oonlight, her dark eyes
gazing at him now calmly and without affright. She was dressed in rich
yellow buckskin, as soft as chamois. Her throat was bare. A deep collar
of lace fell over her shoulders. One hand, raised to her breast,
revealed a wide gauntlet cuff of red or purple plush, of a fashion two
centuries old. Her lips were parted, and he saw the faintest gleam of
her white teeth, the quick rising and falling of her bosom. He had
spoken directly to her, yet she gave no sign of having heard him.

"You startled us, that is all, M'sieur," said Pierre, quietly. His
English was excellent, and as he spoke he bowed low to Philip. "It is I
whom you must pardon, M'sieur--for betraying so much caution."

Philip held out his hand.

"My name is Whittemore--Philip Whittemore," he said. "I'm staying at
Churchill until the ship comes in and--and I hope you'll let me sit
here on the rock."

For an instant Pierre's fingers gripped his hand, and he bowed low
again like a courtier. Philip saw that he, too, wore the same big,
old-fashioned cuffs, and that it was not a knife that hung at his belt,
but a short rapier.

"And I am Pierre--Pierre Couchee," he said. "And this--is my
sister--Jeanne. We do not belong to Fort Churchill, but come from Fort
o' God. Good night, M'sieur!"

The girl had taken a step back, and now she swept him a courtesy so low
that her fallen hair streamed over her shoulders. She spoke no word,
but passed quickly with Pierre up the rock, and while Philip stood
stunned and speechless they disappeared swiftly into the white gloom of
the night.

Mutely he gazed after them. For a long time he stood staring beyond the
rocks, marveling at the strangeness of this thing that had happened. An
hour before he had stood with bared head over the ancient dead at
Churchill, and now, on the rock, he had seen the resurrection of what
he had dreamed those dead to be in life. He had never seen people like
Pierre and Jeanne. Their strange dress, the rapier at Pierre's side,
his courtly bow, the low, graceful courtesy that the girl had made him,
all carried him back to the days of the old pictures that hung in the
factor's room at Churchill, when high-blooded gallants came into the
wilderness with their swords at their sides, wearing the favors of
court ladies next their hearts. Pierre, standing there on the rock,
with his hand on his rapier, might have been Grosellier himself, the
prince's favorite, and Jeanne--

Somethin