apable hand on a pot-lid,
lifted it, and eyed the contents of the saucepan.

"The Cure, he like ptarmigan," he observed, "but," he added in a
matter-of-fact voice, "the Cure like not Aurore--he have tell you,
_hein_? Ah, well, why not? For him such as Aurore _are_ not--_voila_."

"The Cure says she is a devil." Crossman marvelled at his temerity,
yet he hung on the answer.

"Why not? For him, as I have say, she _is_ not--for _me_, for _you_,
ma frien', _that_ is different." Antoine turned on him eyes as
impersonal as those of Fate; where Crossman had expected to see
animosity there was none, only a strange brotherhood of pitying
understanding.

"For who shall forbid that the dawn she shall break--_hein_?" he
continued. "The Cure? Not mooch. When the Dawn she come, she come; not
with his hand can he hold her back. For me, now comes perhaps the
sunset; perhaps the dawn for you. But what would you? Who can put the
dog-harness on the wind, or put the bit in the teeth of the waterfall
to hold him up?"

"Or who with his hand can draw the Borealis from heaven?" Crossman cut
in. He spoke unconsciously. He had not wished to say that, he had not
wanted to speak at all, but his subconscious mind had welded the
thought of her so fast to the great mystery of the Northern Lights
that without volition he had voiced it.

Antoine Marceau nodded quietly. The strangely aloof acknowledgment of
Crossman's possible relation to this woman, _his_ woman, who yet was
not his or any man's, somehow shocked Crossman. His blood flamed at
the thought, and yet he felt her intangible, unreal. He had but to
look into her shifting, glittering eyes, and there were silence and
playing lights. Suddenly his vision of her changed, became human and
vital. He saw before him the sinuous movement of her strong young
body. He realized the living perfume of her, clean and fresh, faintly
aromatic as of pine in the sunlight, and violets in the shadow.

Antoine Marceau busied himself about the cook-house. He did not speak
of Aurore again, not even when his eye rested on the paper doll
skewered to the door by the deep-driven knife. He frowned, made the
sign of the cross, jerked out the knife, and thrust its point in the
purifying blaze of the charcoal fire. But he made no comment.

Crossman turned on his heel and entered the office-building. Through
the south window he saw Jakapa snowshoeing swiftly up the short
incline to the door; beside him walked the Cure