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 from the pipe.
“The wind in the woods aisles is full of words, my brothers,” he said, in his own tongue, “and tales flit down the lakes like the leaves in autumn. From the Saskatchewan come the French, who tell the Assiniboines that at their posts will be given four axes for one beaver, eight pounds of shot and four of powder. Yet thy brothers come down from their lodges to Fort de Seviere because of the love they bear to you, and for the fairness in trade that never varies. Many beavers are in the packs, much marten and fox and ermine. We will do good trade. Guns that are light and neat shaped to the hand, with good locks. Also much tobacco and sweet fruits. Of these things we are sure,—also are we sure of the next year and the next. Therefore do we come down the rivers to the Assiniboine.
“The tales that flit in the forest, my brothers, tell of a new fort of the French far, far to the northwest on the shores of the Slave Lake, whose factor is of the name Living Stone. Also there are whispers that fly like the wintering birds of new people, fair-skinned and red in the cheeks, who come into the upper country from the west where lies the Big Water. These are strange people, like none that trade with the Indians, who are neither friends to the English, nor yet the French, but strive for barter with those tribes that come up from the Blackfeet Hills and down from the frozen regions of the North with bearskins, the one, and seal and sea-otter, the other.
“A runner of the Saulteurs, resting in the lodges of the Assiniboines, has told Quamenoka of their strange customs, their hardness, and their shut forts guarded with suspicion and sentinelled with fear.”
He ceased a moment and smoked in silence.
No breath of sound broke the stillness, for this was ceremony and of great dignity.
Only McElroy was acutely conscious of the figure in the doorway and the peering face of the girl, so full of hushed intensity.
“Also do we bring word of a great tribe, the Nakonkirhirinons, living far beyond the River Oujuragatchousibi, who this year journey down to Fort de Seviere with many furs,—more than all that will come from the Assiniboines, the Crees, the Ojibways, and the Migichihilinons put together.
“Past York and Churchill on the Great Bay they come, because of unfair dealings which met them at those places last year and the year before, down to the country of the Assiniboines, in whose lodges they will eat the great feast of the Peace Dance. Not long have the Nakonkirhirinons traded their furs, living to themselves in their hills, and much credit is due Quamenoka by whose word they come this year to his brothers on the Assiniboine.”
The chief paused impressively and raised his glance to the factor's face.
McElroy nodded.
“Greatly does the heart of thy brother rejoice at such word, and a present over and above that meant for him shall be given Quamenoka. Let the talk go on. We listen.”
But before the chief could speak again, Edmonton Ridgar had broken silence:
“Negansahima is chief of that tribe and my Indian father, he having adopted me with all ceremony once when I sojourned a year among them. The sight of him will gladden my spirit.”
Swift surprise spread on the factor's face, but he did not speak. There was much in the checkered life of his friend that had not been set before him, and each revelation was full to the brim of romance, of daring, and of that excitement which attends a life spent in the wilderness.
The Indian nodded and went on:
“And last of the news of forest and lake and river is word of the meeting of canoes, the half of one-ten, laden with goods and going up the river, which passed but few suns back. A sun-man sat in the first, beautiful of face and with hair like light, who strove to barter. But the Assiniboines come to their brothers. They heeded not his words, though they were sweet with promise. I have spoken.”
The chief fell silent, for the year had been told, and McElroy spoke presently of his joy at their presence, their words, and their friendship, as was the custom of the H. B. Company's factors on such occasions; and Ridgar rose from the council to bid a young clerk, one Gifford, bring forth the presents for the guests,—a coat with coarse white lace and lining of vermilion, a hat of felt and a sash of many colours for Quamenoka, and lesser glories for his four headmen. These presented with due formality, and actually donned by the recipients without loss of time, the ceremony of the opening council was over, save for the triumphal march of the potentate, accompanied by McElroy and Ridgar, back to the camp on the river bank.
As they passed out the factory door, they brushed by Maren Le Moyne, where she had drawn aside, still wistfully watching the comers from the wilderness.
The young factor's eyes went to her face and for a moment held her glance.
Instantly, with that deep look, the girl's hand shot forth and touched his arm, a light touch with the deftness of strength held in abeyance, and McElroy felt his flesh tingle beneath it.
“M'sieu,” she said, “where do they come from, how far in the west?”
“Not far, Ma'amselle,—only from the Lower Saskatchewan. The Assiniboines are our nearest tribe, living along the country from the Hare Hills to the parting of the twin rivers above the Qui Appelle. Hold they interest for you?”
“Nay,” she said, shaking her black head, “not if they come not far, other than that excited by their strangeness. I thank you.”
She drew back, and McElroy, perforce, followed his way to the encampment, but he thought not this time of the red flower.
Only within him was roused that same desire which had prompted De Courtenay to snatch the bloom from the stockade wall,—a longing to give her something, to offer homage to this tall young woman with the wondrous face of beauty and wistful strength. Since she was but a child had men who looked upon her felt this same longing, this stirring of the worshipper within. But few had dared the wall of quietness about her; therefore, she had remained apart. Only Prix Laroux of all those who had seen her grow into her magnificent womanhood at Grand Portage had come to her with his gift of faith and tied himself to hand for life, and he came not with the love of man but rather as one who follows a goddess. Yet it was that aching desire to serve her which sent him.
And now it gripped the young factor of Fort de Seviere and he looked among the Assiniboines for a gift.
Here a squaw held forth to him a garment that took his eye at once.
Of doeskin it was, soft and white as a lady's hand, and cut after the fashion of the Indian woman's dress, in a single piece from throat to ankle, the sleeves straight from the shoulder, and at edge and seam, sewed with thorn and sinew, rippled and fluttered a heavy fringe the length of a man's hand.
Across the breast there gleamed and glittered a solid plastron of the beadwork so justly famed for its beauty of colour and design, which came from the hands of none save the women of this tribe, and at hem and elbow, above the dangling fringe, there ran a heavy band of it. Above the hips there hung a belt made of the brilliant stained quills of the porcupine.
The factor took the beautiful thing in his hands, and the purpose in his mind crystallised.
In a swift moment he had bargained with the silent woman for a price that astonished her and was back within the post, walking hurriedly toward the cabin of the Baptistes.
At the door Marie met him, her bright eyes sparkling with the honour of this visit of him who was the Law, the Head of De Seviere, and at her eager greeting the first abating of the flush within took hold upon him.
He stood like a boy, the gorgeous garment hanging in his hand and the word on his lips forgotten.
“Madame,” he stammered, “I would—” and got no further.
Sudden embarrassment took him and he grew angry with himself.
What could he say, how dared he do what he had done?
He could have thrown the white garment into the river in his sudden vexation. Factor of the post, he had made of himself a stammering youth, all for sake of the compelling beauty of a woman's eyes.
But at that moment, while Marie stood blankly on the sill holding to the doorside and the silence grew unbearable, there was a step within the cabin and Maren Le Moyne came from the inner room.
In one moment, so keen was the perception of her, she had seen the red blood in McElroy's face, the wonder on Marie's, and she, too, stood in the open door.
“Ah, M'sieu!” she said quickly, “do some of them, by chance, come from the west?”
The tone of her deep voice broke the spell, so subtly natural was it, and McElroy found his tongue.
“No, Ma'amselle,” he smiled, the ease coming back to his blue eyes, “but I have found something very beautiful among them which I wish you to have. It is more beautiful than a red flower.”
He held up to her the doeskin garment and his eyes were very anxious.
For a moment Maren stared as she had stared at De Courtenay and a curious expression of perplexity spread on her face.
Truly men were different here in this wilderness from those who lived at the Grand Portage, and for a moment she drew herself up and the straight brows began to frown. But as she had felt the whimsical charm of De Courtenay, so now she felt the eagerness, the taut anxiety of this man, and she noticed that there was no smile on his face as she hesitated.
Moreover, Marie was watching, sharp as a little hawk.
“Why, M'sieu,” she said, and there was a baffling note to the voice this time, “why,—you wish me to have this?”
“Yes, Ma'amselle,” said McElroy simply.
The girl stooped and took it from him, and for a moment her hand lay against his palm, a smooth warm hand.
“And you wish me to 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 the 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 made from a rod of iron, its bed and its hand-made table.
Here had come Anon Bordoux and Mora Le-Clede, drawn by the sight of the factor at the Baptistes' door, their tongues flying in eager question.
“—of such gorgeousness,” Marie was saying, “such softness of white doeskin, such wealth of the beading—”
“Marie,” said Maren sharply, “is there naught to do save gossip?”
Anon and Mora fell into confused silence, the habit of the trail where this girl's word had been the law falling upon them, but Marie, saucy and not to be daunted, was not so easily hushed.
“Is it not true,” she cried, “that the factor brought it but now to the door in plain sight of all?”
Whereon Maren passed, out the open door and the tongues began again, more carefully.
In the distance there flashed a crimson skirt at whose beaded edge there hung a great grey dog, his heavy head waist-high to the little maid who wore it.
Throughout the week that followed Fort de Seviere was gay with the bustle of trading. Packs of furs went up the main way and loads of merchandise went down, carried on the backs of the braves, guns and blankets and many a foot of Spencer's Twist at one beaver a foot, powder and balls in buckskin bags, and all the things of heart's desire that had brought the Assiniboines from the forks of the Saskatchewan.
Kept close to the factory by the bartering, McElroy and Ridgar and the two clerks hardly saw the blue spring sky, nor caught a breath of the scented air of the spring. Within the forest the Saskatoon was blooming and the blueberry bushes were tossing soft heads of foam, while many a tree of the big woods gave forth a breath of spice. It came in at the door and the young factor raised his head many times a day to drink its sweetness in a sort of wistfulness. At dusk he stood on the sill, released from the trade, and looked over his settlement as was his habit, and ever his eyes strayed to that new cabin at the far end, of the northern row.
What was she thinking, that dark-browed girl with the deep eyes that changed as the waters of a lake with each breath of wind, of him and the blundering gift he had carried to her door? What had she done with it, and would he ever see it clinging to those splendid shoulders, falling over the rounded breast?
A feeling of warmth grew at his heart each day with thought of her, and when he saw her swinging down toward the well he felt the blood leap in his veins. The very shine of the sun was different when it struck the tight black braids wrapped round her head.
Verily the little kingdom had brought forth its Princess.
And with her coming there was one heart that burned hot with passion, that fashioned itself after the form of hatred, for little Francette had seen, first a glow in a man's eyes and then a gift in his hand, and she fingered a small, flat blade that hung in her sash with one hand, the while the other strayed on the head of Loup. Dark was the fire that played in her pretty eyes, heavy the anguish that rode her breast.
She hated the memory of that white garment spread out on Maren Le Moyne's bed.
“Tessa,” she said one day, sidling up to that Tessa Bibye who had cast a taunt in her teeth, “know you the charm which that doctress of the Crees gave to Marci Varendree when she sickened for love of that half-breed, Tohi Stannard?”
“Oho!” cried Tessa gleefully, “a man again! Who lacks one now, Francette?”
“Nay,” said Francette, “but I know of one who sickens inwardly and I would give her the charm.”
“Go into the flats of the Beaver House after Marci and her Indian, whither they went,” Tessa laughed. “I know not the charm. But it was good, for she got him, and went to the wilds with him. Follow and learn, Francette.”
But Francette, with a gesture of disgust, turned away.
The warm spring days passed in a riot of song from the depths outside the post, the Assiniboine rippled and whispered along its shores and over the illimitable stretches of the wilderness there hung the very spirit of the mating-time.
Within the stockade, mothers sat in the doors crooning to the babes that clutched at the sunbeams, dogs slept in the cool shadows of the cabins, and here and there a youth sang a snatch of a love song.
“Verily, Marie, it is good to be here,” sighed Micene Bordoux, sitting on her sill with her capable arms folded on her knees, and her eyes, cool and sane and tolerant, roving over the settlement lolling so quietly in the sun. “After the trail the rest is good, and yet I will be eager long before the year has passed to follow Maren,—may Mary give her grace!—into that wilderness which so draws at her heartstrings.”
“Oh, Micene!” cried Marie, a trifle vexed, “if only she might forget her dreams! What is it like, the heart of a maid, that turns from thought of love to that of these wild lands, to the mystery of the Whispering Hills that lie, the good God knows where, in that dim and untracked West! I would that Maren might love! Then would we have peace and stop forever at this pleasant place.”
Good Micene, with her brave heart and her whole-souled sense, smiled at Marie.
“Love,” she said,—“and think you THAT could turn that exalted spirit from its quest? Still the stir of conquest within her bosom, hush the call of that glorious country which we know from rumor, and plain hearsay lies at the heart of the Athabasca?
“Little do you know Maren, Marie, though the same mother gave you birth. There is naught that could turn the maid, and I love her for it. It is that undaunted faith, that steadfast purpose, that white fire in her face which holds at her heels the whole of us, that turns to her the faces of our men, as those legions of France turned to the Holy Maid. Love? She would turn not for it if she could not take it with her.”
Micene looked off across the cabins, and there was a warm light in her eyes.
“Nay, Marie,” she said, “make ready for the trail the coming spring, for we will surely go.”
It was this day, golden and sweet with little winds that wafted from the blossom-laden woods, that Maren Le Moyne, drawn by the dusky depths, passed, out the stockade gate, traversed slowly the length of the Indian camp, stopping here and there to hold out a hand to a frightened pappoose peeking from behind its mother's fringed leggings, to watch a moment at the cooking fires, to smile at a slim young boy brave in a checkered shirt, and entered the forest.
From the door of the factory McElroy saw her go and the call of the spring suddenly became unbearable.
With a word to Ridgar he stepped off the long log step and deliberately followed.
The Irish blood within him lifted his head and sent his heart a-bounding, while the half-holy mysticism that came from the Scottish hills drew his glance upward to the blue sky arching above.
A tumult surged in his breast and every pulse in his body leaped at thought of speech with her, and yet again a diffidence fell upon him that set him trembling.
As the conqueror he went, pushing toward victory, yet humble in his ambition.
He felt a mist in his eyes as he entered the high arched aisles, cool beneath their canopy of young green, and he looked eagerly here and there for sight of a tall form, upright, easy, plain in its dark garb.
Along the river bank he went where he saw a footprint in the soft loam, and presently it turned deeper into the great woods and he swung forward into those depths whose sweetness had called him subtly for these many days.
She was a strong traveller, that straight young creature of the open ways, and a full hour went swiftly before he caught the sight he wanted.
At sight of her he halted and stood a moment in hushed joy, looking with eyes that knew their glory, for with every passing second Anders McElroy was learning that nowhere in all the world, as had said that flaming youth Marc Dupre, was there another woman like this Maren Le Moyne.
She stood in a little glade, cool, high-canopied, where the sunlight came in little spots to play over the soft carpet of the pale forest grass thick-starred with frail white flowers, and her back was to a tree that towered to heaven in its height. At her sides her brown arms hung, palms out in an utter abandon of pleasure, while her lifted face, with its closed eyes, communed with the very Spirit of the Wild. Like some priestess she was, and McElroy felt an odd sensation of unworthiness sweep over him as he stood silent, his sober blue eyes on the beauty of her face. He cast swiftly back across his life. Was there anything there which might forbid him now, when he would go forward to so pure a thing as this maid, dreaming her dreams of prowess in the wilderness?
Nay, he saw no unworthy deed, nothing to spoil the page of a commonplace life spent at his old father's side across the sea, nothing of the so common evils of the settlement. Within him there was that which thanked its Maker unashamed that he had kept himself from one or two temptations which had beset him in these stirring years of service on the fringes of the great country spreading from the bay.
With that thought he went forward, and Maren did not hear his step on the soft grass, so far was she on her well-worn trail of dreams, until he stood near and the feeling of a presence finally brought back the wandering soul.
Then she opened her eyes and they fell full upon the factor, his light head bared to the dancing sun-spots, his blue eyes sober and touched again with that anxiety which had compelled her to take his gift.
There was no sudden start of fear, no little startled breath, for this woman was calm as the dreaming woods and as serene.
“Bon jour, M'sieu,” she said, and at sound of her voice, so deep and full of those sliding minors, McElroy felt her power sweep over him in a tumultuous flood.
“Ma'amselle,” he said, “Ma'amselle!”
And in the next moment stopped, for the words of love were on his tongue and the wide dark eyes were looking at him wonderingly.
“No longer could I withstand the call of the springtime and the woods,” he finished falteringly; “the trading-room and the bargain were grown hateful to me in these warm days with the scent of flower and leaf and heated mould coming in at the door and bidding me come. I left my post, a traitor, Ma'amselle, betrayed by the forest. Too weak am I for courage when the big woods call.”
Maren looked at him and the light grew up in her eyes, that little flame that flickered and leaped and gave so baffling a charm to her beauty.
“Ah!” she said softly; “you love it too, the great wilderness?”
“Aye, most truly.”
“And you can hear the whisper of the far countries, the ripple of distant streams, the wind in the pines that have never sheltered a white man? You know these things, M'sieu?”
She leaned forward from the great smooth-barked tree and looked at him eagerly.
“They are what brought me over seas,” he said quietly, “what sent me to De Seviere, what hold me to the tribes that come each year to my doors.”
Maren's lips were parted, the fire of her passion in her flaming face. “Then you know why I come to the woods, why I grieve that the spring is passing, why I can scarcely hold my soul in patience through this delay!”
With the suddenness of her words her breath had leaped to a heaving tumult, the wide eyes, so calm, so cool, had filled first with fire and then with a mist. That clouded them like tears.
“Oh, M'sieu!” she cried tensely; “know you of that country which lies far to the west and which the Indians call the Land of the Whispering Hills?”
“Aye. It lies circling a great lake, blue as the summer skies, its waters forever rippled by the winds of the west which sing in the grassy vales and over the rounded knolls that stud the region,—a land of waving trees, of high coolness, or rich valleys thick with rank grasses and abounding with the pelt animals. It is the country of the Athabasca and from it came last year a band of the Chippewas heavily laden with furs. They told fine tales of its beauty. It is for that land you are bound?”
“For that land, M'sieu,” said Maren Le Moyne, and her lips trembled; “for that virgin goddess of the dreams of years! I have seen its hills, its waving grass, wind-blown, its leaping streams,—I have breathed the sweet air of its forests and gazed on its beauties since my early childhood, in dreams, always in dreams, M'sieu, until I could bear the strain no longer. And now, when it beckons almost within my reach, when its very breath seems in my nostrils, I must stop for a year's space! You know, M'sieu,—you comprehend?”
She leaned forward looking earnestly into McElroy's eyes, and a surge of painful ecstasy shot to the man's heart, so near she seemed in the suddenly created sympathy of the moment, so near and gracious, so strong in her pure passion, so infinitely sweet.
“I know,” he said, and his voice sounded strange in his ears; “I know every pulse of your heart, Ma'amselle, every longing of your spirit, every pure thought of your mind,—for these many days I have trembled to every vibration that has touched or thrilled you. Oh, Ma'amselle!”
With the surge of that overwhelming thing within him the young man had forgot all things,—that this girl was near a stranger, that he had quaked at his temerity of the gift, forgot all but that she leaned toward him with the mist in her wide eyes, and he strode forward the step between them, his arms reaching out instinctively to enfold her.
With the swiftness of the impulse he swept her into them until the eager face lay on his breast, the smooth black braids pressing his lips with their satiny folds.
For one intoxicating moment he held her, as the primal man takes and holds his woman, tightly against his beating heart as though he would defy the world, lost in a sea of strange new emotions that rolled in golden billows high above his head.
Then from the depths there came a cry that cleared his whirling brain, a very embodiment of startled amaze, of indefinable horror, of mixed intonations.
“M'sieu!”
Maren Le Moyne wrenched herself free and lifted her face to look at him.
It was a warring field.
Upon it lay a great astonishment, a wonder, and a newness. Behind these there came, creeping swiftly with each moment of her startled gaze, an odd excitement that mounted with each panting breath that left his lips, for it was from him that it took its life. Her red mouth dropped apart, showing the gleam of the white teeth between. She looked like a child rudely shaken from its sleep, startled, perhaps vaguely frightened at the strange shapes of familiar things distorted by the vision not yet adjusted.
“M'sieu!” she stammered; “M'sieu!”
And with her voice McElroy felt the arrested blood rush back to his heart again, for it held no anger. Instead it was full of that startled wonder, and it was as gold to him.
“Maren,” he said, the emotion choking him; “Maren—” and with that new courage he put both hands on her shoulders and drew her near, looking down into the eyes so near on a level with his own.
Deliberately, slowly, that she might fully catch the meaning of what he was about to do, he drooped his lips until they rested square on the red mouth.
This was the thing he had left the factory for, this was what had drawn him, unconsciously perhaps, to the path along the river's bank, that had made him follow deliberately the light trail of the girl into the woods.
“Maren,” he said, so thrilled that his words shook, “from this day forth you are mine. Mine only and against the whole world. I have taken you and you are mine.”
He was full of his glory, dominating the dark eyes that had never left his own, and his soul was big within him. He was still very much a boy, this young factor, and the crowning moment of life had him in his grip.
He knew no fear, no thought of her next word or action touched him until she, as deliberately as he had acted, reached up and took both his hands from her shoulders.
“Adieu, M'sieu,” said Maren Le Moyne quietly, the excitement of that breathed “M'sieu! M'sieu!” quite lost in the calmness that was her usual characteristic, and turning she walked away down the glen toward the river bank, the little spots of sun dancing on her black head like a leopard's gold as she passed in the checkered shade, and not once did she turn her head to see the factor of De Seviere standing where she had left him beside the forest giant.
If that time in the tuneful spring was crowded full to the brim of emotions scarce bearable to McElroy, how much more wonderful was it to Maren Le Moyne, for the first time in her life trembling in all her being from the touch of a man's lips?
To the outward world there was no sign of the tumult within her as she came and went about the business of the new cabin by the stockade wall, but in her virgin heart there stirred strange new things that filled her calm eyes with wonder.
In the seclusion of the little room to the east she spread out on the patchwork quilt the Indian garment and looked at it with a new meaning.
Never before in her life had she thought of a man's eyes as she thought of McElroy's, thrilling to the very tips of her fingers at memory of the blue fire in them, and never before had she been conscious of anything as she was conscious of the flesh on her shoulders where his hands had rested, her lips sealed under the warm caress of his. Verily, there was nowhere another such man as this one who knew the longing of the wild as did she, whose heart responded to the same call of the great wilderness.
Night and day she thought of him, and the memory of that day in the forest glade haunted her like a golden melody newly heard.
Yet something within her held her back from his sight, kept her eyes from that part of the small settlement where stood the factory with its wide doorway. She could not bear to look upon him yet in the newness of this awakening.
And McElroy, deep in the work of the trading, was eaten by a thousand qualms and torments. All those doubts that beset lovers tore at his heart and made of his days a nightmare.
With the cooling of his exalted intoxication what time the touch of the girl's young body had fired him with all confidence, came a thousand condemnations for his blundering haste, his stupid boasting of conquest.
To what depths of scorn might he not now be fallen in the mind of such a girl as Maren Le Moyne with her calm judgment; how far might he not be from the object of his longing!
And the fact that he could catch no sight of her, no matter how often he stepped near the door nor how diligently he sought for a glimpse of the shining braids and plain garment among the women at the well, but added fuel to the fire that scorched him.
But the times were getting very busy at Fort de Seviere. Before the Assiniboines were ready to depart back up the waterways down which they had come, their canoes laden with the wealth of the coming season, other flotillas were on the little waves of the river, other chiefs made their entrance up the main way of the post, and the goods of the Hudson's Bay Company went out in a stream as the priceless pelts came in.
“Lad,” said Edmonton Ridgar with that easy probing of the well-known friend, “there is something eating at your mind these days. The trade goes differently from that of last year. It is not so all-absorbing. I fear me that the Nor'westers, with their plundering and their tales of deportation, have entered a wedge of worry.”
“'Tis not of the Nor'westers I give a thought, Ridgar,” he smiled, accepting the veiled raillery, “for you well know that we of the Company are above them, though it was but yesterday that an Indian brought word of a trapper at Isle a La Crosse being maltreated in the woods by a couple of their sneaking cutthroats and two packs of beaver taken from him for which they laughingly offered him in payment a bundle of mangy skins cast out from the summer's pickings. 'Twas Peter Brins and I'll wager that those two are marked for a long reckoning when the tables turn. And by the same Indian I hear that the young blade from Montreal with his light-haired brigade who stumbled upon us a while back, has reached his post on the Saskatchewan and has taken hold with a high hand, doing his utmost to intercept our Indians and turn the tide of the Company's furs into the trading-rooms of the Nor'westers. I think it will be a bootless process, for we hold our people with the hand of surety.”
“Aye, but what of the Nakonkirhirinons, making their initial trip by way of Rapid River and Deer Lake, coming through the country of the Saskatchewan and held by no bond of loyalty? I see trouble ahead if this young De Courtenay gets wind of their coming, for they will be rich in peltry and they are a warlike tribe.”
“But they are to celebrate the Peace Dance in the lodges of the Assiniboines. Surely they will come straight to their friends before trusting their trade to any.”
Edmonton Ridgar shook his head.
“Hey fear nothing, these Nakonkirhirinons, and would as soon enter trade with one as another, having come for trade, if the values were above those at York and Churchill. I hope they swing eastward to Winipigoos and thus miss that young hot-brain on the Saskatchewan.”
“By the way, Ridgar, Pierre Garcon says that Bois DesCaut is at Seven Isles on the Qui Appelle with Henderson. Since telling that wanton lie to the Nor'wester he has not had enough to show his face here. A bad lot Bois, and one to be watched for tricks.”
“Aye, a bad lot, but salted with a prudence that savours of cowardice. His tricks are all turncoats that slip danger like an old garment.”
But for all Ridgar's hope, at that very moment the great tribe from the far north country, even twelve leagues beyond the Oujuragatchousibi, was swinging down through the wilderness bound for the lodges of the Assiniboines, burdened with a wealth of peltry to make a trader's eyes stand out and clad in all the glory of the visiting tribes, and it was heading straight for the country of the Saskatchewan.
Towering head-dresses swept above their moving columns, pomp and ceremony showed in the panoply of carved spear-heads, feathered shafts, and slung bows of the white ash which decked them on their peaceful mission, while underneath fringed garments of buckskin, stained and beaded with porcupine quills, were bands and stripes of war-paint. They were ready for anything that might happen in this unknown country into which they journeyed at the word of their friends the Assiniboines, given at the buffalo hunt the fall before, above the Great Slave Lake.
Never before had the Nakonkirhirinons been so far in the south.
And long before they reached Deer Lake word had been brought to that new venturer in his post on the Saskatchewan, Alfred de Courtenay, and he was keenly alert.
About the same time a half-breed trapper came into Fort de Seviere, loud in his lamentations, and sought McElroy.
From the flats south of the Capot River, where he had wintered amid a band of Blackfoot Indians, a rare thing for a white man, he had come laden with rich furs from that unopened country, bound for De Seviere, and on the banks of the Qui Appelle three men had come upon him who had shared his lonely campfire. Rollicking fellows they were, brawny of form and light of head, and they had carried much liquor in flasks in their leg-straps, which liquor flowed freely amid songs and fireglow.
In the morning when he awoke late with, Mon Dieu! such a head! there were no three men, who had vanished like dreams of the liquor, likewise there was no well-strapped pack of fat winter beaver!
The man, a French half-breed, whimpered and cursed in impotent wrath, and showed McElroy one of the flasks that had been in the leg-straps of his visitors. It was covered with a fine light wicker weave, of the same pattern as that jug which De Courtenay had left at the post gate that morning in early spring.
“Ridgar,” said the factor, showing the thing to him, “our friend from Montreal is taking a high hand with the country. The freedom of the wild has gone to his head.”
Indeed it seemed as though that were true, for the tales of the reckless doings of that post of the Nor'westers on the Saskatchewan over which De Courtenay presided became more frequent and always they were characterised by a wildness and folly that were only exceeded by their daring.
The young adventurer had already made a headlong sally into the fringes of that country which came too near his Tom-Thumb garrison, and along which roving bands of the sullen Blackfeet trailed with a watching eye on the white men at the forts, and returned without two of those long curls of which he was so proud, a spear-head pinning them in the trunk of a tree which happened to form a convenient background.
To add to the small resentment against him which began to rankle in McElroy's heart, and which had never really left it since that evening in De Seviere when Maren Le Moyne had passed behind the cabin of the Savilles with some voyageur's tot on her shoulder and the handsome gallant from Montreal had lost his manners staring, one day in this same week a Bois-Brules came to the post gates and asked for one Maren Le Moyne.
He stood without and stubbornly refused to give his message, and at last McElroy himself went to the cabin of the Baptistes.
He had not seen the girl since that day in the forest, and his heart beat to suffocation as he neared the open door and caught the sound of her voice singing a French love song. He stopped on the step, and for a moment his glance took in the interior: By a window to the north she stood at a table, its wooden surface soft and white as doeskin from water and stone, and prepared the meal for ash-cakes, her sleeves, as usual, rolled to her shoulder and the collar of her dress open at the throat.
To the young factor's eyes she was a sight that weakened the knees beneath him and set him quaking with a new fear. He dared not speak and bring her gaze upon him, the memory of his boastful words in the forest was too poignant.
But it needed not speech. Had he but known the wonder that had lived within her all these days he would have understood the force that presently stopped the song on her lips, as if her soul listened unconsciously for tangible knowledge of the presence it already felt near, that slowed her nimble brown fingers in the pan, that presently lifted her head and turned her face to him.
Instantly a warm flush leaped up to the dark cheeks, and McElroy felt its answer in his own.
“Ma'amselle,” he stammered, far from that glib “Maren” of the glade, “there is one at the gate who demands speech of you.”
The words were commonplace enough and the girl did not get their import for the intensity of her gaze into the eyes whose blue fire had set her first wondering and then a-thrill with these strange emotions.
“Eh, M'sieu?” she smiled, and McElroy, revived through all his being with that smile, repeated his message.
She took her hands from the yellow meal and dusted them on a hempen towel, and was ready to go forth beside him.
That short walk to the stockade gate was silent with the silence of shy new joy, and once the factor glanced sidewise at the drooped lashes above the dusky cheeks.
“Had you expected any messenger, Ma'amselle?” he asked indifferently as they neared the portal with its fringe of peeping women and saw beyond them the tall figure of the Bois-Brule, his lank hair banded back by a red kerchief.
“Nay, M'sieu,” replied the girl, and went forward to stand in the gate.
The messenger from the woods asked in good French if she were Maren Le Moyne, and being answered in the affirmative, he took from his hunting shirt a package wrapped in broad green leaves and placed it in her hands.
The leaves were wilted with the heat of the man's body and came easily off in her fingers, disclosing a small square box cunningly made from birchbark and stained after the Indian fashion in brilliant colours. A tiny lid was fastened with a thong of braided grass.
Wonderingly she slipped the little catch and lifted the cover.
Inside upon a bed of dampened moss there lay a wee red flower, the exact counterpart of that one which Alfred de Courtenay had fastened in her hair that morning by the well.
McElroy, at her shoulder, looked down upon it, and instantly the warmth in his heart cooled.
When Maren looked up it was to find his eyes fixed on the messenger whose tall figure swung away up the river's bank toward the north forest, and they were coolly impersonal.
She was unversed in the ways of men where a maid is concerned, this woman of the trail and portage, and she only knew vaguely that something had gone wrong with sight of the little flower.
She stood, holding the box in her hand, among the women craning their necks for a glimpse of the contents, and looked in open perplexity at McElroy until a light laugh from the fringe behind her broke the silence.
“A gift!” cried the little Francette, her childish voice full of a concealed delight; “a gift from the forest; and where do such trinkets come from save the lower branch of the Saskatchewan! It savours of our pretty man of the long gold curls! Mon Dieu! The cavalier has made good time!”
Whereat there was a stirring at the gate, and the peeping fringe drew back while the factor turned on his heel and strode away toward the factory, leaving the tall girl alone at the portal, holding her gift.
There was a devilish light in the dancing eyes of Francette as she flirted away.
But Maren Le Moyne walked slowly back to the cabin, wondering.