And he was averse to thinking that any committed deeds of which he
need be ashamed. So it was his habit, especially if the day was pleasant
and his own thoughts happy, to say to himself when he saw one of the
wild young trappers leaving the cabin of Mademoiselle Ninon: "He has
been for some of the good woman's hot cakes," till he grew quite to
believe that the only attractions that the adroit Frenchwoman possessed
were of a gastronomic nature.

To tell the truth, the attractions of Mademoiselle Ninon were varied. To
begin with, she was the only thing in that wilderness to suggest home.
Ninon had a genius for home-making. Her cabin, in which she cooked,
slept, ate, lived, had become a boudoir.

The walls were hung with rare and beautiful skins; the very floor made
rich with huge bear robes, their permeating odors subdued by heavy
perfumes brought, like the spices, from St. Louis. The bed, in daytime,
was a couch of beaver-skins; the fireplace had branching antlers
above it, on which were hung some of the evidences of the fair Ninon's
coquetry, such as silken scarves, of the sort the voyageurs from the far
north wore; and necklaces made by the Indians of the Pacific coast and
brought to Ninon by--but it is not polite to inquire into these matters.
There were little moccasins also, much decorated with porcupine-quills,
one pair of which Father de Smet had brought from the Flathead nation,
and presented to Ninon that time when she nursed him through a frightful
run of fever. She would take no money for her patient services.

"Father," said she, gravely, when he offered it to her, "I am not
myself virtuous. But I have the distinction of having preserved the only
virtuous creature in the settlement for further usefulness. Sometimes,
perhaps, you will pray for Ninon."

Father de Smet never forgot those prayers.

These were wild times, mind you. No use to keep your skirts coldly clean
if you wished to be of help. These men were subduing a continent. Their
primitive qualities came out. Courage, endurance, sacrifice, suffering
without complaint, friendship to the death, indomitable hatred,
unfaltering hope, deep-seated greed, splendid gayety--it takes these
things to subdue a continent. Vice is also an incidental,--that is to
say, what one calls vice. This is because it is the custom to measure
these men as if they were governed by the laws of civilization, where
there is neither law nor civilization.

This much is certain: