ng through a covert as they neared the
little settlement, Riel's sportsman companion walked
ahead, leaving the other two some distance in the rear.
The ravishing beauty of the girl was more than the
amorously-disposed stranger could resist, and suddenly
throwing his arms around her he sought to kiss her. But
the soft-eyed fawn of the desert soon showed herself in
the guise of a petit bete sauvage. With a startling scream
she bounded away from his grasp.

"How do you dare take this liberty with me, Monsieur,"
she said, her eyes kindled with anger and wounded pride.
"You first meanly come and intrude upon my privacy; next
you must turn what knowledge you gain by acting spy and
eavesdropper, into a means of offering me insult. You
have heard me say that I had no lover to sigh for me. I
spoke the truth: I _have_ no such lover. But you I will
not accept as one; your very sight is already hateful
to me." And turning, with flushed cheek and gleaming
eyes, she entered the cosy, cleanly-kept little cottage
of her father. But she soon reflected that she had been
guilty of an unpardonably inhospitable act in not asking
the strangers to enter. Suddenly turning, she walked
rapidly back, and overtook the crest-fallen wooer and
his companion, and said in a voice from which every trace
of her late anger had disappeared.

"Entrez, Messieurs."

M. Riel's countenance speedily lost its gloom, and,
respectfully touching his hat, he said:

"Oui, Mademoiselle, avec le plus grand plaisir." Tripping
lightly ahead she announced the two strangers, and then
returned, going to the bars where the cows were lowing,
waiting to be milked. The persistent sportsman had not
by any means made up his mind to desist in the wooing.

"The colt shies," he murmured, "when she first sees the
halter. Presently she becomes tractable enough." Then,
while he sat waiting for the evening meal, blithely
through the hush of the exquisite evening came the voice
of the girl. She was singing from _La Claire Fontaine_:

"A la claire fontaine
Je m'allait promener,
J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
Que je me suis baigne."

Her song ended with her work, and as she passed the
strangers, with her two flowing pails of yellow milk,
Riel whispered softly, as he touched her sweet little
hand:

"Ah, ma petite amie!"

The same flash came in her eyes, the same proud blood
mantled through the dusk of her cheek, but she restrained
herself. He was a guest under