e a headlong sally into the fringes
of that country which came too near his Tom-Thumb garrison, and along
which roving bands of the sullen Blackfeet trailed with a watching eye
on the white men at the forts, and returned without two of those long
curls of which he was so proud, a spear-head pinning them in the trunk
of a tree which happened to form a convenient background.

To add to the small resentment against him which began to rankle in
McElroy's heart, and which had never really left it since that evening
in De Seviere when Maren Le Moyne had passed behind the cabin of the
Savilles with some voyageur's tot on her shoulder and the handsome
gallant from Montreal had lost his manners staring, one day in this same
week a Bois-Brules came to the post gates and asked for one Maren Le
Moyne.

He stood without and stubbornly refused to give his message, and at last
McElroy himself went to the cabin of the Baptistes.

He had not seen the girl since that day in the forest, and his heart
beat to suffocation as he neared the open door and caught the sound of
her voice singing a French love song. He stopped on the step, and for
a moment his glance took in the interior: By a window to the north she
stood at a table, its wooden surface soft and white as doeskin from
water and stone, and prepared the meal for ash-cakes, her sleeves, as
usual, rolled to her shoulder and the collar of her dress open at the
throat.

To the young factor's eyes she was a sight that weakened the knees
beneath him and set him quaking with a new fear. He dared not speak and
bring her gaze upon him, the memory of his boastful words in the forest
was too poignant.

But it needed not speech. Had he but known the wonder that had lived
within her all these days he would have understood the force that
presently stopped the song on her lips, as if her soul listened
unconsciously for tangible knowledge of the presence it already felt
near, that slowed her nimble brown fingers in the pan, that presently
lifted her head and turned her face to him.

Instantly a warm flush leaped up to the dark cheeks, and McElroy felt
its answer in his own.

"Ma'amselle," he stammered, far from that glib "Maren" of the glade,
"there is one at the gate who demands speech of you."

The words were commonplace enough and the girl did not get their import
for the intensity of her gaze into the eyes whose blue fire had set her
first wondering and then a-thrill with these strange