ISIONAL BARGAIN

I began my day as early as I thought it wise to disturb the sleepers
around me, and by the time the sun was two hours high I had
accomplished several things. I had confessed to the priest, had had a
clean lodge of green boughs built for the woman, and had bargained and
bantered with the Indians, and blustered over them with knowledge of
their language till they accorded me reluctant grins. They had a
village of seven or eight hundred souls, and I found them a marked
people. They were cleaner than any savages I had seen,--the women were
modest and almost neat,--and their manners had a somewhat European air.
I judged them to be politicians rather than warriors, for the braves,
though well shaped and wiry, lacked the look of ferocious hardihood
that terrified white men in the Iroquois race. But I found them keen
traders.

One purchase that I made took time. I wished a new suit of skins for
the woman, and I went from lodge to lodge, searching and brow-beating
and dangling my trinkets till I was ready to join with the squaws in
their laughter at my expense. But my purchase once completed pleasured
me greatly. I had found it a little here and a little there, and it
was worthy any princess of the woods. I had gathered blouse, skirt,
leggings, and moccasins, all new, and made of white dressed deerskin
pliable as velvet to the hand. They looked to me full of feminine
bravery. The leggings and moccasins were beaded and quill broidered,
and the skirt was fringed and trimmed with tiny hawk's bells.

I took the garments to the green lodge, laid them out in order, saw
that there were trenchers of fresh water, and brought what conveniences
we had from the canoe. The pity of the situation came upon me hard. I
had to be father and friend,--lover I could not be. The woman had
great self-control, but she would need it. Well, I could trust her to
do her best. I went to find her.

As yet I had not said good-morning to her, although I had seen her from
the distance, and knew that she had breakfasted and had talked with
Father Nouvel. She was sitting now under a beech tree on the headland,
and when I bent before her she shook her head.

"It is not real," she said, with a look over water and forest. "It is
all a dream."

I stopped to send a group of curious squaws upon their way. It was
indeed like a pictured spectacle,--the green wood, the Indian village,
and the headland-guarded bay opening northward