fairy craft. I saw that it would carry two, and I
said to the woman that we would take it, and have a day of idleness
together. I feared she might demur, but she did not. Indeed, she
suddenly laughed out like a child without much reason, and there was
that in the sound that satisfied me, until I swore at the men and their
blundering to keep down my own joy.

We took materials for lunch and started before the dew was dry. The
woman showed me her new skill with the paddle, and I praised her
without care for my conscience. We went slowly and we talked much.
Yet we talked only of the birds and the woods and the paddling. Never
of ourselves.

At noon we landed in a pocket of an inlet on the south side of the cove
toward its mouth. There was a wonderful meadow there with tiger lilies
burning like blood and a giant sycamore leaning to the water. I cooked
a venison steak on hot stones, and we had maize cakes and wild berries
and water from a spring. We sat alone at meat as we had never done.

After lunch the woman sat under the sycamore and I lay at her feet. I
looked up at her till her eyes dropped.

"Madame," I whispered, "madame, you were vexed with me last night."

She forced her glance to mine. "Monsieur, I had been terribly anxious
for three days. When I saw you"----

A sun ray fell across her face, and I took my hat and held it between
her and the light. "You did not finish," I said. "I will help you.
When you saw that I was safe you were vexed that I had not come earlier
and so saved you anxiety? Is that what you were about to say, madame?"

She turned to smile and shake her head at my seriousness. She fought
down her rising color and held her head like a gallant boy.

"I was unreasonable," she said. "Please forget it. Did your trading
prosper, monsieur?"

But I would not shift my eyes. "I shall try not to vex you again in
that way. I did not think--except of my own anxiety. Let me tell you
what I have been doing. I have been trading, yes, but I have also"----

"Careful, monsieur!"

"I wish you to know. Madame, I am succeeding in my intriguing among
the tribes. I talk more than I trade. You would smile at my rhetoric
and call me a mountebank, but I am succeeding. I tell the tribes that
when more than one Englishman reaches here the whole race will follow
and will overflow the hunting grounds as a torrent does the lowlands.
I tell them the English will bring the Iroquois. I show th