the
Chicago portage."

"Monsieur, how soon does he intend to go?"

"On the first schooner that sails to the head of the lake; so he may
set out any day. Michel is anxious to try life on the Mississippi, and
his three years' engagement with the Company is just ended."

"I also am anxious to have him try life on the Mississippi," said
Jenieve, and she drew a deep breath of relief. "Why did you not tell
me this before?"

"How could I know you were interested in him?"

"He is not a bad man," she admitted kindly. "I can see that he means
very well. If the McClures would go to the Illinois Territory
with him--But, Monsieur Crooks," Jenieve asked sharply, "do people
sometimes make sudden marriages?"

"In my case they have not," sighed the young man. "But I think well of
sudden marriages myself. The priest comes to the island this week."

"Yes, and I must take the children to confession."

"What are you going to do with me, Jenieve?"

"I am going to say good-night to you, and shut my door." She stepped
into the house.

"Not yet. It is only a little while since they fired the sunset gun at
the fort. You are not kind to shut me out the moment I come."

She gave him her hand, as she always did when she said good-night, and
he prolonged his hold of it.

"You are full of sweetbrier. I didn't know it grew down here on the
beach."

"It never did grow here, Monsieur Crooks."

"You shall have plenty of it in your garden, when you come home with
me."

"Oh, go away, and let me shut my door, monsieur. It seems no use to
tell you I cannot come."

"No use at all. Until you come, then, good-night."

Seldom are two days alike on the island. Before sunrise the lost dews
of paradise always sweeten those scented woods, and the birds begin to
remind you of something you heard in another life, but have forgotten.
Jenieve loved to open her door and surprise the east. She stepped out
the next morning to fill her pail. There was a lake of translucent
cloud beyond the water lake: the first unruffled, and the second
wind-stirred. The sun pushed up, a flattened red ball, from the lake
of steel ripples to the lake of calm clouds. Nearer, a schooner with
its sails down stood black as ebony between two bars of light drawn
across the water, which lay dull and bleak towards the shore. The
addition of a schooner to the scattered fleet of sailboats, bateaux,
and birch canoes made Jenieve laugh. It must have arrived from Sault
Ste. Marie