau on the Indians under thetorches. They had come for one lone canoe, --to find a horde; for one manand one woman, --to fall upon a brigade. 

They halted and the distance widened between. 

And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darknessahead and a boat came back among them. It passed close to the fugitives, and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in it. 

When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward thehalted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a sortof stupid awe. 

"What do yez want?" called the tall man sternly, as he swept face toface with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe. "Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?"

There was no answer and he roared at them like a lion

"Can yez not shpake, ye haythen?"

Whereat a canoe glided from the back shadows and the voice of BoisDesCaut came in its broken English, "A boat, --M'sieu, --we seek a boat that but now escaped from camp witha murderer aboard, --one who killed in cold blood the chief Negansahimaback at the post of De Seviere. My brothers travel to the Pays d'en Hautthat justice may be done. We only seek the murderer. "

The tall man stood in silence a moment and glared at the scene, at theexcited faces, the gleaming eyes, the shifting glance of the spokesman. 

"A likely sthory!" he said presently. "An' who, may I make bould to ask, is this murderer?"

DesCaut squirmed a moment in silence. 

"Who, --did ye say?"

"A man, M'sieu, --a-a-trapper. "

"One lone man? Troth I commend his valour in evadin' such a rabbleo' hell-spawn! An' what from did he escape, --th' sthake an' th'stretchline?"

"Justice, M'sieu, --his life for the chief's. "

"Ho-ho! From th' looks o' yer fri'nds, me lad, I'm thinkin' 'twillbe justice wid her eyes shut!... But ye may turrn back an' search theforest, --we have no sthrangers in our party. "

DesCaut glowered at him a moment and spoke to the headmen around intheir speech. There were threatening gutturals and gestures. 

The flotilla was small compared to that of the tribe back at the gorge, they would know, at any rate. 

"They say, if M'sieu will let one canoe go through his people with thetorches, all will be well. Otherwise, --five hundred warriors, M'sieu, can take their will with two hundred. "

"Aye?" said the tall man, jerking his head around. He had been scanningthe mass of his own craft, packed behind him, fading into the shadowsout of the light. There was a peculiar look in his eyes when he facedDesCaut again, a thrust to his square jaw. In that backward look he hadcaught sight of the brown face of Maren Le Moyne, the white garment, glittering with its beads, --but he had seen, too, the crown of braids, wrapped round her head after the manner of the white woman. 

"Go yer ways, " he said; "we thravel fast on urgent business, --ye cannotthrouble us wid yer lookin' an' pokin'. Tell yer fri'nds--No. "

At this there was commotion among the Indians. A hurried consultationtook place, with indrawing of canoes under the flambeaux, waving arms, and angry gestures. 

"Then, M'sieu, --we come, --make way!" It was DesCaut, important and ugly. 

"No, ye don't, me lad. Shwing back The Little Devil, bhoys!"

The leader's canoe shifted sidewise and another craft, heavy, lumbersome, and vastly bigger than the light boats of the rest poked itsnose into its place, --and that nose was brass and round with a gapingmaw, --a small cannon, scarcely big enough for the name, but a roaringbraggart for all that. 

"Belch, me darlin', if ye have th' belly-ache!" cried this tall man, and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation, a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the foremostcanoes of the Indians. 

There was hiss and sputter of the torches, an upward leap of canoe andsavage, capsize and panic and fear, and the night screamed with manyvoices. 

"Formation again, lads!" called the sturdy voice of the leader. "We dobe wastin' time wid these haythen!"

The canoe rounded, passed up between the others, which closed in behind, and the cannon-boat lumbered into place in the rear. 

As he passed the strangers in their midst the tall man looked hard atMaren, the five men, and leaned out a bit to see what lay in the bottom. 

"A close shave!" he said; "kape close in the middle an' shpake me atcamp in the marnin'. "

The mass of dark objects, drawing out of the light, moved forward and, with a rush of intuition, the girl knew that all danger was past andthat safety hovered over them like the luminous wings of an angel. 

"Holy Master!" she cried within, "Thou didst answer my prayer, --but atwhat cost! Oh, Lord of Heaven, what cost!"

Then she dropped her blade and, under cover of the darkness, sat backupon her heels, covered her face with her hands, and wept. 

In the silence that had fallen deep again, save for the lessening tumultbehind, her weeping sounded to the outermost canoe low and awful, hardand terrible as the weeping of a man. 

She did not even feel if the breath was still in McElroy. 

Friendship was taking its toll of love. 

CHAPTER XXVI SANCTUARY

"'Twas yer leader I meant, lassie, should rayport to me. Is it he I sawyez rollin' out like a bag o' beans?"

"Nay, M'sieu, " said Maren Le Moyne, standing before the tall man in theflush of dawn at the morning camp, her eyes red-rimmed and the curlingcorners of her mouth drooped and sad; "what poor leader there is amongus has been myself. "

"Eh?"

All along the river bank were little fires, their blue smoke curlingup to the blue sky above, the bustle and fuss of preparation for themorning meal. At one place in the centre of camp two women, theirappearance that of great fatigue, were languidly directing the work ofa couple of Indians. An abundance of truck was everywhere--utensils forcooking, clothing, and blankets out of all reason to one used to thetrail. 

These things had not escaped Maren as she came through them in searchof the leader. They all set his status in her mind, told her much of thehistory of her rescuers. 

"Eh?" he said in surprise again; "you the leader? An' whatlike was theevil hap that placed ye in among that rabble o' painted beauties, mayI ask? An' how comes a slip of a lass"--he looked her over from headto heel with his sharp grey eyes; "--well, not so much a slip, still acolleen--like you wid th' command o' men in this part o' th' world?"

"Of a surety you may ask, M'sieu, and it will be my happiness to tellyou, since but for you and your quick help, given without knowledge, weshould be now in sorry plight. 

"The man you saw taken from the canoe is Monsieur Anders McElroy, Factorof Fort de Seviere on the Assiniboine, and of the Hudson's Bay Company. "

"Faith of me fathers! Say ye so! A man of our own men!"

"Aye. Then you are also of the Company? Good! Surely have we fallenon the lap of fortune.... Those Indians, Nakonkirhirinons from the farnorth and strangers in this country, came to De Seviere to trade. Fortwo--three dais, maybe more, --I have lost track of time, M'sieu, --theypassed up and down at the trading, --camped on the shore, and all seemedwell, though they were wild and shy as partridges. One man among themseemed to wear the cloak of civilisation, --Negansahima the chief. 

"Then one day at dusk, --it was a soft day, gold and sweet, M'sieu, andsoft, with all the post at the great gate watching the Indians, --therewere many, --four or five hundred warriors and as many women andchildren, --this day there was, --a tragedy. Something happened, --atrifle. "

The girl stopped a moment and a sigh caught her breath. 

"Just a trifle--but two men fought at the gate, the factor andanother--a Nor'wester from the Saskatchewan, --a long-haired venturer, --aman from Montreal, but a brave man, M'sieu, oh, a very brave man! Theyfought and there was the discharge of a pistol, --and--the shot wentwild. It slew the good chief, M'sieu. There was uproar, --they swarmedupon the two and bound them. "

Maren's eyes were growing large with the remembered excitement of thatmoment. 

The tall Irishman was watching her keenly. 

"They bound them and struck away to the north, taking them along, andthe burden of their cry was, 'A skin for a skin!'

"They brought them so far, --they would have reached their own countrybut for a band of Bois-Brules, who joined them some suns back with thatred liquor whose touch is hell to an Indian. They had gone wild, M'sieu;wild!"

She was very weary and she shuddered a bit at the word. 

"And, --so, --that is all, --save that we had done that much towardescaping when you found us. "

She ceased and looked gravely into his face. 

"Howly Moses! I see, --I see! But ye have left a wide rent in th' tale. Wherefore are yez here yerself, lassie?"

"I?" said Maren, swaying where she stood. "I followed, M'sieu. "

"Followed? From the Assiniboine? Alone?"

"Nay. There was one came with me, --a youth, --a trapper, --my comrade, myfriend. He died yonder in that surging purgatory--"

The tears were welling to her weary eyes. 

"The Nor'wester, Alfred de Courtenay, also--We only of that venture areescaped alive, --a sorry showing. The five men who man my boat belongto the brigade under Mr. Mowbray, which we met on Winnipeg. Such isour small history, M'sieu, and all we ask is your protection out of thereach of the Nakonkirhirinons. I take him back to De Seviere, --Godknows if he will live to reach it. He lies so still. But I must get himback--"

She ceased and passed her hand across her eyes. 

"I must get him back, --I must get him back. "

"Aye, aye. Ye come with me. Ye need a woman's hand, girl. Ye're well inyerself. "

There was a huskiness to the sharp voice and the man took her by thearm, turning her toward the fire and the two women. She stumbled a stepor two in the short stretch. 

"I must go back to him, M'sieu!" she protested. "He will need--willneed--broth--and a wet cloth to his bruised head--"

"We'll see to him, don't ye fret. It's shlape ye need yerself. Sheila, whativer do ye think o' this! Here's a colleen shlipped through thefingers of those bow-legged signboards and fair done wid heroism an'strategy, an' Lord knows what all, an' off her feet wid tire! Do ye takeher an' feed her. Put her to bed on th' blankets an' do for her likeyerself knows how, darlint! 'Tis an angel unaware, I'm thinkin'--an' heron Deer River!"

One of the women, a little creature with dark hair and blue eyes, Irisheyes "rubbed in with a smutty finger, " came forward and looked up intoMaren's stained face, streaked with her tears, her eyes dazed and allbut closing with the weariness that had only laid its hand upon her inthe last few moments, but whose sudden touch was heavy as lead. 

"Say ye so!" she said wonderingly; "a girl! So this was what caused therumpus in the night! But come, dearie, 'tis rest ye want, sure!"

She laid her and on Maren's arm and there was in its gentle touchsomething which broke down the last quivering strand of strength withinthe girl, striving to stand upright. 

"Yes, Madame, " she said dreamily. "Yes, but he must have--he musthave--broth--and a bandage, --wet"

"Sure, sure, --he shall, --but come to the blankets!"

As Maren went down with a long sigh, her limbs shirking the last taskof straightening themselves upon the softness of the unwonted couch, thelittle woman looked up across her at the man with a world of questionsin her face. 

"Poor darlin'!" she said softly. "Whativer is it, Terence?"

"A heroine, if all she says be thrue, an' as unconscious of it as anew-born babe!"

When Maren awoke the sun was straight overhead and some one had beencalling from a distance for a very long time. 

"Come, come, asthore! Opin yer eyes! That's it! A little more, now. Wakeup, for love av Heaven, or we'll all be overtaken be th' Injuns!"

Ah! Indians! At that she opened her eyes and looked into the pretty blueones she remembered last. 

The little woman was kneeling beside her with an arm about her shoulder, trying to lift her heavy head and falling short in the endeavour. 

Maren was too much in her muscled height for the bird-like creature. Shesat up at once and looked around. The canoes were in the water, all themiscellaneous luggage had been put aboard, and every one was ready fora new start. Only herself, the blanket bed, and the little woman wereunready. 

Just below, her own canoe, with Brilliers, Wilson, Frith, McDonald, and Alloybeau in place, waited her presence. She could see, from theelevation of the shore, the stretched form of McElroy in the bottom, a bright blanket beneath him and his fair head pillowed on a roll ofleaves. A shelter of boughs hid his face, and for one moment her heartstopped while the river and the woods, the people and the boats whirledtogether in a senseless blur. 

She sprang to her feet. 

"Is he--" she faltered thickly, "is he--"

"No, no, dearie! He is like he was, only they have fixed him a bit av ashelther from th' sun. Do ye dhrink this now, " she coaxed in her prettyvoice; "dhrink it, asthore, --ye'll nade it f'r th' thrip. "

She held up a bowl of broth, steaming and sweet as the flesh-pots ofEgypt, and Maren took it from her. 

"But--did M'sieu--Oh, I have slept when I should have tended him!"

"Ye poor girl. Dhrink, --he has been fed like a babe be me own hands. There!"

There were tears in the little woman's eyes, and Maren took the bowl anddrained it clear. 

"You are good, Madame, " she said, with a long breath. "Merci! How goodto those in need! But now am I right as a trivet and shamed that I mustfail at the last. Are you ready?"

She picked up the blankets, smiled at the tall man who came for them, and walked with them down to the canoes. 

"In th' big boat, lass, wid th' women, " said the leader; "'tis moreroomy-like. "

"I thank you, M'sieu, but I have my place. I cannot leave it. " And shestepped in her own canoe. 

"Did ye iver behold such a shmile, Terence?" cried the little woman, when the flotilla had strung into shape and the green summer shores wereslipping past. "'Tis like the look av th' Virgin in th' little Chapel avSt. Joseph beyant Belknap's skirts, --so sad and yet as fair as light!"

And so began with the slipping green shores, the airy summer sky lacedwith its vanity of fleecy clouds, the backward journey to safety and DeSeviere. 

The large party travelled at forced time, short camps and long pulls, for, as the little woman told Maren at the next stop, they were hurryingsouth to Quebec. 

"Where th' ships sail out to th' risin' sun, ochone, and Home calls overth' sea, --the little green isle wid its pigs an' its shanties, itsfairs an' its frolics, an' the merry face av th' Father to laugh at itsweddin's an' cry over its graves. Home that might make a lass forgetsuch a haythen land as this, though God knew if it would ever get out avth' bad dreams at night!

"An' now will ye be afther tellin' us th' sthory av yer adventures, mydear?"

Maren was cooking a broth of wild hen in the little pail of poor MarcDupre, across the fire, and the little woman was busy watching a bitof bread baking on a smoothed plank. Her companion, a tall, fair-hairedwoman with pale eyes, light as the grey-green sheen sometimes seen onthe waters before a storm, was reclining in tired idleness beside her. This woman had not spoken to Maren, but her cold eyes followed her nowwith an odd persistence. 

"Or is it too wild and sad? If it gives ye pain, don't say aword, --though, wurra! 'tis woild I am to hear!"

Maren looked up, and once more the smile that was stranger to herfeatures played over them in its old-time beauty. 

"Nay, --why should I not tell so good a heart as yours?" said the girlsimply, and she began at the beginning and told the sorry tale throughto its end. 

"And so he died, this young trapper with the soul of pearl, and I alonego back to De Seviere with--with M'sieu the factor, " she concludedheavily. 

"Mother av Heavin! An' which, --forgive me lass, --which man av the threedid ye love? For 'tis only love could be behind such deeds as these!"

The ready tears were swimming in the Irishwoman's blue eyes, straightfrom her warm heart, and she was leaning forward in the intensity of hersympathy and excitement. 

"Which, Madame? Why, M'sieu the factor, surely. "

And Maren looked into the red heart of the fire. 

With a sudden impulse this daughter of Erin dropped her plank in theashes, and coming swiftly forward, fell on her knees with her armsaround the girl's neck. 

"Saints be praised!" she cried, weeping openly. "Saints be praised, yehave him safe! An' there can nothin' ha'arm ye now, with us goin' yerways so close! An' there'll be a weddin' av coorse whin th' poor ladcomes round! F'r a flip av ale I'd command Terence to turn aside an'go triumphant entry-in' to this blessid fort av yours and witness th'ceremonies!"

Maren smiled sadly and laid her hand on the black head tucked into herneck. It was a caress, that touch, tender and infinitely sweet, for withthe quick heart of her she knew the little woman to be of the gold ofearth, and she was conscious of a longing to keep her near, who was sosoon to sail "into the risin' sun" and who had been so short a time herfriend. 

Friend, assuredly, for friendship was not a thing of time, but heartsalike, and they had turned together with the first look. 

So they sat a while, these two from the ends of the earth, and the warmIrish heart cleared itself of tears, like April weather, to come uplaughing in another moment. 

"An' to think ye niver told us your name, asthore!" she said, wiping hereyes; "nor yer home place! Were ye raised in this post av haythins?"

"Maren Le Moyne of Grand Portage. My father--was a smith. "

"Of Grand Portage! An' ye are so far inland! I am Sheila O'Halloran, av all Oirland, an' wife to Terence th' same, --yer fri'nd for always, asthore, f'r niver will I be forgettin' this time!"

She turned to the fair woman, smiling and alight. 

"Did ye iver dhrame av such romance, my dear?" she asked. "An' isn't itjust wonderful to find a real live heroine in th' wilderness?"

The woman was toying with a bunch of grass, winding the slim greenblades around her pale fingers, and she looked back with peculiarstraightness. 

"It is all very wonderful, Sheila, and commands admiration, of course;but, for my part, a strange woman alone on the rivers with a party ofmen must have something beside her own word to vouch for her beforeI should take her in with open arms. You are too ready to believeanything. How do you know this venturess is not a--Jezebel?"

For a moment an awful silence fell upon the three, and they could hearthe myriad sounds of the evening camp round about. 

Then Maren, her eyes wide in amaze, said stupidly:

"Eh, --Madame?"

And the Irishwoman cried: "Frances! For shame!"

But the other was very much composed. 

"I am right, all the same, --what woman of modesty would follow a man tothe wilderness, confessing brazenly her love? You haven't noticed anyhysterics on my part over it, --nor will you. I think it all a very openscandal. "

The little woman was flying into a rage of tumbled words and hopelessbrogue, but Maren Le Moyne, the blood red to her temples, rose silently, took the pot of broth, and walked away, and never in her life did shehold herself so tall and straight. 

As she knelt beside the blanket bed of McElroy, and lifted his helplesshead, her eyes were burning sombrely. 

"This, too?" she was saying dumbly, within herself. "Is this, too, partof the lesson of life?"

And all through the days that followed, long warm days, with the songsof birds from the gliding shores, the ripple of waters beneath the prowof a canoe, she sat beside the unconscious man and looked at him withdumb yearning. 

For love of him, --what would she not have done, what would she not dostill for love of him, --he who had sold her for a kiss; and for it therecame something, --she could not define it, --something that seemed to livein the atmosphere, to taint the glory of the sunshine, to speak underevery word and whisper. 

Never again did she cook at the fire with the others, but had her ownon the outskirts, and Sheila O'Halloran came and cooked with her, talkedand comforted and hovered about Anders McElroy where he lay in a silencelike death, his fair face flushed with fever and his strong handsplucking at everything within their reach. 

"Don't ye worry, dear, he'll not die. 'Twouldn't be accordin' to th'rights av life, --not afther all ye've done f'r him. He'll opin hisblessid eyes some day an' know ye, an' Heaven itself will not be likethim f'r glory. "

But Maren only looked tragically down upon him. 

What would they say, those eyes that she had thought so earnest, soall-deserving in their eager honesty, if they should open to her alone?

Would they lie as they had done before, with the thought of Francettebehind their blue clearness?

Ah, well, --it was all in the day's march. 

This day at noon camp she came upon, close to a fallen tree, a wee redflower nodding on its slender stalk. She sighed and broke it. 

"In memory of a brave man, " she said sadly. "Oh, a very brave man!"

CHAPTER XXVII RETURN

Eastward through the little lakes, across the portages where McElroy wascarried by means of pole and blanket swung from sturdy shoulders, theywent at hurried pace, and never a man of Maren's small command butwatched the sadness of her face, that seemed to grow with the days andto feel an aching counterpart of it within his own heart. 

"Take my coat for your head, Ma'amselle, " when she rested among thethwarts, --"Let me, Ma'amselle, " when she would do some little task. Thus they served her from the old desire that sight of her face had everstirred in the breasts of men, she who had never played at the game oflove, nor knew its simplest trick. 

Southward, presently, up the rivers hurrying to the great bay at thenorth, and at last out upon the broad waters of Winnipeg, and never foran hour had McElroy's wandering soul come back to his suffering body. Day by day Maren tended him, feeding him as one feeds a helpless babe, shielding him from the sun by her own shadow when the branches gatheredat morn withered ere noon, wetting the fair head with its wavingsunburnt hair with water dipped from overside, and praying constantlyfor his life. 

As they neared the southern end, where Winnipeg narrows like the neckof a bottle, his tongue loosened from its silence and he began to babbleand talk in broken sentences, and it was all about De Courtenay and aremorse that ate the troubled soul. 

"I owe you apologies, M'sieu, --'tis a sorry plight and I alone am toblame. And yet I have a score, --gladly would I take my will of you forthat one fault, --another time, --another place. Still have I no right, save as one man who, --But I have a plan, --one may escape, --listen--whenI grapple with this guard, do you make for the river--with all speed--MyGod! My God! M'sieu! Why did you not run?" And so he muttered andsighed, and Maren bent above with wide eyes. 

Something there was between these two, some enmity that followed eveninto the land of shadows and yet held them gentlemen through it all, offering and rejecting some chance of escape. A weary, weary tangle. 

Again he would fancy himself back in De Seviere and always there was DeCourtenay with his smiling face and tantalizing beauty. 

"Welcome, M'sieu, to our post! Seldom do we meet so gay a guest!"

Often the wandering words would stumble among his accounts at thefactory and he would give directions to the clerks, and then Ridgar'sname would come, only to carry him instantly to the camp of the savageson Deer River. 

"Edmonton, --friend of my heart, --alone! and you pass me without speech!Ah, --that look! That look! I'd stake my soul--"

And once in the cool twilight of an ended day, with the tall trees aboveand the river lapping below, he cried out her name, "Maren!" and once again, "Maren!" with a world of change between the twowords. 

The first plunged the girl's heart to her throat with its passion, thesecond chilled her like a cool wind. 

And all at once he said, after a pause, "What is it, little one?"

So passed the days of the return. 

Hour by hour the bright waters of the lake spoke to the girl with voicesof regret and sadness. The blue sky above seemed to mirror the darkface of Marc Dupre, the wind from the shores to be his low voice, eachpassing shadow among the trees his slender figure returning from thehunt for her. 

Her heart was sore that Fate had willed it so, and yet, looking downat the face of this man at her feet, she knew it had to be and that shewould do again all that she had done. 

And ever before her passed the scornful face of the fair woman who hadset the little undertone to all the world. 

It troubled her, and for hours together she sat in silence reasoningit all out, while Mowbray's men dipped the shining blades and here andthere the voyageurs and Indians who wore no feathers sang snatches ofsong, now a chanson of the trail and rapid, again a wordless monotony ofsavage notes. 

The evening camps were short spaces of blessed quietude and conversewhen Sheila O'Halloran sat beside her and they talked of manythings, --chiefly the dear little Island whose green sod would soon againreceive the feet of "herself an' Terence. "

"'Tis thankful I am, me dear, to be out av this forsaken land alivewid me hair on me head instid av on a hoop painted green wid little redarrows on th' stretched shkin inside! 'Tis a sorry counthry an' fit f'rno woman, but whin Terence must come on some mysterious business av th'government, --an' niver, till this minute, accushla, do I know whut itis, --a cryin' shame 'tis, too, wid me, his devoted wife!--I must comealong or die. Wurra! Many's th' time I thought I'd do th' thrickhere! But now are th' dangers passin' wid ivery mile, --hark to th' mensingin'! 'Tis bad business whin men do not sing at th' day's work. 'Tisglad I am f'r safe deliverance from that counthry av nightmares wid itsoutlandish name, --Athabasca, --where Terence must moon from post to postav th' Hudson's Bay--"

"Athabasca!"

Maren's head was up and she was looking at the little woman with aneager wistfulness. 

"The Land of the Whispering Hills!"

"Thrue, --'tis th' Injun word, --but a woild, woild land f'r all that. "

"But beautiful, Madame, --oh! it is beautiful, is it not?"

"Fair, --wid high hills an' a great blue lake an' woildness!--Ah!"

But the tall leader was calling and camp was breaking for anotherstretch. 

And under the travelling stars of that night there awoke in the heartof the maid of the trail something of the old love, the old longing forthat goal of her life's ambition. 

She had turned aside from it, only to be taught a lesson whose scarswould stay deep in her soul so long as life lasted. 

At last came an hour when the party under O'Halloran must turn to theeast, where the bottle-neck of Winnipeg split in two, going down thatwell-worn way which led to Lake of the Woods, Rainy River, and at lastto the wide lakes, whose sparkling waves would waft them on to the greatoutside world. 

There was a scene at parting, when the warmhearted Irishwoman clung toMaren and wept against her bosom, calling her all the hundred words for"darling" in the Celtic and vowing to remember her always. 

The fair woman, wife of a Scotchman who acted as some sort of secretaryto O'Halloran, sat apart in cold silence. 

"M'sieu, " said Maren, at the last, "I have no words to thank you forthis that you have done. I but cast it into the balance of God, whichmust hang heavy with your goodness. "

She had given her hand to the leader, and that impulsive son of the ouldsod kissed it gallantly. 

"'Tis little we did, lass, for you and your poor lad yonder, and 'twasin our hearts to do more. But here's luck to you both, --an early weddin'an' sturdy sons!"

And, as the morning sun glittered on the ripples of the departing boats, Maren stood long looking after them, a mist in her eyes and her fulllips quivering. 

She looked until the gathering dimness hid the waving kerchief of theonly woman friend who had ever truly reached her heart. 

Then she sat down and took up a paddle. 

"Last lap, Messieurs, " she said, above the mutter of McElroy at herfeet, and they turned toward where the familiar river came rushing tothe lake. 

The summer lay heavy on the land when they reached the Assiniboine. 

Deep green of the forests, deep green of fern and bush and understuff, told of the full tide of the year. Here and there a leaf trailed in theshallows, yellow as gold in an early death. 

She thought of the spring, so long past, when she had first come intothis sweet land, and it seemed like another time, another life, anotherperson. 

This day at dusk they passed the hidden cove where she had found MarcDupre waiting to build her fire. The abandoned canoe still lay hiddenwhere he left it. 

Cool blue dawn, hushed and wide-reaching, still with that stillnesswhich precedes the sunrise, lay over the river, when the lone canoerounded the lower bend and Anders McElroy, factor of Fort de Seviere, came back to his own again. 

In the prow there knelt a weary figure in a soiled and sun-bleachedgarment of doeskin, its glittering plastron of bright beads broken hereand there, the ragged ends of sinews hanging as they were left bybriar and branch, and the haggard eyes went with eager swiftness to thestockade standing in its grim invincibility facing the east. 

The row of wonted canoes lay upturned upon the shelving shore at thelanding, the half-moon at the right still glowered with its puny cannonwhich had spoken no word to save their master on that fateful day, andall things looked as if but a day had passed between. 

The great gate with its studded breast was closed, the bastions at thecorners were empty of watchers, for peace folded its wings above thepast. 

Without sound the boat cut up to the landing, Brilliers leaped out andsteadied it to place, and Maren stepped once more upon the familiarslope. 

They lifted McElroy, swinging in his blanket, and the tread of themoccasined feet was hollow on the planks. 

Thus there passed up to the gate of De Seviere a triumphal processionof victory, whose heart was heavy within it, and whose leader in hertattered dress was the saddest sight of all. 

She raised her hand and beat upon the gate, and a voice cried, "Whocomes?"

"Open, my brother, " she called, for the voice was that of HenriBaptiste, whose turn at the gate it was. 

There was an ejaculation, a swift rattle of chains, and the heavy portalswung back, while the blanched face of young Henri stared into the dawn. Maren motioned to the men and they stepped in with their burden. 

"Holy Mary! Maren! Maren! Maren!" cried Henri Baptiste, and took bothher arms in a gripping clasp. He looked into her face with fear andwonder, as if the girl had returned from the dead, while joy unspeakablebegan to lighten his features. 

"Sister! Holy Mary!"

And then, when the touch of her in the flesh had dispelled his firsthorror, when the sight of the factor swinging grotesquely in the blankethad taken on the sense of reality, he raised his voice in a stentoriancall. 

From every door it brought the populace running, half-dressed andstartled, and in scant space a ring of faces stared upon the strangersin stupid awe. 

"Ma'amselle Le Moyne!" they whispered, fearfully. 

"Mother of Heaven! The factor!"

"Our factor! Out of the hands of Death!"

"Mon Dieu! One of them! And the maid!"

And in the midst of the awed and hushed excitement that was growing witheach passing moment, there cut the voice of McElroy, babbling from theblanket. 

"Throw! Throw, Ma'amselle, --for M'sieu!"

"Hush!" said Maren; "where is Prix Laroux?"

"Here!"

The big fellow was pushing through the gathering crowd, to stand beforethe weary girl with burning eyes. 

"Maren!" he said simply, and could say no more. 

"Take him, Prix, " she said quietly; "take him to the factory. Get Rettede Lancy's hand above him for care, and Jack for all things else. Takethese my men, and give them all the post affords, but chiefly rest atpresent. They have--"

Here there came a tumult among the listening populace, and Marie rushedthrough and flung herself upon Maren and there was time for nothingelse, save that, as Maren turned with her hanging like a vice abouther throat and Henri's arm across her shoulders, there was a streakof crimson, a flash of ornaments in the sun, but now risen above theforest's rim, and some one threw herself upon the unconscious form ofMcElroy, kissing his face and his helpless hands and weeping terribly. 

It was the little Francette. At her heels the great dog, Loup, haltedand glowered at the strangers. 

CHAPTER XXVIII THE OLD DREAM ONCE MORE

They led her through the new day, between the staring, whisperingpeople, this comer from beyond the grave, to the little new cabin besidethe northern wall, across its step and into its sweet, fresh cleanlinessof home; and when Henri had shut the door they stood together in agroup, their arms inwound, and Marie wept helplessly while Maren lookeddown with moist and weary eyes. 

"There! There! Hush, ma cherie! Hush!" she was saying, but Henri wasreading with amaze the change in her glorious face. 

"It has been a long trail, Prix, but a longer one beckons with ceaselessinsistence. No longer can I sit in idleness. Can we, think you, raisethe debt to carry us on at once? My heart is sick for the Athabasca. "

Maren stood by the factory door conversing earnestly with Laroux. 

From every point of the post curious eyes looked upon her. Here andthere groups of women whispered in the doorways, and once and again alaugh, quick hushed, broke on the evening air. 

Somehow they struck upon the girl's ears with an ugly sound, remindingher vaguely of the fair woman who travelled eastward with SheilaO'Halloran, and her voice grew more earnest. 

Laroux, who had not spoken with her since that one word of the morningat the gate, was dumb of tongue, aching with the old feeling in hisheart which had told him faithfully so long ago that all was not wellwith her. 

"At once, Maren, " he said huskily, "I will raise the debt. When wouldyou be gone?"

"Soon, my friend, --soon, soon. "

"The word shall go round to-night. All shall be ready in forty-eighthours. "

He paused a moment and presently, "Maren, maid, " he said. 

"Yes?"

"Hold you aught against me for the stand I took that day--the duty I sawfirst?"

"Against you, Prix?--the truest, bravest friend I own? Nay, man, --youare my staff, my hope, my courage. Would I had had your strength theseheavy days. "

"Would to the good God you had! It shall not fail you again. "

Maren held out her hand and Laroux grasped it in a clasp of faith. 

"See!" cried Tessa Bibye, peeping eagerly from among the women, "sheholds hands with that blackhaired man of her people who spurs the rest. One man or another, --as Francette says, --little cat!--all are fishwho come to Ma'amselle's net! The factor, or the cavalier, or a commonvoyageur. 

"Can they not see, these fool men, that the woman is a venturess, playing with all?"

"You lie, Tessa Bibye!"

Micene Bordoux had passed unnoticed. Now she turned her accusing glanceon the loose-tongued girl. 

"Because you are so small of soul yourself, are your eyes blinded to thegreater heights? Ma'amselle is lost in the clouds above you. "

She went on, and Maren at the factory door turned to enter. 

"Give the word, --and make all haste. Fix all things as you think best. "

The great trading-room, lined with its shelves and circled withcounters, was empty, save for a clerk, Gifford, who cast accounts in thebig book on the factor's desk, and Maren's footsteps rang heavy to herears as she passed through it to the little room behind, where she couldsee Rette passing back and forth at her tasks of mercy. 

She stopped at the open door and looked within that little room. Herewere the things of McElroy's life, --the plain chairs, the table, theshelf with its books, the chest against the western wall, and on thebed, pulled out to get the breeze, lay the man himself prone in hissplendid strength. 

The light from the setting sun was on his head with its fair hair andflushed face, rolling restlessly from side to side. There was no reasonin the earnest blue eyes, and Maren felt a mighty anguish swell and gripher throat as she stood looking on the pathetic scene. 

"Come in, Ma'amselle, " whispered Rette from her motherly heart, drawnby sight of her haggard face, but Maren's eyes had fallen on a littlefigure huddled on the far side of the bed with its face buried againstMcElroy's left hand. 

She knew the small head running over with black curls. 

"Nay, Rette, " she said quietly, "I would speak a moment with you. "

The woman came out and closed the door. 

"Poor little fool!" she whispered, "she is worn to a shadow with theseweeks of weeping, and, now that he is back, will not give over hangingto his hand like one drowning. "

"Heed not. Is it in your heart, Rette, to do a deed of kindness for me, to keep a word of faith?"

"With all my heart, Ma'amselle!"

"Then, " whispered Maren, apart from the clerk's listening ears, "takeyou this letter. Keep it until M'sieu the factor is in his right mind, then give it him with your own hands. If he--if he should--burn it, Rette, unopened. "

And she gave into the woman's keeping the only letter she had everwritten to a man. 

It was in French, and the script was fine and finished. 

This was what she had said, alone in the little room with its easternwindow at the end of the Baptiste cabin:

"MONSIEUR MCELROY, Factor of Fort de Seviere, ave atque vale. " (Thetender word of Father Tenau when he blessed her that last time in GrandPortage)

"The time has come when I must take my people out of your post, mustbreak their contract and their word. Forgive them, M'sieu, and laynot the fault to them, for I, and I only, am to blame. But the time Ipromised is too long.... I can no longer hold back the tide of longingwhich drives me to that land of which we spoke once.... " (Here there wasa break in the letter, a smudge on the page, as if the quill had caughtthe paper or a drop of moisture run into the ink. )

"I must go forward, and at once, to the Athabasca. The great quest isstrong at my heartstrings again. I thank you, M'sieu, for all kindnessdone my people, and I promise that, should fortune favour them and me inthat far land to which we journey, they shall send what trade lies withthem to De Seviere. For one thing I ask, --if it be possible, M'sieu, give to certain men who will be found by word to Mr. Mowbray of York, such stipend as you can, for they were good and faithful, --namely, Frithand Wilson and McDonald, Brilliers and Alloybeau.... Adieu, M'sieu. Godsend you health. (Signed)

"MAREN LE MOYNE, of Grand Portage. "

Laroux was worth his word. 

Forty-eight hours later there stood at the portal of Fort de Seviere, ready for the trail, that small band of wanderers who had come into itin the early spring. 

They were fuller of hope, more eager to face the wilderness than on thatday, for joy after sorrow sat blithely on their faces, turned to thetall young woman at their head. And they were fully equipped for travel. Three canoes held wealth of supplies, while six huskies whined in leash, nervous under new masters, touched with the knowledge of coming change. 

Not a man in De Seviere who had not given gladly, nay, vied with hisneighbour to give, to the helping of this woman. 

Had they not their factor back from death and its torments?

There was God-speed and hearty handclasp from the men, and Maren smiledinto their faces, reading their simple hearts. 

With the women it was different. They hung, gazing, on the outskirts, calling farewell to Marie, who wept a little at sight of her desertedcabin, to Anon and Mora and Ninette, but there was no reflection ofthe feeling of their masters for this girl with her weary beauty, hersteady, half-tragic eyes. Nor was there great regret over Micene. Toosharp had been her tongue, too keen her perception of their faults. 

True, the autumn was near at hand. Winter would come with its myriadfoes before they could hope to be ready for it, and Maren, looking farahead, saw it and its dangers, and her heart sickened a bit with thethought of her people; but the thing within was stronger than all else. 

She must leave De Seviere at once. Therefore, she raised her head withher face to the west. 

It was early dawn again. It seemed that it had ever been dawn whenfateful things had happened in this post, every log and stone of whichwas suddenly dear to her. 

She stood in the opened gate and looked back upon it, on the cabins, thewell where De Courtenay had placed his first red flower in her hair, thestorehouses, and the factory. 

The factory!

With sight of it once more the wave of anguish swept over her. Shesaw the small plain room at the back, the figure of a man prone inhis helplessness, a fair head with blue eyes, pleading in their honestclearness, and her lips trembled. 

"Ready?" she said, and the deep voice slipped unsteadily. 

"Aye, " answered Prix Laroux, and picked up the last pack of chattels. 

At that moment there was a flurry among the pressing men around, a soundabove the many voices wishing them luck, and little Francette brokethrough. 

"Ma'amselle!" she cried, looking up into Maren's eyes with conflictingexpressions on her small face, misery and solemn joy and hatred thatstrove to soften itself beneath a better emotion; "Ma'amselle, --I wouldthank you! Oh, bon Dieu! I am not all bad! Here!"

She seized Loup by the ears and dragged him forward, snarling. "Takehim, Ma'amselle! I love him! Do you take him, --and--and-understand!"

All her red-rose beauty had gone from the little maid along with herdancing lightness. 

These long weeks had turned her into a woman with a woman's heart. 

They drew back and looked on with wonder, and then smiles of amusement, but Maren, gazing into the tragic little face, saw deeper. 

"Why, --little one, " she said gently, unconsciously falling intoMcElroy's words after a trick she had, "I--I understand. You need notgive up the dog, --I know what you would say. "

"No!" cried Francette fiercely. "No! Take him! Take him! I will make youtake him! I will!"

She was whimpering, and Maren, stooping, laid a hand on the husky'scollar. 

Without more words she turned and followed her people down to thelanding, half-dragging the brute, who hung back and turned his gianthead to the little maid, standing with her hands over her face. 

He snarled and bit at Maren's wrist, but she picked him up and flunghim, half-dragging on the ground, for he was a mighty beast, into thefirst canoe. 

"Push off, " she said; and, taking her place in the prow, she raised herface to the cool blue sky, and turned once more to that West whose voicehad called from her cradle, but, with some strange perversity offate, her heart drew back to the squat stockade slowly fading into thedistance. 

The sweet wind of the Whispering Hills was very faint on her soul. 

CHAPTER XXIX BITTER ALOES

Eight months passed over the country of the Assiniboine, bringing theirchanges. The short full-tide of the summer seemed to run out with thegoing of the venturers, and the autumn to come from the north-west in anight. 

Great splashes of colour dropped on the land, spilled from the paletteof some careless giant, --gold and crimson and purple. Glorious firesburned in the cooling skies and the sweet breath of autumn tingled inthe air. 

There was comment, and the shaking of heads among the old trappers. Thewrong time of year to take the long trail with women, --the wrong time, but, bon Dieu! who was to stop that woman with the sombre eyes? Voila! Awoman to thrill the blood in any man who was still warm with life!

"Love awakened in her would be a thing of flame and fury, they hadthought, that long past day, " thought Pierre Garcon to himself; "he andthat friend of his heart, Marc Dupre, --it had been a thing of patientservitude, of transcendent daring, and Marc Dupre; ah! He had been apart of it. But there was much of mystery about it all, and no one knew, nor would any know, all that it had meant. "

So the changes came and passed, and when Anders McElroy again opened hiseyes to reason, the world was white against the pane of the one windowof the little room, --the long snows had arrived. Winter was upon theNorthland. 

It was on a night when the wind without howled like a lost soul shutout from the universe and the sucking of the chimney-throat roared toheaven. 

Edmonton Ridgar sat at the hearth gazing into the leaping flames, andRette de Lancy passed and repassed among the shifting shadows, busy atsome kindly task. 

Long he lay, this man returned from the Borderland of the Unknown, and stared weakly at the familiar sights that were yet touched with apuzzling strangeness. 

It seemed that this was all as it should be, and yet there was somethinglacking, --a great gap, whose images and happenings were wiped out asa cloth wipes clean a slate, --a space of darkness, of blankness, whoseempty void held prescience of some great sadness. He lay on his sidefacing the fire, and twice he thought to speak to Ridgar with a questionof this strangeness, and each time he was conscious of a vast surprisethat the man did not answer. 

His lips, so long unused to sane direction, had made no sound in theroar of the night. 

And then Ridgar, drawn by that intangible sense of eyes upon him, raisedhis head; and, as their glances met, that great void flashed suddenlyinto full panoply of life peopled with a ring of painted faces againstthe background of a night forest, a leaping fire, and the heroic figureof a tall woman who stood in the dancing light and threw a hatchet at apainted post. 

Ridgar's eyes, as he had seen them in the dimness of the outskirts ofthat massed circle, brought back the lost period of time and all thathad passed therein. 

He stared wildly at him, and then around the firelit room. 

"Ah!" said Ridgar softly, getting slowly to his feet with a smile atonce tender and exaggeratedly calm. "You have awakened, have you; eh, lad? Would you sleep the whole night away as well as the day?"

He came to the bed and took McElroy's hand tenderly in his, while hegave Rette a warning glance. 

McElroy tried to rise, but only his head obeyed, lifting itself a bitfrom the pillow to fall helplessly back. 

He looked up at Ridgar with a look that cut that good man's heart, sofull was it of wild entreaty and piteous grief. 

"Maren?" whispered the weak lips. "Maren, --where--?" And they, too, failed him. 

"Safe, " said Ridgar gently; "all is well. We are at De Seviere and thereis no need to think. Do you drink a sip of Rette's good broth and sleepagain. "

With a sigh of ineffable relief the sick man obeyed like a child, falling back into the shadows, though this time they were the blessedshades of the Vale of Healing Rest. 

Rette in a corner was wiping her eyes and saying, over and over, aprayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from death. 

With infinite tact Ridgar kept him quiet, promising the tale of whathad happened, and, when the flow of returning life could no longer bestemmed, he set himself the task of telling what he knew of those swiftdays. 

It was again night, though a week of nights had passed since that onwhich the factor had awakened to consciousness, and Ridgar had dismissedRette. 

There was only the roar of the wind without, the whistle of the fire, and the two men alone in the room as they had been many a winter'snight. 

"Now, --where shall I begin?" said the chief trader, gazing into thefire. "At what point?"

"Maren, " said McElroy eagerly, from the bed; "begin with her. "

Ridgar shook his head. 

"Nay, it goes farther back. Let it begin with the leaving of De Seviereand the coldness of my bearing to you.... Did you never think, lad, thatit was but a blind, covering the determination to help you at the firstopportunity? Thought you the friendship of years so poor a thing as tobe turned in a day? Day by day my heart ached for some word with you, or even a glance that would make all straight; but those painted devilswatched my every move, my every look, the very intaking of my breath, as the coyote watches the gopher-hole when the badger is below. Only forsake of the dead chief at my feet was I given such seemingly free leaveamong them, --for myself, I had been shipped as were poor De Courtenay'sNor'westers at Wenusk Creek. And now is the time when I must go fartherback and tell you of the good chief who was my father, indeed, atheart. "

Ridgar paused a moment, and his eyes took on a look of distant things

"Have you not wondered how it was, lad, that a man should live long as Ihave lived in the wilderness, alone, without ties other than those whichbind him to the Great Company, without love of woman, without the joyof children?... I have not always lived so. Time was when I had my ownwickiup, when I lay by my own night-fire and played with the braids of awoman's hair, --long black braids, bound with crimson silk and heavy withornaments, for whose buying I paid my year's catch, when I looked intoeyes black as the woods at night and dumb with the great love she couldnot speak.... She lived it one day ... Nay, died it--when I had somewords with a young man of the tribe, who drew a spear before I knew whathe meant and hurled it at me. She... Leaped between. God!"

He ceased again, and McElroy could hear his breathing, see the whitenedknuckles of his hands grasping the poker from the hearth where he hadabsently stirred the leaping fire. 

"It went quite through her, --a foot beyond her swelling breast, full formy only child, unborn.... She was Negansahima's daughter.... We mournedtogether, the old chief and I, and our hearts were bound close as thetree and its bark. In a far high hill of the Pays d'en Haut we put herto sleep with that last look of love on her dark face... And we made apact to lie beside her when our time should come, he who out-lived theother to see the rites of the Death Feast. He has joined her. I saw hisrites. So for this end, reaching far back, I did not return when youcame back to De Seviere, going on with that rabble who dared not harm mewho am to share the Sleep of Chiefs some day.... 

"So!

"Now for the rest. I know no more of Maren Le Moyne than that firsttragic sight of her, hauled into the light by the brute DesCaut. I onlyknow that she stood before those savages as fearless as a lioness andthrew again and again, her black head up and sane, her young body underher own command in every taut cord and muscle, and that again and againand yet again the flying hatchet landed in its own cleft, --a wonderfulperformance!--putting off with coolness and skill the death they wouldsee her decide, choosing neither man of you. "

"But, " cried McElroy, "it was De Courtenay she came to see, --tosave, --to die with, --she loved him, man!"

"Aye, --maybe. But I know only that that young trapper, Marc Dupre, gavehis life as gallantly as might be to cover our retreat while we, theNor'wester and I, slipping among the sleepers, carried you to the river;that they woke, those devils, before we had cleared the little gorge, and that M'sieu de Courtenay, brave man and gay cavalier, gave yourknees to this woman who helped me get you to the canoe, himself takingthe only gun and meeting what fate was his in the narrow seam among therocks. She had with her men of Mr. Mowbray's brigade, that she had gotsomewhere on Winnipeg, and we put you in their waiting canoe. She wasdragged in among the thwarts, --while I--slipped back among the shadows, circled the camp, and was at my death-watch inside the big tepee whenpeering eyes looked in. I saw no more of the dashing Nor'wester, save aflash of long gold curls at a headman's belt. What fate was meted out tohim was swift and therefore merciful. Peace be to him!

"No more I know, my friend, save that, when I returned to De Seviere, Ifound you ill with some fever of the brain. "

"But, Ridgar, for love of Heaven, what of Maren?"

"She had brought you here, and Rette says the women hung off from herand laughed in corners, whispering and talking, and that her face wasworn and greatly changed, as if with some deep sorrow. "

McElroy turned his head upon the pillow and weak tears smarted under hislids. 

"Me! It was I she saved when it was I who slew her lover! God forgiveme, for I cannot forgive myself!"

"Nay, boy, hush! It is all as God wills. We are but shuttles in the webof this tangled life. "

"But--tell me, --what does she now? How looks her dear face?"

Ridgar was silent a moment, and McElroy repeated his question, with hisface still turned away:

"Does she pass among them, --the vipers? Does she seem to care for lifeat all now?"

"Lad, " said Ridgar gently, "I know not, for she is gone. "

"Gone!"

The pale man on the pillow sprang upright, staring at the other withopen mouth. 

"Aye, softly, boy; softly! She has been gone these many weeks; evenwhile summer was here she gathered her people, outfitted by our men, all of whom were so glad for your deliverance that they gave readily totheir debt, and took up again her long trail to the Athabasca. Rette, Ibelieve, has a letter which she left for you.... Would you read it now?"

McElroy nodded dumbly, and Ridgar went out in the night to Rette's cabinfor this last link between the factor and the woman he loved. 

When he returned, and McElroy had taken it in his shaking hands, he satdown and turned his face to the fire. 

There was silence while the flames crackled and the chimney roared, andpresently the factor said heavily:

"I cannot! Read... "

So Ridgar, bending in the light, read aloud Maren's letter. 

At its end the man on the bed turned his face to the wall and spoke nomore. 

From that time forth the tide of returning life in him stoppedsluggishly, as if the locks were set in some ocean-tapping channel. 

The bleakness of the cold north winter was in his heart and life wasbarren as the eastern meadows. 

So passed the days and the weeks, with quip and jest from Ridgar, whoseeyes wore a puzzled expression; with such coddling and coaxing fromRette as would have spoiled a well man, and, with not the least to becounted, daily visits to the factory of the little Francette, who defiedthe populace and came openly. 

With returned consciousness to McElroy, there came back to the littlemaid much of her damask beauty. The pretty cheeks bloomed again and shewas like some bright butterfly flitting about the bare room in her redkirtle. 

Sometimes McElroy would smile, watching her play with a young bob-cat, which some trapper had brought her from the woods, and whose savageplayfulness seemed to be held in leash under her small hands. Thecreature would mouth and fawn upon her, taking her cuffs and slaps, andfollow her about like a dog. 

Rette tolerated the two with a bad grace, for, since the day when MarenLe Moyne had stood at the door with her haggard beauty so wistfully sad, her sympathies had been all with the strange girl of Grand Portage. 

Light and flitting, sparkling as an elf, full to the brim of laughterand light, little Francette was playing the deepest game of her life. 

With the cunning of a woman she was trying to woo this man back to thejoy of earth, to wind herself into his heart, and so to fill his hourswith her brightness that he would come to need her always. 

So she came by day and day, and now it would be some steaming daintycooked at her father's hearth by her own hands, again a branch of thefir-tree coated with ice and sparkling with a million gems, that shebrought into the dull blankness of the room, and with her there alwayscame a fresh sweet breath of the winter world without. 

McElroy smiled at her pretty conceits, her babbling talk, her gambols, and her gifts. 

"What have you done with Loup, little one?" he asked, one day. "Does hewait on the steps to growl at this usurper purring at your heels?"

The little maid grew pearly white and looked away at Rette fearfully, asif at sudden loss, in danger of some betrayal. 

"Nay, " she said, "Loup... Is an ingrate. He has ceased to care. "

And always after she avoided aught that could excite mention of the dog. 

But, in spite of all her effort, McElroy lay week after week in the backroom, looking for hours together into the red heart of the fire, silent, uncomplaining, in no apparent pain, but shiftless as an Indian in thematter of life. 

The business of the factory was brought to him nightly by Ridgar andthe young clerk Gifford, and he would look over things and make a fewsuggestions, dispose of this and that as a matter of course and fallback into his lethargy. 

"What think you, M'sieu?" asked Rette anxiously, of Ridgar. "Is therenaught to stir him from these hours of dulness?"

"I know not, Rette. Would I did! The surgeon says there is nothingwrong with the man, save lack of desire to live. He has lost the love oflife. "

And so it seemed. Weeks dragged themselves by and months rolled afterthem, and still he lay in a great weakness that held his strong limbs asin a vice. 

Winter was roaring itself away with tearing winds, with snow thatfell and drifted against the stockade wall, and fell again, with vastsilences and cold that glazed the surface of the world with ice. 

January dragged slowly by, with dances for the young couples in thecabins at nights, and little Francette, for the first time in her life, refused to share in the merry-making of which she had always been theheart and soul. 

Instead, she lay awake in the attic of the Moline cabin and cried in herhands, listening to the whirl of the nights without. 

Alone in those long vigils instinct was telling her that she had failed. Failed utterly!

The young factor cared no more for her than on that night in spring whenhe had kissed her and told her to "play in the sunshine and think nomore of him. "

She had played for a man and failed. 

Moreover, she had not played fairly, and for her wickedness he lay nowas he had lain so long, drifting slowly but surely toward that land ofshadows whence there is no return. 

She clinched her small hands in the darkness and wept, and they werewoman's tears. 

Back to her led all the threads of tragedy, of death and danger andheartbreak, that had so hopelessly tangled themselves in Fort deSeviere. 

But for that one hour at the factory steps what time she lay inMcElroy's arms and saw Maren Le Moyne pause at the corner, all would bewell. 

Young Marc, Dupre would be singing his gay French songs with his red captilted on his curls, that handsome Nor'wester of the Saskatchewan wouldbe going his merry way, loving here and there, --instead of bleachingtheir bones in some distant forest, as the whispers said; and, lastof all, this man she loved with all the intensity of her soul would bebrown and strong with life, not the weary wreck of a man who gazed intothe fire and would not get well. 

So the long nights took toll of the little Francette and a purpose grewin her chastened heart, a purpose far too big for it. 

At last the purpose blossomed into full maturity, hastened by the darkshadows that were beginning to spread beneath McElroy's hopeless eyes, as if the spirit, so little in the body, were already leaving it to itsearthly end, and one day at dusk, trembling and afraid, she went to thefactory for the last time. 

"Rette, " she said plaintively, "will you leave me alone with M'sieu thefactor for an hour? Think what you will, " she added fiercely, as she sawthe woman's look; "tell all the populace! I care not! Only give me onehour! Mon Dieu! A little space to pay the debt of life! Leave me, Rette, as you hope for Heaven!"

And Rette, wondering and vaguely touched, complied. 

McElroy was looking, after his habit, at the leaping flames and his thinhands played absently and constantly with the covering of the bed, whenthe door opened and closed and the little maid stood shrinking againstit. 

He did not look up for long, thinking, if his dull mind could form athought through his melancholy dreams, that Ridgar had come in. 

At last a sigh that was like a gasp pierced his lethargy and he raisedhis eyes. 

She stood with one small hand over her beating heart and her cheekswhite in the firelight. 

"Ah! little one!" he said gently. "Why did you come through such anight? 'Tis wild as--as--Sit in the big chair, " he added kindly. 

But Francette, in whose face was an unbearable anguish, came swiftly andfell on her knees beside the bed, raising her eyes to his. 

"M'sieu!" she cried, with great labouring breaths. "Oh! M'sieu, I havecome to confess! If there is in your good heart pity for one who hassinned beyond pardon, give it me, I pray, for love of the good God!"McElroy stared down at her in wonder. 

"Confess? Sinned?" he said. "Why, little one, what can a child like youknow of sin? 'Tis only some blunderer like myself who should speak itsdamnable name. "

"Nay, nay! Oh, no! No! No! Not on you is there one lightest touch, M'sieu, but on me, --me--me--does rest the weight of all!"

Her eyes were wide and full of tears, and McElroy laid a weak hand onher head. 

"Hush, child!" he said, with some of his old sternness, when condemningwrong; "there is a fever at your brain. You have come too long to thisdull room--"

"No! No! Take away your hand! Touch me not, M'sieu, for I am as dustbeneath your feet! I alone am at bottom of all that has happened in Fortde Seviere this year past! Through me alone have come death and sorrowand misunderstanding! I caused it all, M'sieu, because I--loved you! Forlove of you and hope to gain your heart I set you apart from that womanof Grand Portage!"

She buried her face on the covering of the bed and her voice camemuffled and choking. 

"That night at the factory steps, --you recall, M'sieu, --she came toyou, --I saw her in the dusk as she turned at the corner, a rod away, sawher and knew with some touch of deviltry the sudden way of keeping youfrom her, your arms from about her, your lips from hers! Oh, that Icould not bear, M'sieu! Not though I died for it! So I threw my own armsabout your throat--you remember, M'sieu--and whispered that for onekiss I would go and forget. In the gentleness of your heart you kissedme--and--she saw that kiss. Saw me lying in your arms as if you heldme there from love, --saw and turned away. She made no sound in the softdust, and when I loosed your face from my clasp she was gone! So Ibroke your faith, M'sieu, --so I dragged forth one by one all the sorryhappenings that have followed that evil night. "

The muffled voice fell silent, save for the sobs that would no longerbe withheld, and there was an awful stillness in the room, broken by astick falling on the hearth and the added roar in the chimney. 

When Francette raised her weeping eyes she saw McElroy's face above herlike a mask. 

Its lips were open as if breath had suddenly been denied them, itswasted cheeks were blue, and its eyes stared down upon her in horror:

"Oh! O God! Rette!"

She screamed and sprang up, to run back and crouch against the emptychair beside the hearth. 

The figure upon the bed, half-risen, worked its lips and then fell back, and the little maid raised her voice and screamed again and again inmortal terror. 

It brought Rette running from where she had waited in the trading-room. 

She raised him, and her face was red with rage. 

"What have you done! You evil cat! What have you done to the man?"

But McElroy's breast had heaved with a great breath, sweet as the windover a harvest field to a tired man, and he looked up at Rette with eyesthat seemed to be suddenly flooded with life. 

"Done?" he whispered; "done, Rette? The child has given me salvation!"And then he held out a shaking, thin hand. 

"Come here, " he said softly; "come here. "

Fearful, trembling, tear-stained Francette crept back, and the factortook both her small hands in a tender clasp:

"I thank you, little one, " he said, "from my heart I thank you, --thereis nothing to forgive. We are all sinners through the only bit of Heavenwe possess, --love. Go, little one, and cease this crying. Know that Ishall sleep this night in a mighty peace. You have given me--life!"

CHAPTER XXX THE LAND OF THE WHISPERING HILLS

Springtime once more kissed all the wilderness into tender green. Fromthe depths of the forest, lacing its myriad branches in finest fluff ofyoung leaves, came the old-new sound of birds at the mating, rivers andtiny streams rushed and tumbled to the lakes, and overhead a sky asblue and sweet as the eyes of loved rocked its baby clouds in cradles offresh winds. 

They blew over vast reaches of forest and plain, these winds, wimplingthe new grass with playful fingers, and whispering in the ear of birdand bee and flower that spring was come once more. 

They came from the west, sweeping over sweet high meadows, over rushingstreams, and down from fair plateaus, and their breath was fresh andcool with promise to one who faced them, eager in his hope, for theybrought the virgin sweetness of the Land of the Whispering Hills. Bystreams, clear as crystal, he passed with a swinging stride, this leanyoung man in the buckskins of the forest traveller, over meadows soft intheir green carpets, through woodlands whose flecked sunshine quiveredand shook on the young moss beneath, and ever his face was lifted to thewest with undying hope, with calmness of faith, and that great joy whichis humble in its splendour. 

Thus he swung forward all through the pleasant hours of that lastday. Before him, raised against the sky, there loomed the magic Hillsthemselves, fair to the eye of man, clothed in the green of blowinggrass and girdled about below with the encroaching forest. 

At dusk he set foot upon their swelling slopes, and knew himself to benear the goal of his heart's desire. 

Over among them somewhere lay the blue lake. He could already hear themurmur of its whispering shores, the roar of its circling forests, forthe trees followed on and over through some low defile as if loath tolose the hills themselves, rising to heaven in virgin smoothness ofcloud-shadowed verdure. 

The sun had gone behind them in splendid panoply of fire when he camedown into the sheltered woods, and through them to a wondrous meadow, beautiful as the fields of Paradise, sloping, to the shore beyond wherewaters blue as the sky above sent back the pageantry of light. 

Here were the signs of tillage and cultivation, and even now a long darkstrip attested the spring's new work, sending forth on the evening airthe sweet scent of fresh-turned earth. 

Beyond, across the field, in the edge of the farther woods, thin bluesmoke curled peacefully up from the pointed tops of some forty nativelodges, while nearer the lake there stood two cabins, one old and solidwith a look of having faced the elements for years, the other staring inits newness. Indian ponies grazed at the clearing's edge or drank ofthe rippling waters on the pebbly beach, and a plough lay in the lastfurrow. 

The stranger stood in amaze and gazed on the scene before him. 

While he looked women came from the cabins and passed blithely aboutat evening tasks, and one went to the lake with a vessel for water. Hecould see its gleam in the reflection of the gorgeous light. 

Thin and high came the sound of a voice singing, the ring of an axesomewhere in the wood beyond the cabins, and peace ineffable seemed tolie upon this blessed place. Here truly was Arcadia. 

Long he stood in the fringe of the forest and looked eagerly among thedistant figures for one, taller than all the rest, clad in plain darkgarments, whose regal head should catch the dying glow, but strain as hemight, he saw no familiar form, could not detect the free and swingingstep. 

Now that the goal of his hope was so near, within the very grasp of hishand, a strange timidity fell upon him, and he shrank from crossing theopen field. 

Rather would he follow the circling wood and come out at the upper endby the lake, going down along the shore to the cabins. 

Keeping well within the trees, giants of the wild nursed in this cradleof sun and water, he bore to the north and ever his eager eyes peeredbetween the bolls at the distant habitat. 

He had gone but short space when, suddenly, he stopped, drawn up bysight of what lay in his path. 

He had pierced a thicket of hanging vines, too eager to go around, andcome abruptly upon some pagan shrine, some savage Holy of Holies. 

And yet not wholly savage, for the signs of the red man and the whitewere strangely blended. 

In the centre of the open space within the hanging wall of thevines, --perfect sylvan temple, --there lay a mounded grave, covered fromhead to foot with articles he knew at once to be the gifts of Indiansto some great chief gone to the shadowy hunting-grounds. Rich theywere, these gifts, in workmanship and carving, though mean and poor inquality, showing that great love had attended their giving, though thegivers themselves must be a meagre people. 

At the head of the mound towered a gigantic totem pole, carved andpainted with scenes of a most minute history, while at the foot of asmaller stake, alike carved and coloured, bore, one upon another, twelverings of bone, each one of which stood for the circle of a year. 

Crossed and shielded with infinite care, in the centre there lay a setof smith's tools, crudely fashioned and well worn, tongs and a heavyhammer and a small anvil. 

But beyond all this, a thing that held his wondering gaze and broughtthe fur cap from his head, there stood an altar, rude as the rest, butstill an altar of God, with a black iron crucifix, whose pale ivoryChrist glimmered in the gathering evening, upright upon it. Before thecrucifix, and at either end, were the burnt-out evidences of tallowcandles, while flanking the holy Symbol there stood two wooden crosses, their pieces held together by bindings of thread. Before one there laya heap of little withered flowers, frail things of the forest and thespring, and every one was snowy white. Across the other hung a solitaryblossom, first of its kind to open its passionate eyes to the sun, andit was blood-red, counterpart of that wee star which Alfred de Courtenayhad snatched from the stockade wall one day in another spring. 

The earnest blue eyes of the man were very grave, touched with a deeptenderness. 

"Maren!" he whispered reverently; "maid of the splendid heart!"

So deep was he in contemplation of the things before him and his ownholy thoughts that he did not hear a soft sound behind him, the fall ofa light step. 

A breath that was half a gasp turned him on his heel. 

Leaning through the parted curtain of the hanging vines, one hand at herthroat, the other holding three candles, and her dark eyes wide aboveher thinned brown cheeks, she stood herself. At her knee there hung theheavy head of the great dog, Loup. 

She, as she had been when first he looked upon her, yet intangiblychanged, the same yet not the same. 

They stood in silence and looked into each other's eyes as if void ofspeech, of motion, held by the mighty yearning that must look and lookwith insatiable intensity, the half unreal reality of the moment. 

And then the stopped breath in the girl's throat caught itself with alittle sound that broke the spell. 

The man sprang forward and took her in his arms, not passionately, strongly, as he had done once before, but with a love so high, sochastened, so humble that it gentled his touch to reverence. 

"I have come, Maren, " he said brokenly; "I have followed you to the landyou sought. Maid of my heart! My soul!"

Without words, without question, she yielded herself to his embrace, lifted her face to him and gave into his keeping that which was his fromthe beginning. 

"Mother Mary! I thank Thee!" he heard her whisper, and when he loosedher to look once more into her level eyes, they were dim with tears. 

*****

Night had fallen on the Athabasca when they passed out of the woodacross the field, and they walked together hand in hand. 

A great round moon was rising over the eastern forest, silvering thehills with shining crowns. 

Peace brooded on the world. 

"And here I found him, M'sieu, " Maren Le Moyne was saying sadly, "inthat low mound, cared for and worshipped by these peaceful beings whotill the land and follow his teachings. They were his people. He taughtthem purity and peace, the use of plough and tool, the creed of love andkindness. Here was his dream of empire, his plan of progress. He of theGood Heart they called him, these Indians who were his people, and mournhim as a chief. That was his castle yonder, the older cabin to the east. Here is the fruit of his labour. " She motioned over the new-ploughedland. 

"Beyond the trees yonder are bigger fields, a wider holding. And yetthey are poor, these people of peace. The tribes despise them and scoffat their worship... He taught them the prayers, --the rosary. I havecome after him... Who knows? This is my dream also, my fulfilment. Love, M'sieu, " she raised her face to him, and the deep eyes flickering withthe old elusive light, "Love shall be my crown!"

"Aye, " said Anders McElroy, after the manner of a covenant, "together weshall work and dream yet greater things, trusting in God, --live andlove and enter into our heritage.... I have left the Company forever. Together we shall build the empire of your dreams.... Oh, Maid of myHeart, the Long Trail has ended in the harbour of New Homes!"