e of the small
conclave.

Very gravely he pointed the stem, clinking with its dangling ornaments,
to east and west, to the heavens and to the earth, and then with a deft
motion swung it around his head.

"My brothers," he said, glancing around at the solemn visages of these
his friends and people, "may the sun smile all day upon us together in
peace."

Wherewith he smoked a moment at the carven mouthpiece and handed the
pipe to Quamenoka.

With the utmost gravity Ridgar took it from the chief, passed it to
the savage on his right, who likewise smoked and passed, it on, and
presently the ceremony was done and the visit had begun.

"My brothers are late this year at the trading," said the factor. "For a
fortnight has the ox waited in the pen, the bread of the feast been set.
So do we love our brothers of the forest. What is the word of the west?
What tribes come in to the factory with peltry? We would hear Quamenoka
speak."

He fell silent, sat down in his chair, and waited.

In the hush of that moment a shadow falling in the open door of the
factory caught his eye and he looked up to see the form of Maren Le
Moyne leaning against the lintel, her face filled with eagerness, her
eyes, clear as a child's and as far-seeing, fixed on the Indians. He
glanced swiftly to that tight braid just above the temple, where he had
last seen a small red flower nodding impishly, and was conscious of a
feeling of relief to find it gone.

It was irregular, the intrusion of an outsider in the ceremony of the
opening of the trade; but for his life the young factor of De Seviere
could not have said so to this girl who went fearlessly where she listed
and whose eyes held such mystery of strength and wistfulness.

Moreover, Quamenoka was speaking and the council harkened.

CHAPTER VII FOREST NEWS

He was an old man, this chief of the Assiniboines, and his face was
wrinkled like the dried bed of a stream` where the last little ripples
have cast up the sand in a thousand ridges. His black eyes were mild,
for these Indians were a peaceful people, relying on the trapping and
the hunting and the friendship of the white men at the posts which they
had held for three generations.

Fear of their more warlike kin had kept them near the factories and
driven them into the ways of civilisation.

Now he sat with quiet glance upon the floor looking back into the past
year, his feathered head-dress quivering a bit and the blue smoke rising