he
gift so readily.

She would not have him stumble longer under the sharp eyes of Marie.

And then thought of him faded from her mind and she fell to
contemplation of the doeskin garment again. Things of its like she had
seen at Grand Portage, but nothing of its great beauty, and for the
first time she gave thought to self-adornment. She was strong, this
woman, and given to serious dreams, and the small things of womanhood
had left her wide apart in a land of her own wherein there were only
visions of afar country, of travel and of conquest, and perhaps of a
man, old and rugged and kindly, who had followed the long trail, and
this small new thought lodged wonderingly in her mind.

For the first time she was conscious of the plainness of the garment
that folded her form, and she held up her arms and looked at them, brown
beneath the up-rolled sleeves.

Yes, some day she would put it on, this gorgeous thing of white fringe
and sparkling colour, because she had told that man she would.

Unlike most women, she did not hold it up to her, pointing a foot
beneath its pretty edge, gathering it into her waist, trying its effect.
She was content to run a hand along its length, to feel the caress of
its softness.

Yet even as she touched it she thought of the pretty creature which had
worn it first, the slim-legged doe bounding in the forest depth, and a
little sigh lifted her breast.

But this had been the quick and merciful death of the bullet, the
legitimate death. That she could understand.

More quick and merciful than that which would come in the natural life
of the forest. Therefore this pelt held no such repugnance as those
stacked on the river bank.

Suddenly, as she bent above the bed, she felt the presence of another,
the peculiar power of eyes, upon her, and, turning quickly, she saw a
black head, black as her own and running with curls, that dipped from
the window.

There was no little head in all the post like that save one, and
it belonged to little Francette, the pretty maid who had run by the
factor's side that day of the meeting of Bois DesCaut by the river. With
the drop of that head from the sill there passed over Maren a strange
feeling, a prescience of evil, a thrill of fear in a heart that had
never known fear.

She left the tiny room with the gift of the factor still outspread, and
joined Marie in the outer space, where yawned a wide fireplace with its
dogs on the hearth, its swinging crane