de Seviere,--lord of his little world,
even though that world were but one tiny finger of the great system
spreading itself like a stretching hand outward from the shores of the
Bay to that interior whose fringed skirts alone had been explored.

A high station it was for so young a man, for his twenties were not yet
behind him, and the pride of his heart, its holding.

Therefore, life was a living wine to Anders McElroy, and the small
world of his post a kingdom. And into it, with that travel-tired band of
venturers from Rainy Lake, had passed a princess.

Not yet did he know this,--not for many days, in which he looked from
the factory door among the women, singling out one who wore no brilliant
garment, yet whose shining head drew the eyes of the men like a magnet.

Slowly speech grew among them, very slowly, as if something held back
the usual comment of the trappers, concerning this Maren Le Moyne.

"Look you, Pierre," ventured Marc Dupre to Pierre Garcon, as they
beached their canoe one dusk after a short trip up the river; "yonder
is the young woman of the strong arm. A high head, and eyes like a
thunderous night,--Eh? Is there love, think you, asleep anywhere within
her?"

Whereat Pierre glanced aside under his cap to where Maren hauled up the
bucket from the well, hand over hand, with the muscles slipping under
her tawny skin like whipcords.

"Nom de Dieu!" ejaculated Pierre under his breath; "if there is, I would
not be the one to awaken it and not be found its master! It would be a
thing of flame and fury."

"Ah!" laughed the other, "but I would. It would be, past all chance,
a thing to remember, howe'er it went! But it is not like that you or
I will be the one to wake it. Milady, though clad in seeming poverty,
fixes those disdainful eyes upon the clouds."

CHAPTER III NEW HOMES

The work of raising the new cabins went forward merrily. Every one lent
a hand, and by the end of May the new families were installed and living
happily. In that last house near the northeast corner of the post dwelt
Henri and Marie Baptiste and Maren Le Moyne.

A goodly place it was, divided into two rooms and already the hands of
the two sisters had fashioned of such scant things as they possessed and
dared buy from the factory on the year's debt, a semblance of comfort.

In the other cabins the rest of the party managed to double, each family
taking one of the two rooms in each, and the women at least drew a
sigh