fur animals, all the same."

Rose had been considering another subject.

"Pani," she began, with great seriousness, "you are not any one's slave
now."

"No"--rather hesitatingly. "The Dubrays will never come back, or if they
should next summer, with furs, I will run away again up to the Saguenay,
where they will not look. But there are Indian boys in plenty where the
tribes fight and take prisoners."

"You shall be my slave."

The young Indian's cheek flushed.

"The slave of a girl!" he said, with a touch of disdain.

"Why not? I should not beat you."

"Oh, you couldn't"--triumphantly.

"But you might be miladi's slave," suggested Wanamee, "and then you
could watch the little one and follow her about to see that nothing
harmed her."

"There shouldn't anything hurt her." He sprang up. "You see I am growing
tall, and presently I shall be a man. But I won't be a slave always."

"No, no," said the Indian woman.

"That was very good, excellent," pointing to the two empty birch-bark
dishes, which he picked up and threw on the coals, a primitive way to
escape dish washing. "I will find you a heap more. I will get fish or
berries, and oh, I know where the bees have stored a lot of honey in a
hollow tree."

"You let them alone for another month," commanded Wanamee. "Honey--that
will be a treat indeed."

Miladi had missed the sweets of her native land, though there they had
not been over-plentiful, since royalty must needs be served first. They
bought maple sugar and a kind of crude syrup of the Abenaqui women, who
were quite experts in making it. When the sun touched the trees in the
morning when the hoarfrost had disappeared, they inserted tubes of bark,
rolled tightly, and caught the sap in the troughs. Then they filled
their kettles that swung over great fires, and the fragrance arising
made the forests sweet with a peculiar spiciness. It was a grand time
for the children, who snatched some of the liquid out of the kettle on a
birch-bark ladle, and ran into the woods for it to cool. Pani had often
been with them.

"Let us go down to the old house," exclaimed Rose. "Do you know who is
there?"

"Pierre Gaudrion. He gets stone for the new walls they are laying
against the fort. And there are five or six little ones."

"It must be queer. Oh, let us go and see them."

She was off like a flash, but he followed as swiftly. Here was the
garden where she had pulled weeds with a hot hatred in her heart that
she