ncern us. And
the puling thing would die on the journey and have to be left behind to
feed the wolves. Come! come! Attend to thy supper."

The slim Indian convert was coming up the path. She was one of the
Abenaqui tribe, and she had mostly discarded the picturesque attire.

"The lady Madame Giffard sent me to say the girl is safe with her and
will not be able to return to-night."

"So much the better," growled Antoine, looking with hungry eyes on the
fish browning before the coals.

"Did she come and take her? I went with my husband to see the traders."

"She has been very poorly, but is much better now. And miladi
thought----"

"Oh, yes, it is all right. Yes, I am glad," nodding definitely, as if
the matter was settled. She did not want to quarrel with Antoine about a
child that was no kin to them, when he was so much like her old lover.
He seemed to bring back the hopes of youth and a certain gayety to which
she had long been a stranger.

After enjoying his meal he brought out his pipe and stretched himself in
a comfortable position, begging her to attend to him and let the slave
boy take the fragments. He went on to describe the settlement of the
fur merchants and trappers at Hudson Bay, but toned down much of the
rudeness of the actual living. A few of the white women, wives of the
leaders and the men in command, formed a little community. There was
card-playing and the relating of adventures through the long winter
evenings, that sometimes began soon after three. Dances, too, Indian
entertainments, and for daylight, flying about on snowshoes, and
skating. There was a short summer. The Indian women were expert in
modelling garments--everything was of fur and dressed deerskins.

Few knew how to read at that day among the seekers of fortune and
adventurers, but they were shrewd at keeping accounts, nevertheless.
There were certain regulations skilfully evaded by the knowing ones.

No, it would never do to take the child. She had no real mother love for
it, yet she often wondered whose child it might be, since it was not
Catherine Arlac's? Strange stories about foundlings often came to light
in old France.

The death of the King rather disorganized matters, for no one quite knew
what the new order of things would be. The Sieur de Champlain sorrowed
truly, for he had ever been a staunch admirer of Henry of Navarre.
Demont had not had his concession renewed and to an extent the fur trade
had been thrown open