. "It is the real thing, a bit of the
seventeenth century lost in the forest for two hundred years. It is like
finding an old rapier beside an Indian trail. I suppose the fellow
may be the descendant of some gay young lieutenant of the regiment
Carignan-Salieres, who came out with De Tracy, or Courcelles. An amour
with the daughter of a habitant,--a name taken at random,--who can
unravel the skein? But here's the old thread of chivalry running through
all the tangles, tarnished but unbroken."

This was what he said to himself. What he said to Jean was, "Well,
Jean, you and I have been together in the woods for two summers now, and
marquis or no marquis, I hope this is not going to make any difference
between us."

"But certainly NOT!" answered Jean. "I am well content with m'sieu', as
I hope m'sieu' is content with me. While I am AU BOIS, I ask no better
than to be your guide. Besides, I must earn those other hundred dollars,
for the payment in the spring."

Alden tried to make him promise to give nothing more to the lawyer
until he had something sure to show for his money. But Jean was
politely non-committal on that point. It was evident that he felt the
impossibility of meanness in a marquis. Why should he be sparing or
cautious? That was for the merchant, not for the noble. A hundred, two
hundred, three hundred dollars: What was that to an estate and a title?
Nothing risk, nothing gain! He must live up to his role. Meantime he was
ready to prove that he was the best guide on the Grande Decharge.

And so he was. There was not a man in all the Lake St. John country who
knew the woods and waters as well as he did. Far up the great rivers
Peribonca and Misstassini he had pushed his birch canoe, exploring the
network of lakes and streams along the desolate Height of Land. He knew
the Grand Brule, where the bears roam in September on the fire-scarred
hills among the wide, unharvested fields of blueberries. He knew the
hidden ponds and slow-creeping little rivers where the beavers build
their dams, and raise their silent water-cities, like Venice lost in the
woods. He knew the vast barrens, covered with stiff silvery moss, where
the caribou fed in the winter. On the Decharge itself,--that tumultuous
flood, never failing, never freezing, by which the great lake pours all
its gathered waters in foam and fury down to the deep, still gorge of
the Saguenay,--there Jean was at home. There was not a curl or eddy
in the wild co