e since the
boats came in. Now that his mind was fixed he took to it again with
a loping step, bending his body forward and grasping his cap to butt
through trailing foliage.

As he passed the point and neared the post, its blare and hubbub burst
on him, and its torch-light and many twinkling candles. He proceeded
beside the triple row of Indian lodges which occupied the entire
water-front. At intervals, on the very verge, evening fires were built,
throwing streamers of crimson flicker on the lake. Naked pappooses
gathered around these at play. But on an open flat betwixt encampment
and village rose a lighted tabernacle of blankets stretched on poles and
uprights; and within this the adult Indians were crowded, celebrating
the orgy of the medicine-dance. Their noise kept a continuous roll of
echoes moving across the islands.

Owen made haste to pass this carnival of invocation and plunge into
the swarming main street of Mackinac, where a thousand voyageurs roved,
ready to embrace any man and call him brother and press him to drink
with them. Broad low houses with huge chimney-stacks and dormer-windows
stood open and hospitable; for Mackinac was en fete while the fur season
lasted. One huge storage-room, a wing of the Fur Company's building, was
lighted with candles around the sides for the nightly ball. Squared dark
joists of timber showed overhead. The fiddlers sat on a raised platform,
playing in ecstasy. The dark, shining floor was thronged with dancers,
who, before primrose-color entirely withdrew from evening twilight,
had rushed to their usual amusement. Half-breeds, quarter-breeds,
sixteenth-breeds, Canadian French, Americans, in finery that the
Northwest was able to command from marts of the world, crossed, joined
hands, and whirled, the rhythmic tread of feet sounding like the beating
of a great pulse. The doors of double timber stood open. From where he
paused outside, Owen could see mighty hinges stretching across the whole
width of these doors.

And he could see John McGillis moving among the most agile dancers. When
at last the music stopped, and John led Amable Morin's girl to one of
the benches along the wall, Owen was conscious that an Indian woman
crossed the lighted space behind him, and he turned and looked full
at Blackbird, and she looked full at him. But she did not stay to be
included in the greeting of John McGillis, though English might be
better known to her than Owen had supposed.

John c