en in the far-off
hills that march into the south, and that she lived there with a
barbarous mountaineer, who had himself long been an outlaw from his
kind.

But this had been mere gossip, and after twenty-five years she came
back to Pontiac, a half-mad creature, and took up the thread of her life
alone; and Parpon and the Cure saw that she suffered nothing in the hard
winters.

Valmond left the river-men to the tyranny of her tongue and stick, and
came on to where the red light of the forge showed through the smithy
window. As he neared the door, he heard a voice singularly sweet, and
another of commoner calibre was joining in the refrain of a song:

"'Oh, traveller, see where the red sparks rise,'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
But dark is the mist in the traveller's eyes.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
'Oh, traveller, see far down the gorge,
The crimson light from my father's forge.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)

"'Oh, traveller, hear how the anvils ring.'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
But the traveller heard, ah, never a thing.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
'Oh, traveller, loud do the bellows roar,
And my father waits by the smithy door.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)

"'Oh, traveller, see you thy true love's grace.'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
And now there is joy in the traveller's face.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
Oh, wild does he ride through the rain and mire,
To greet his love by the smithy fire.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)"

In accompaniment, some one was beating softly on the anvil, and the
bellows were blowing rhythmically.

He lingered for a moment, loath to interrupt the song, and then softly
opened the upper half of the door, for it was divided horizontally, and
leaned over the lower part.

Beside the bellows, her sleeves rolled up, her glowing face cowled in
her black hair, comely and strong, stood Elise Malboir, pushing a rod of
steel into the sputtering coals. Over the anvil, with a small bar caught
in a pair of tongs, hovered Madelinette Lajeunesse, beating, almost
tenderly, the red-hot point of the steel. The sound of the iron hammer
on the malleable metal was like muffled silver, and the sparks flew out
like jocund fireflies. She was making two hooks for her kitchen wall,
for she was clever at the forge, and could shoe a horse if she were let
to do so. She was