and she gazed steadily out over the water
with an air that would have been haughty save for the slight upward
tip of her nose.

[Illustration: "Sitting on a bundle was, a girl, perhaps eighteen or
nineteen years old."]

Menard's eyes sobered, and he handed his musket to one of the
canoemen. Then he crossed over to where the maiden was sitting.

"Mademoiselle St. Denis?"

The girl looked up at him. Her eyes seemed to take in the dinginess of
his uniform. She inclined her head.

"I am Captain Menard. Major Provost tells me that I am to have the
honour of escorting you to Fort Frontenac. With your permission we
will start. Father Claude de Casson is to go with us, and Lieutenant
Danton."

The bundle was placed in the canoe. Menard helped the girl to a seat
near the middle: from the way she stepped in and took her seat he saw
that she had been on the river before. Danton, with his Parisian airs,
had to be helped in carefully. Then they were off, each of the four
men swinging a paddle, though Danton managed his awkwardly at first.

CHAPTER III.

MADEMOISELLE EATS HER BREAKFAST.

The sun hung low over the western woods when Menard, at the close of
the second day, headed the canoe shoreward. The great river swept by
with hardly a surface motion, dimpling and rippling under the last
touch of the day breeze. Menard's eyes rested on Father Claude, as the
canoe drew into the shadow of the trees. The priest, stiff from the
hours of sitting and kneeling, had taken up a paddle and was handling
it deftly. He had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, showing a thin
forearm with wire-like muscles. The two _voyageurs_, at bow and stern,
were proving to be quiet enough fellows. Guerin, the younger, wore a
boyish, half-confiding look. His fellow, Perrot, was an older man.

Menard felt, when he thought of Danton, a sense of pride in his own
right judgment. The boy was taking hold with a strong, if unguided,
hand. Already the feather was gone from his hat, the lace from his
throat. Two days in the canoe and a night on the ground had stained
and wrinkled his uniform,--a condition of which, with his quick
adaptability, he was already beginning to feel proud. He had flushed
often, during the first day, under the shrewd glances of the
_voyageurs_, who read the inexperience in his bright clothes and white
hands. Menard knew, from the way his shoulders followed the swing of
his arms, that the steady paddling was laming him sadl