omething to eat. Mere Dubray had
plenty, except towards spring when the stores began to fail."

"I can track rabbits and hares, and catch fish on the thin places in the
rivers. Oh, I shall not starve. But I'm hungry."

The wistful look in his eyes touched her.

"Let us find Wanamee," she exclaimed, leading the way to the culinary
department.

Miladi had been surprised and almost shocked at the rough manner of
living in this new France. The food, too, was primitive, lacking in the
delicacies to which she had been used, and the manners she thought
barbarous. But for M. Destournier and the courtesy of the Sieur she
would have prayed to return at once.

"Wait a little," pleaded Laurent. "If there is a fortune to be made in
this new world, why should we not have our share? And I can see that
there is. Matters are quite unsettled at home, but if we go back with
gold in our purses we shall do well enough."

Then the child had appealed to her. And it was flattering to be the only
lady of note and have homage paid to her.

So the children sought Wanamee, and while Pani brought some sticks and
soon had a bed of coals, Wanamee stirred up some cakes of rye and maize,
and the boy prepared a fish for cooking. He was indeed hungry, and his
eyes glistened with the delight of eating.

"It smells so good," said Rose. "Wanamee, bring me a piece. I can always
eat now, and a while ago I could not bear the smell of food."

"You were so thin and white. And Mere Dubray thought every morning you
would be dead. You wouldn't like to be put in the ground, would you?"

"Oh, no, no!" shivering.

"Nor burned. Then you go to ashes and only the bones are left."

"That is horrid, too. Burning hurts. I have burned my fingers with
coals."

"But my people don't mind it. They are very brave. And you go to the
great hunting grounds way over to the west, where the good Manitou has
everything, and you don't have to work, and no one beats you."

"The white people have a heaven. That is above the sky. And when the
stars come out it is light as day on the other side, and there are
flowers and trees, and rivers and all manner of fruit such as you never
see here."

"I'd rather hunt. When I get to be a man I shall go off and discover
wonderful things. In some of the mountains there is gold. And out by the
great oceans where the Hurons have encamped there are copper and silver.
The company talked about it. Some were for going there. And there were