of content that the long trail had at last found an end, however
unstable of tenure.

"Ah, Maren," said Marie Baptiste, sitting on the shining new log step
of her domicile, "what it is to have a home! Does it not clutch at your
heart sometimes, ma cherie, the desire for a home, and that which goes
with it, the love of a man?"

She raised her eyes to the face of Maren leaning above her against the
lintel, and they were full of a puzzled question.

Maren answered the look with a swift smile, toying lightly with a fold
of the faded sleeve rolled above her elbow.

"Home for me, Marie, is the wide blue sky above, the wind in the tossing
trees, the ripple of soft waters on the bow of a canoe. For me,--I
grieve that we have stopped. Not this year do we reach the Land of the
Whispering Hills."

A swift change had fallen into the depth of her golden voice, a subtle
wistfulness that sang with weird pathos, and the eyes raised toward the
western rim of the forest were suddenly far and sombre.

"Forgive!" said her sister gently; "I had forgot. I know the dream, but
is it not better that we rest and gain new strength for another season?
Here might well be home, here on this pretty river. We have come a
mighty length already. What could be fairer, cherie,--even though we
leave another to win to the untracked West."

A small spasm drew across the features of Maren, a twitching of the full
lips.

"Faint heart of you," she said sadly. "Oh, Marie, 'tis your voice has
ever held us back. They would prod faster but for you. Is there no
glory within you, no daring, no dreams of conquest? Bien! But I could go
alone. This dallying stiffles the breath in me!"

She put up a hand and tore open the garment at her throat, taking a deep
breath of the sunlit air.

"But it is poverty that must be reckoned with. By spring again we may be
better equipped than ever."

So rode up the hope that was ever in her.

"Yes," sighed Marie, "as the good God wills."

But she glanced wistfully around the new cabin, to be her own for the
length of the four seasons. And who should say what might not happen in
four seasons?

She wondered fretfully what fate had fashioned the glorious creature
beside her in the form of Love itself to put within the soul of the
restless conqueror. Never had she known Maren, though they two had come
from the same lap.

Presently Maren looked down at her, and the shimmering smile, like light
across dark waters, had aga