of agates and minerals, and stroking the
stones, said in her soft French and Indian patois, "Pretty, pretty."
Father Xavier was seated at the great open window, looking over the top
of his book away across the breezy lake. He heard the words, and knew
that she was looking at him from the corner of her eye, but his only
reply was a deeper scowl and a lowering of his glance to the printed
page. The silly smile which he felt sure was upon her face faded out,
but the girl spoke again, and this time more resolutely, determined to
attract his attention. "Pretty stones. Marie's father many more, much
prettier--much."

Father Xavier laid down his book. He was all attention. "Where did your
father get them?" he asked.

"In the mountains climb, in the mines dig, in the lake dive, he seek
them all the time summer."

"What does he do with them?"

"Cuts them like _mon pere_," and Marie imitated in pantomime the use of
the hammer and chisel. "Cut them all time winter, very many."

"What does he do that for?" asked the priest, surprised.

"All the same you," replied the girl--"make arrow-heads."

"Oh! he makes arrow-heads, does he? Mine are not arrow-heads, but I
should like to see what your father does. Does he live far from here?"

"Marie take you to-night in canoe."

"Very well, after supper."

She had often taken him out upon the lake before, for she managed their
birch-bark canoe with more skill than himself, and it was convenient to
have some one to paddle while he fished or read or dreamed. She rowed
him swiftly up the lake for several miles, then, fastening the canoe,
led the way through a trail in the forest. The sun was setting, and "the
whispering pines and the hemlocks" of the forest primeval formed a
tapestry of gloom around the paternal wigwam as they reached it. Black
Beaver, her father, reclined lazily in the door, watching the coals of
the little fire in front of his tent. He was always lazy. It was
difficult to believe that he ever climbed or dug or dived for agates as
Marie had said, so complete a picture he seemed of inaction. The girl
spoke a few words to him in their native dialect, and he grumblingly
rose, shuffled into the interior of the wigwam, and brought out two
baskets. One was a shallow tray filled with the finished heads in great
variety of material and color. There were white carnelian, delicately
striped with prophetic red, blood-stone deep-colored and hard as ruby,
agates of every shade an