had felt one day in Marie's doorway when
young Dupre swung up the main way of Fort de Seviere, and beneath it all
she saw that which had caused her to say on that first morning of the
long trail when he faced her in the hidden cove, "Would it had been
given me to love you, M'sieu!"

All this passed through her aching heart, and presently she said with a
little catch in her deep voice,

"What awaits a man like this? A man who has done all these things and
who speaks of their folly, who thinks of God in the nighttimes,
whose heart turns with longing to that land behind the stars, and who
gives,"--she paused a moment,--"I cannot say the rest,--But--but--Oh,
there awaits this man the smile of that Christ of the Seven Scars, the
loving tears of Our Lady of Sorrows, the very grace of the Good God!"

"Truly,--Ma'amselle?" asked Marc Dupre wistfully, "in your heart--not
out of its goodness?"

"In my heart of hearts I think this, M'sieu."

They fell silent for a long time, while the stars travelled with them in
the broken water and the ripples lapped and sucked at the shores and the
swift stream hurried to the bay.

At length the trapper tentatively raised his hand and touched the bare
arm of Maren where it shone brown beneath the white of the fringed
sleeve.

"I thank you for those words, Ma'amselle," he said simply; "they are
healing as the Confessional to my ragged soul."

CHAPTER XXI TIGHTENED SCREWS

"M'sieu," said De Courtenay, "what think you? It would seem that
something stirs in this camp of squaws and old men. Gaiety and festive
garb appear. Behold yonder brave with a double allowance of painted
feathers and more animation than seems warrantable. What's to do?"

The man was worn to the bone with the day's work, yet the old brilliance
played whimsically in his eyes. This day a wearing burden of skin packs
had been added to the canoe, ladening it to the water's lip, and the
vicious prodding from behind had been in consequence of redoubled
vigour.

McElroy, reclining beside him on his face,--to lie on his back was
unbearable,--to one side of the camp, looked at the scene before them.

Surely it seemed as if something was toward.

Here and there among the Indians appeared strangers. More Bois-Brules,
lean half-breeds more to be feared than any Indian from the Mandane
country to the polar regions, decked half after the manner of white man
and savage, all more animated than was the wont of these sullen R