orest trees. Baree still followed. She went straight to a birch tree
that she had located that day and began tearing off the loose bark. An
armful of this bark she carried close to the wigwam, and on it she
heaped load after load of wet wood until she had a great pile. From a
bottle in the wigwam she secured a dry match, and at the first touch of
its tiny flame the birch bark flared up like paper soaked in oil. Half
an hour later the Willow's fire--if there had been no forest walls to
hide it--could have been seen at the cabin a mile away. Not until it
was blazing a dozen feet into the air did she cease piling wood on it.
Then she drove sticks into the soft ground and over these sticks she
stretched the blanket out to dry.

So their first night passed--storm, the cool, deep pool, the big fire;
and later, when the Willow's clothes and the blanket had dried, a few
hours' sleep. At dawn they returned to the cabin. It was a cautious
approach. There was no smoke coming from the chimney. The door was
closed. Pierrot and Bush McTaggart were gone.

CHAPTER 16

It was the beginning of August--the Flying-up Moon--when Pierrot
returned from Lac Bain, and in three days more it would be the Willow's
seventeenth birthday. He brought back with him many things for
Nepeese--ribbons for her hair, real shoes, which she wore at times like
the two Englishwomen at Nelson House, and chief glory of all, some
wonderful red cloth for a dress. In the three winters she had spent at
the mission these women had made much of Nepeese. They had taught her
to sew as well as to spell and read and pray, and at times there came
to the Willow a compelling desire to do as they did.

So for three days Nepeese worked hard on her new dress and on her
birthday she stood before Pierrot in a fashion that took his breath
away. She had piled her hair in great coils on the crown of her head,
as Yvonne, the younger of the Englishwomen, had taught her, and in the
rich jet of it had half buried a vivid sprig of the crimson fireflower.
Under this, and the glow in her eyes, and the red flush of her lips and
cheeks came the wonderful red dress, fitted to the slim and sinuous
beauty of her form--as the style had been two winters ago at Nelson
House. And below the dress, which reached just below the knees--Nepeese
had quite forgotten the proper length, or else her material had run
out--came the coup de maitre of her toilet, real stockings and the gay
shoes with high