ach day, he thought there would
still be some left over to give away when he got there. Susan learned
the first two stanzas, and Lucy picked up the air and a few words.
When the shadows began to slant and the crisp breath of the mountains
came cool on their faces, they sang, first Zavier and Susan, then Lucy
joining in in a faint, uncertain treble, and finally from the front of
the train the strange man, not turning his head, sitting straight and
square, and booming out the burden in his deep baritone:

"Dans mon chemin j'ai recontre
Trois cavalieres bien montees,
L'on, ton laridon danee
L'on, ton laridon dai.

"Trois cavalieres bien montees
L'une a cheval, l'autre a pied
L'on, ton, laridon danee
L'on ton laridon dai."

Zavier furnished another diversion in the monotony of the days,
injected into the weary routine, a coloring drop of romance, for, as he
himself would have said, he was _diablement epris_ with Lucy. This was
regarded as one of the best of Zavier's jokes. He himself laughed at
it, and his extravagant compliments and gallantries were well within
the pale of the burlesque. Lucy laughed at them, too. The only one
that took the matter seriously was Bella. She was not entirely pleased.

"Talk about it's being just a joke," she said to Susan in the bedtime
hour of confidences. "You can joke too much about some things.
Zavier's a man just the same as the others, and Lucy's a nice-looking
girl when she gets rested up and the freckles go off. But he's an
Indian if he does speak French, and make good money with his beaver
trapping."

"He's not _all_ Indian," Susan said soothingly. "He's half white.
There are only a few Indian things about him, his dark skin and
something high and flat about his cheek bones and the way he turns in
his toes when he walks."

"Indian enough," Bella fumed. "And nobody knows anything about his
father. We're respectable people and don't want a man with no name
hanging round. I've no doubt he was born in a lodge or under a pine
tree. What right's that kind of man to come ogling after a decent
white girl whose father and mother were married in the Presbyterian
Church?"

Susan did not take it so much to heart. What was the good when Lucy
obviously didn't care? As for Zavier, she felt sorry for him, for
those keen observing faculties of hers had told her that the voyageur's
raillery hid a real feeling. Poor Zavier was in love. Susan was
pensive i