wear it?" she asked.

"If it shall please you."

"Then it shall please me," she said quite easily, "and I thank you."

McElroy turned away and walked back to the factory, and all the way he
did not know what he had done. It had been an impulse, and he had rushed
to its fulfilling without a thought. Had he bungled in giving her a
garment where De Courtenay had played on a wind-harp in giving her a
little red flower?

He was hot and cold alternately, and the memory of that momentary frown
came turn and turn with that of the gentle manner in which she had
reached down for the lifted gift.

And Maren Le Moyne?

Within the cabin she had turned to that portion which was her own, the
while Marie's sharp eyes followed her with questions that were ripe on
her tongue.

"Maren," she cried, as the girl passed the inner door, unable to longer
hold herself, "know you the factor well?"

But Maren only shook her head and closed the slab door between.

Once alone she laid the gift on the bed, covered with a patchwork quilt
made from the worn garments that had seen the long trail, and stood
bending above, looking closely at each beauty of colour, of softness and
design.

She spread the straight sleeves apart, smoothing out the dangling
fringe, and her hand lingered with a strange gentleness a-down the
glowing plastron of bright beads.

This was the first gift a man had ever given her, other than De
Courtenay's red flower, and somehow it pleased her vastly.

She fell to thinking of the factor, of his open face, his light head
forever tilted back with the square chin lifted, of the mouth above and
of the eyes, clear as the new day and anxious as a child's the while she
halted above his offering, and unconsciously she began within her mind
to compare him with all other men she had ever known.

There was Prix Laroux. Not like. Also Jean Folliere and Anthon Brisbee
of Grand Portage, who came to the wilderness each year. Neither were
they like this man, nor Cif and Pierre Bordoux, nor Franz LeClede,
nor yet her brother Henri. These she knew and they were of a different
pattern.

Also there was that venturer of the great beauty and the silken curls
who had spoken so prettily. With all his grace, he was unlike this
strong young man whose tongue faltered and whose eyes were anxious.

Verily, for the first time; this maid of the wilderness was thinking of
men.

And it was because he had seemed so ill-beset that she had taken t