so. The two had been such friends and playmates, one might say, only
a few years ago. He had been a slave to her pretty whims then. She had
decorated his head with feathers and called him Chief of Detroit, or she
had twined daisy wreaths and sweet grasses about his neck. He had bent
down the young saplings that she might ride on them, a graceful,
fearless child. They had run races,--she was fleet as the wind and he
could not always catch her. He had gathered the first ripe wild
strawberries, not bigger than the end of her little finger, but, oh, how
luscious! She had quarreled with him, too, she had struck him with a
feathery hemlock branch, until he begged her pardon for some fancied
fault, and nothing had suited him better than to loll under the great
oak tree, listening to Pani's story and all the mysterious suppositions
of her coming. Then he told wild legends of the various tribes, talked
in a strange, guttural accent, danced a war dance, and was almost as
much her attendant as Pani.

But the three years had allowed him to escape from the woman's memory,
as any event they might expect again in their lives. Hugh de Marsac had
turned into something of an explorer, beside his profitable connection
with the fur company. The copper mines on Lake Superior had stirred up a
great interest, and plans were being made to work them to a better
advantage than the Indians had ever done. Fortunes were the dream of
mankind even then; though this was destined to end in disappointment.

Jeanne chose her canoe and they pushed out. She was in no haste, and few
people were going down the river, not many anywhere except on business.
The numerous holy days of the Church, which gave to religion an hour or
two in the morning and devoted to pleasure the rest of the day, set the
river in a whirl of gayety. Ordinary days were for work.

The air was soft and fragrant. Some sea gulls started from a sandy nook
with disturbed cries, then returned as if they knew the girl. A fishhawk
darted swiftly down, having seen his prey in the clear water and
captured it. There were farms stretching down the river now, with rough
log huts quite distinct from the whitewashed or vine-covered cottages of
the French. But the fields betrayed a more thrifty cultivation. There
were young orchards nodding in the sunshine, great stretches of waving
maize fields, and patches of different grains. Little streams danced out
here and there and gurgled into the river, as i