“'Twas yer leader I meant, lassie, should rayport to me. Is it he I saw yez rollin' out like a bag o' beans?”
“Nay, M'sieu,” said Maren Le Moyne, standing before the tall man in the flush of dawn at the morning camp, her eyes red-rimmed and the curling corners of her mouth drooped and sad; “what poor leader there is among us has been myself.”
“Eh?”
All along the river bank were little fires, their blue smoke curling up to the blue sky above, the bustle and fuss of preparation for the morning meal. At one place in the centre of camp two women, their appearance that of great fatigue, were languidly directing the work of a couple of Indians. An abundance of truck was everywhere—utensils for cooking, clothing, and blankets out of all reason to one used to the trail.
These things had not escaped Maren as she came through them in search of the leader. They all set his status in her mind, told her much of the history of her rescuers.
“Eh?” he said in surprise again; “you the leader? An' whatlike was the evil hap that placed ye in among that rabble o' painted beauties, may I ask? An' how comes a slip of a lass”—he looked her over from head to heel with his sharp grey eyes; “—well, not so much a slip, still a colleen—like you wid th' command o' men in this part o' th' world?”
“Of a surety you may ask, M'sieu, and it will be my happiness to tell you, since but for you and your quick help, given without knowledge, we should be now in sorry plight.
“The man you saw taken from the canoe is Monsieur Anders McElroy, Factor of Fort de Seviere on the Assiniboine, and of the Hudson's Bay Company.”
“Faith of me fathers! Say ye so! A man of our own men!”
“Aye. Then you are also of the Company? Good! Surely have we fallen on the lap of fortune.... Those Indians, Nakonkirhirinons from the far north and strangers in this country, came to De Seviere to trade. For two—three dais, maybe more,—I have lost track of time, M'sieu,—they passed up and down at the trading,—camped on the shore, and all seemed well, though they were wild and shy as partridges. One man among them seemed to wear the cloak of civilisation,—Negansahima the chief.
“Then one day at dusk,—it was a soft day, gold and sweet, M'sieu, and soft, with all the post at the great gate watching the Indians,—there were many,—four or five hundred warriors and as many women and children,—this day there was,—a tragedy. Something happened,—a trifle.”
The girl stopped a moment and a sigh caught her breath.
“Just a trifle—but two men fought at the gate, the factor and another—a Nor'wester from the Saskatchewan,—a long-haired venturer,—a man from Montreal, but a brave man, M'sieu, oh, a very brave man! They fought and there was the discharge of a pistol,—and—the shot went wild. It slew the good chief, M'sieu. There was uproar,—they swarmed upon the two and bound them.”
Maren's eyes were growing large with the remembered excitement of that moment.
The tall Irishman was watching her keenly.
“They bound them and struck away to the north, taking them along, and the burden of their cry was, 'A skin for a skin!'
“They brought them so far,—they would have reached their own country but for a band of Bois-Brules, who joined them some suns back with that red liquor whose touch is hell to an Indian. They had gone wild, M'sieu; wild!”
She was very weary and she shuddered a bit at the word.
“And,—so,—that is all,—save that we had done that much toward escaping when you found us.”
She ceased and looked gravely into his face.
“Howly Moses! I see,—I see! But ye have left a wide rent in th' tale. Wherefore are yez here yerself, lassie?”
“I?” said Maren, swaying where she stood. “I followed, M'sieu.”
“Followed? From the Assiniboine? Alone?”
“Nay. There was one came with me,—a youth,—a trapper,—my comrade, my friend. He died yonder in that surging purgatory—”
The tears were welling to her weary eyes.
“The Nor'wester, Alfred de Courtenay, also—We only of that venture are escaped alive,—a sorry showing. The five men who man my boat belong to the brigade under Mr. Mowbray, which we met on Winnipeg. Such is our small history, M'sieu, and all we ask is your protection out of the reach of the Nakonkirhirinons. I take him back to De Seviere,—God knows if he will live to reach it. He lies so still. But I must get him back—”
She ceased and passed her hand across her eyes.
“I must get him back,—I must get him back.”
“Aye, aye. Ye come with me. Ye need a woman's hand, girl. Ye're well in yerself.”
There was a huskiness to the sharp voice and the man took her by the arm, turning her toward the fire and the two women. She stumbled a step or two in the short stretch.
“I must go back to him, M'sieu!” she protested. “He will need—will need—broth—and a wet cloth to his bruised head—”
“We'll see to him, don't ye fret. It's shlape ye need yerself. Sheila, whativer do ye think o' this! Here's a colleen shlipped through the fingers of those bow-legged signboards and fair done wid heroism an' strategy, an' Lord knows what all, an' off her feet wid tire! Do ye take her an' feed her. Put her to bed on th' blankets an' do for her like yerself knows how, darlint! 'Tis an angel unaware, I'm thinkin'—an' her on Deer River!”
One of the women, a little creature with dark hair and blue eyes, Irish eyes “rubbed in with a smutty finger,” came forward and looked up into Maren's stained face, streaked with her tears, her eyes dazed and all but closing with the weariness that had only laid its hand upon her in the last few moments, but whose sudden touch was heavy as lead.
“Say ye so!” she said wonderingly; “a girl! So this was what caused the rumpus in the night! But come, dearie, 'tis rest ye want, sure!”
She laid her and on Maren's arm and there was in its gentle touch something which broke down the last quivering strand of strength within the girl, striving to stand upright.
“Yes, Madame,” she said dreamily. “Yes, but he must have—he must have—broth—and a bandage,—wet”
“Sure, sure,—he shall,—but come to the blankets!”
As Maren went down with a long sigh, her limbs shirking the last task of straightening themselves upon the softness of the unwonted couch, the little woman looked up across her at the man with a world of questions in her face.
“Poor darlin'!” she said softly. “Whativer is it, Terence?”
“A heroine, if all she says be thrue, an' as unconscious of it as a new-born babe!”
When Maren awoke the sun was straight overhead and some one had been calling from a distance for a very long time.
“Come, come, asthore! Opin yer eyes! That's it! A little more, now. Wake up, for love av Heaven, or we'll all be overtaken be th' Injuns!”
Ah! Indians! At that she opened her eyes and looked into the pretty blue ones she remembered last.
The little woman was kneeling beside her with an arm about her shoulder, trying to lift her heavy head and falling short in the endeavour.
Maren was too much in her muscled height for the bird-like creature. She sat up at once and looked around. The canoes were in the water, all the miscellaneous luggage had been put aboard, and every one was ready for a new start. Only herself, the blanket bed, and the little woman were unready.
Just below, her own canoe, with Brilliers, Wilson, Frith, McDonald, and Alloybeau in place, waited her presence. She could see, from the elevation of the shore, the stretched form of McElroy in the bottom, a bright blanket beneath him and his fair head pillowed on a roll of leaves. A shelter of boughs hid his face, and for one moment her heart stopped while the river and the woods, the people and the boats whirled together in a senseless blur.
She sprang to her feet.
“Is he—” she faltered thickly, “is he—”
“No, no, dearie! He is like he was, only they have fixed him a bit av a shelther from th' sun. Do ye dhrink this now,” she coaxed in her pretty voice; “dhrink it, asthore,—ye'll nade it f'r th' thrip.”
She held up a bowl of broth, steaming and sweet as the flesh-pots of Egypt, and Maren took it from her.
“But—did M'sieu—Oh, I have slept when I should have tended him!”
“Ye poor girl. Dhrink,—he has been fed like a babe be me own hands. There!”
There were tears in the little woman's eyes, and Maren took the bowl and drained it clear.
“You are good, Madame,” she said, with a long breath. “Merci! How good to those in need! But now am I right as a trivet and shamed that I must fail at the last. Are you ready?”
She picked up the blankets, smiled at the tall man who came for them, and walked with them down to the canoes.
“In th' big boat, lass, wid th' women,” said the leader; “'tis more roomy-like.”
“I thank you, M'sieu, but I have my place. I cannot leave it.” And she stepped in her own canoe.
“Did ye iver behold such a shmile, Terence?” cried the little woman, when the flotilla had strung into shape and the green summer shores were slipping past. “'Tis like the look av th' Virgin in th' little Chapel av St. Joseph beyant Belknap's skirts,—so sad and yet as fair as light!”
And so began with the slipping green shores, the airy summer sky laced with its vanity of fleecy clouds, the backward journey to safety and De Seviere.
The large party travelled at forced time, short camps and long pulls, for, as the little woman told Maren at the next stop, they were hurrying south to Quebec.
“Where th' ships sail out to th' risin' sun, ochone, and Home calls over th' sea,—the little green isle wid its pigs an' its shanties, its fairs an' its frolics, an' the merry face av th' Father to laugh at its weddin's an' cry over its graves. Home that might make a lass forget such a haythen land as this, though God knew if it would ever get out av th' bad dreams at night!
“An' now will ye be afther tellin' us th' sthory av yer adventures, my dear?”
Maren was cooking a broth of wild hen in the little pail of poor Marc Dupre, across the fire, and the little woman was busy watching a bit of bread baking on a smoothed plank. Her companion, a tall, fair-haired woman with pale eyes, light as the grey-green sheen sometimes seen on the waters before a storm, was reclining in tired idleness beside her. This woman had not spoken to Maren, but her cold eyes followed her now with an odd persistence.
“Or is it too wild and sad? If it gives ye pain, don't say a word,—though, wurra! 'tis woild I am to hear!”
Maren looked up, and once more the smile that was stranger to her features played over them in its old-time beauty.
“Nay,—why should I not tell so good a heart as yours?” said the girl simply, and she began at the beginning and told the sorry tale through to its end.
“And so he died, this young trapper with the soul of pearl, and I alone go back to De Seviere with—with M'sieu the factor,” she concluded heavily.
“Mother av Heavin! An' which,—forgive me lass,—which man av the three did ye love? For 'tis only love could be behind such deeds as these!”
The ready tears were swimming in the Irishwoman's blue eyes, straight from her warm heart, and she was leaning forward in the intensity of her sympathy and excitement.
“Which, Madame? Why, M'sieu the factor, surely.”
And Maren looked into the red heart of the fire.
With a sudden impulse this daughter of Erin dropped her plank in the ashes, and coming swiftly forward, fell on her knees with her arms around the girl's neck.
“Saints be praised!” she cried, weeping openly. “Saints be praised, ye have him safe! An' there can nothin' ha'arm ye now, with us goin' yer ways so close! An' there'll be a weddin' av coorse whin th' poor lad comes round! F'r a flip av ale I'd command Terence to turn aside an' go triumphant entry-in' to this blessid fort av yours and witness th' ceremonies!”
Maren smiled sadly and laid her hand on the black head tucked into her neck. It was a caress, that touch, tender and infinitely sweet, for with the quick heart of her she knew the little woman to be of the gold of earth, and she was conscious of a longing to keep her near, who was so soon to sail “into the risin' sun” and who had been so short a time her friend.
Friend, assuredly, for friendship was not a thing of time, but hearts alike, and they had turned together with the first look.
So they sat a while, these two from the ends of the earth, and the warm Irish heart cleared itself of tears, like April weather, to come up laughing in another moment.
“An' to think ye niver told us your name, asthore!” she said, wiping her eyes; “nor yer home place! Were ye raised in this post av haythins?”
“Maren Le Moyne of Grand Portage. My father—was a smith.”
“Of Grand Portage! An' ye are so far inland! I am Sheila O'Halloran, av all Oirland, an' wife to Terence th' same,—yer fri'nd for always, asthore, f'r niver will I be forgettin' this time!”
She turned to the fair woman, smiling and alight.
“Did ye iver dhrame av such romance, my dear?” she asked. “An' isn't it just wonderful to find a real live heroine in th' wilderness?”
The woman was toying with a bunch of grass, winding the slim green blades around her pale fingers, and she looked back with peculiar straightness.
“It is all very wonderful, Sheila, and commands admiration, of course; but, for my part, a strange woman alone on the rivers with a party of men must have something beside her own word to vouch for her before I should take her in with open arms. You are too ready to believe anything. How do you know this venturess is not a—Jezebel?”
For a moment an awful silence fell upon the three, and they could hear the myriad sounds of the evening camp round about.
Then Maren, her eyes wide in amaze, said stupidly:
“Eh,—Madame?”
And the Irishwoman cried: “Frances! For shame!”
But the other was very much composed.
“I am right, all the same,—what woman of modesty would follow a man to the wilderness, confessing brazenly her love? You haven't noticed any hysterics on my part over it,—nor will you. I think it all a very open scandal.”
The little woman was flying into a rage of tumbled words and hopeless brogue, but Maren Le Moyne, the blood red to her temples, rose silently, took the pot of broth, and walked away, and never in her life did she hold herself so tall and straight.
As she knelt beside the blanket bed of McElroy, and lifted his helpless head, her eyes were burning sombrely.
“This, too?” she was saying dumbly, within herself. “Is this, too, part of the lesson of life?”
And all through the days that followed, long warm days, with the songs of birds from the gliding shores, the ripple of waters beneath the prow of a canoe, she sat beside the unconscious man and looked at him with dumb yearning.
For love of him,—what would she not have done, what would she not do still for love of him,—he who had sold her for a kiss; and for it there came something,—she could not define it,—something that seemed to live in the atmosphere, to taint the glory of the sunshine, to speak under every word and whisper.
Never again did she cook at the fire with the others, but had her own on the outskirts, and Sheila O'Halloran came and cooked with her, talked and comforted and hovered about Anders McElroy where he lay in a silence like death, his fair face flushed with fever and his strong hands plucking at everything within their reach.
“Don't ye worry, dear, he'll not die. 'Twouldn't be accordin' to th' rights av life,—not afther all ye've done f'r him. He'll opin his blessid eyes some day an' know ye, an' Heaven itself will not be like thim f'r glory.”
But Maren only looked tragically down upon him.
What would they say, those eyes that she had thought so earnest, so all-deserving in their eager honesty, if they should open to her alone?
Would they lie as they had done before, with the thought of Francette behind their blue clearness?
Ah, well,—it was all in the day's march.
This day at noon camp she came upon, close to a fallen tree, a wee red flower nodding on its slender stalk. She sighed and broke it.
“In memory of a brave man,” she said sadly. “Oh, a very brave man!”
Eastward through the little lakes, across the portages where McElroy was carried by means of pole and blanket swung from sturdy shoulders, they went at hurried pace, and never a man of Maren's small command but watched the sadness of her face, that seemed to grow with the days and to feel an aching counterpart of it within his own heart.
“Take my coat for your head, Ma'amselle,” when she rested among the thwarts,—“Let me, Ma'amselle,” when she would do some little task. Thus they served her from the old desire that sight of her face had ever stirred in the breasts of men, she who had never played at the game of love, nor knew its simplest trick.
Southward, presently, up the rivers hurrying to the great bay at the north, and at last out upon the broad waters of Winnipeg, and never for an hour had McElroy's wandering soul come back to his suffering body. Day by day Maren tended him, feeding him as one feeds a helpless babe, shielding him from the sun by her own shadow when the branches gathered at morn withered ere noon, wetting the fair head with its waving sunburnt hair with water dipped from overside, and praying constantly for his life.
As they neared the southern end, where Winnipeg narrows like the neck of a bottle, his tongue loosened from its silence and he began to babble and talk in broken sentences, and it was all about De Courtenay and a remorse that ate the troubled soul.
“I owe you apologies, M'sieu,—'tis a sorry plight and I alone am to blame. And yet I have a score,—gladly would I take my will of you for that one fault,—another time,—another place. Still have I no right, save as one man who,—But I have a plan,—one may escape,—listen—when I grapple with this guard, do you make for the river—with all speed—My God! My God! M'sieu! Why did you not run?” And so he muttered and sighed, and Maren bent above with wide eyes.
Something there was between these two, some enmity that followed even into the land of shadows and yet held them gentlemen through it all, offering and rejecting some chance of escape. A weary, weary tangle.
Again he would fancy himself back in De Seviere and always there was De Courtenay with his smiling face and tantalizing beauty.
“Welcome, M'sieu, to our post! Seldom do we meet so gay a guest!”
Often the wandering words would stumble among his accounts at the factory and he would give directions to the clerks, and then Ridgar's name would come, only to carry him instantly to the camp of the savages on Deer River.
“Edmonton,—friend of my heart,—alone! and you pass me without speech! Ah,—that look! That look! I'd stake my soul—”
And once in the cool twilight of an ended day, with the tall trees above and the river lapping below, he cried out her name,
“Maren!” and once again, “Maren!” with a world of change between the two words.
The first plunged the girl's heart to her throat with its passion, the second chilled her like a cool wind.
And all at once he said, after a pause, “What is it, little one?”
So passed the days of the return.
Hour by hour the bright waters of the lake spoke to the girl with voices of regret and sadness. The blue sky above seemed to mirror the dark face of Marc Dupre, the wind from the shores to be his low voice, each passing shadow among the trees his slender figure returning from the hunt for her.
Her heart was sore that Fate had willed it so, and yet, looking down at the face of this man at her feet, she knew it had to be and that she would do again all that she had done.
And ever before her passed the scornful face of the fair woman who had set the little undertone to all the world.
It troubled her, and for hours together she sat in silence reasoning it all out, while Mowbray's men dipped the shining blades and here and there the voyageurs and Indians who wore no feathers sang snatches of song, now a chanson of the trail and rapid, again a wordless monotony of savage notes.
The evening camps were short spaces of blessed quietude and converse when Sheila O'Halloran sat beside her and they talked of many things,—chiefly the dear little Island whose green sod would soon again receive the feet of “herself an' Terence.”
“'Tis thankful I am, me dear, to be out av this forsaken land alive wid me hair on me head instid av on a hoop painted green wid little red arrows on th' stretched shkin inside! 'Tis a sorry counthry an' fit f'r no woman, but whin Terence must come on some mysterious business av th' government,—an' niver, till this minute, accushla, do I know whut it is,—a cryin' shame 'tis, too, wid me, his devoted wife!—I must come along or die. Wurra! Many's th' time I thought I'd do th' thrick here! But now are th' dangers passin' wid ivery mile,—hark to th' men singin'! 'Tis bad business whin men do not sing at th' day's work. 'Tis glad I am f'r safe deliverance from that counthry av nightmares wid its outlandish name,—Athabasca,—where Terence must moon from post to post av th' Hudson's Bay—”
“Athabasca!”
Maren's head was up and she was looking at the little woman with an eager wistfulness.
“The Land of the Whispering Hills!”
“Thrue,—'tis th' Injun word,—but a woild, woild land f'r all that.”
“But beautiful, Madame,—oh! it is beautiful, is it not?”
“Fair,—wid high hills an' a great blue lake an' woildness!—Ah!”
But the tall leader was calling and camp was breaking for another stretch.
And under the travelling stars of that night there awoke in the heart of the maid of the trail something of the old love, the old longing for that goal of her life's ambition.
She had turned aside from it, only to be taught a lesson whose scars would stay deep in her soul so long as life lasted.
At last came an hour when the party under O'Halloran must turn to the east, where the bottle-neck of Winnipeg split in two, going down that well-worn way which led to Lake of the Woods, Rainy River, and at last to the wide lakes, whose sparkling waves would waft them on to the great outside world.
There was a scene at parting, when the warmhearted Irishwoman clung to Maren and wept against her bosom, calling her all the hundred words for “darling” in the Celtic and vowing to remember her always.
The fair woman, wife of a Scotchman who acted as some sort of secretary to O'Halloran, sat apart in cold silence.
“M'sieu,” said Maren, at the last, “I have no words to thank you for this that you have done. I but cast it into the balance of God, which must hang heavy with your goodness.”
She had given her hand to the leader, and that impulsive son of the ould sod kissed it gallantly.
“'Tis little we did, lass, for you and your poor lad yonder, and 'twas in our hearts to do more. But here's luck to you both,—an early weddin' an' sturdy sons!”
And, as the morning sun glittered on the ripples of the departing boats, Maren stood long looking after them, a mist in her eyes and her full lips quivering.
She looked until the gathering dimness hid the waving kerchief of the only woman friend who had ever truly reached her heart.
Then she sat down and took up a paddle.
“Last lap, Messieurs,” she said, above the mutter of McElroy at her feet, and they turned toward where the familiar river came rushing to the lake.
The summer lay heavy on the land when they reached the Assiniboine.
Deep green of the forests, deep green of fern and bush and understuff, told of the full tide of the year. Here and there a leaf trailed in the shallows, yellow as gold in an early death.
She thought of the spring, so long past, when she had first come into this sweet land, and it seemed like another time, another life, another person.
This day at dusk they passed the hidden cove where she had found Marc Dupre waiting to build her fire. The abandoned canoe still lay hidden where he left it.
Cool blue dawn, hushed and wide-reaching, still with that stillness which precedes the sunrise, lay over the river, when the lone canoe rounded the lower bend and Anders McElroy, factor of Fort de Seviere, came back to his own again.
In the prow there knelt a weary figure in a soiled and sun-bleached garment of doeskin, its glittering plastron of bright beads broken here and there, the ragged ends of sinews hanging as they were left by briar and branch, and the haggard eyes went with eager swiftness to the stockade standing in its grim invincibility facing the east.
The row of wonted canoes lay upturned upon the shelving shore at the landing, the half-moon at the right still glowered with its puny cannon which had spoken no word to save their master on that fateful day, and all things looked as if but a day had passed between.
The great gate with its studded breast was closed, the bastions at the corners were empty of watchers, for peace folded its wings above the past.
Without sound the boat cut up to the landing, Brilliers leaped out and steadied it to place, and Maren stepped once more upon the familiar slope.
They lifted McElroy, swinging in his blanket, and the tread of the moccasined feet was hollow on the planks.
Thus there passed up to the gate of De Seviere a triumphal procession of victory, whose heart was heavy within it, and whose leader in her tattered dress was the saddest sight of all.
She raised her hand and beat upon the gate, and a voice cried, “Who comes?”
“Open, my brother,” she called, for the voice was that of Henri Baptiste, whose turn at the gate it was.
There was an ejaculation, a swift rattle of chains, and the heavy portal swung back, while the blanched face of young Henri stared into the dawn. Maren motioned to the men and they stepped in with their burden.
“Holy Mary! Maren! Maren! Maren!” cried Henri Baptiste, and took both her arms in a gripping clasp. He looked into her face with fear and wonder, as if the girl had returned from the dead, while joy unspeakable began to lighten his features.
“Sister! Holy Mary!”
And then, when the touch of her in the flesh had dispelled his first horror, when the sight of the factor swinging grotesquely in the blanket had taken on the sense of reality, he raised his voice in a stentorian call.
From every door it brought the populace running, half-dressed and startled, and in scant space a ring of faces stared upon the strangers in stupid awe.
“Ma'amselle Le Moyne!” they whispered, fearfully.
“Mother of Heaven! The factor!”
“Our factor! Out of the hands of Death!”
“Mon Dieu! One of them! And the maid!”
And in the midst of the awed and hushed excitement that was growing with each passing moment, there cut the voice of McElroy, babbling from the blanket.
“Throw! Throw, Ma'amselle,—for M'sieu!”
“Hush!” said Maren; “where is Prix Laroux?”
“Here!”
The big fellow was pushing through the gathering crowd, to stand before the weary girl with burning eyes.
“Maren!” he said simply, and could say no more.
“Take him, Prix,” she said quietly; “take him to the factory. Get Rette de Lancy's hand above him for care, and Jack for all things else. Take these my men, and give them all the post affords, but chiefly rest at present. They have—”
Here there came a tumult among the listening populace, and Marie rushed through and flung herself upon Maren and there was time for nothing else, save that, as Maren turned with her hanging like a vice about her throat and Henri's arm across her shoulders, there was a streak of crimson, a flash of ornaments in the sun, but now risen above the forest's rim, and some one threw herself upon the unconscious form of McElroy, kissing his face and his helpless hands and weeping terribly.
It was the little Francette. At her heels the great dog, Loup, halted and glowered at the strangers.
They led her through the new day, between the staring, whispering people, this comer from beyond the grave, to the little new cabin beside the northern wall, across its step and into its sweet, fresh cleanliness of home; and when Henri had shut the door they stood together in a group, their arms inwound, and Marie wept helplessly while Maren looked down with moist and weary eyes.
“There! There! Hush, ma cherie! Hush!” she was saying, but Henri was reading with amaze the change in her glorious face.
“It has been a long trail, Prix, but a longer one beckons with ceaseless insistence. No longer can I sit in idleness. Can we, think you, raise the debt to carry us on at once? My heart is sick for the Athabasca.”
Maren stood by the factory door conversing earnestly with Laroux.
From every point of the post curious eyes looked upon her. Here and there groups of women whispered in the doorways, and once and again a laugh, quick hushed, broke on the evening air.
Somehow they struck upon the girl's ears with an ugly sound, reminding her vaguely of the fair woman who travelled eastward with Sheila O'Halloran, and her voice grew more earnest.
Laroux, who had not spoken with her since that one word of the morning at the gate, was dumb of tongue, aching with the old feeling in his heart which had told him faithfully so long ago that all was not well with her.
“At once, Maren,” he said huskily, “I will raise the debt. When would you be gone?”
“Soon, my friend,—soon, soon.”
“The word shall go round to-night. All shall be ready in forty-eight hours.”
He paused a moment and presently, “Maren, maid,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Hold you aught against me for the stand I took that day—the duty I saw first?”
“Against you, Prix?—the truest, bravest friend I own? Nay, man,—you are my staff, my hope, my courage. Would I had had your strength these heavy days.”
“Would to the good God you had! It shall not fail you again.”
Maren held out her hand and Laroux grasped it in a clasp of faith.
“See!” cried Tessa Bibye, peeping eagerly from among the women, “she holds hands with that blackhaired man of her people who spurs the rest. One man or another,—as Francette says,—little cat!—all are fish who come to Ma'amselle's net! The factor, or the cavalier, or a common voyageur.
“Can they not see, these fool men, that the woman is a venturess, playing with all?”
“You lie, Tessa Bibye!”
Micene Bordoux had passed unnoticed. Now she turned her accusing glance on the loose-tongued girl.
“Because you are so small of soul yourself, are your eyes blinded to the greater heights? Ma'amselle is lost in the clouds above you.”
She went on, and Maren at the factory door turned to enter.
“Give the word,—and make all haste. Fix all things as you think best.”
The great trading-room, lined with its shelves and circled with counters, was empty, save for a clerk, Gifford, who cast accounts in the big book on the factor's desk, and Maren's footsteps rang heavy to her ears as she passed through it to the little room behind, where she could see Rette passing back and forth at her tasks of mercy.
She stopped at the open door and looked within that little room. Here were the things of McElroy's life,—the plain chairs, the table, the shelf with its books, the chest against the western wall, and on the bed, pulled out to get the breeze, lay the man himself prone in his splendid strength.
The light from the setting sun was on his head with its fair hair and flushed face, rolling restlessly from side to side. There was no reason in the earnest blue eyes, and Maren felt a mighty anguish swell and grip her throat as she stood looking on the pathetic scene.
“Come in, Ma'amselle,” whispered Rette from her motherly heart, drawn by sight of her haggard face, but Maren's eyes had fallen on a little figure huddled on the far side of the bed with its face buried against McElroy's left hand.
She knew the small head running over with black curls.
“Nay, Rette,” she said quietly, “I would speak a moment with you.”
The woman came out and closed the door.
“Poor little fool!” she whispered, “she is worn to a shadow with these weeks of weeping, and, now that he is back, will not give over hanging to his hand like one drowning.”
“Heed not. Is it in your heart, Rette, to do a deed of kindness for me, to keep a word of faith?”
“With all my heart, Ma'amselle!”
“Then,” whispered Maren, apart from the clerk's listening ears, “take you this letter. Keep it until M'sieu the factor is in his right mind, then give it him with your own hands. If he—if he should—burn it, Rette, unopened.”
And she gave into the woman's keeping the only letter she had ever written to a man.
It was in French, and the script was fine and finished.
This was what she had said, alone in the little room with its eastern window at the end of the Baptiste cabin:
“MONSIEUR MCELROY, Factor of Fort de Seviere, ave atque vale.” (The tender word of Father Tenau when he blessed her that last time in Grand Portage)
“The time has come when I must take my people out of your post, must break their contract and their word. Forgive them, M'sieu, and lay not the fault to them, for I, and I only, am to blame. But the time I promised is too long.... I can no longer hold back the tide of longing which drives me to that land of which we spoke once....” (Here there was a break in the letter, a smudge on the page, as if the quill had caught the paper or a drop of moisture run into the ink.)
“I must go forward, and at once, to the Athabasca. The great quest is strong at my heartstrings again. I thank you, M'sieu, for all kindness done my people, and I promise that, should fortune favour them and me in that far land to which we journey, they shall send what trade lies with them to De Seviere. For one thing I ask,—if it be possible, M'sieu, give to certain men who will be found by word to Mr. Mowbray of York, such stipend as you can, for they were good and faithful,—namely, Frith and Wilson and McDonald, Brilliers and Alloybeau.... Adieu, M'sieu. God send you health. (Signed)
“MAREN LE MOYNE, of Grand Portage.”
Laroux was worth his word.
Forty-eight hours later there stood at the portal of Fort de Seviere, ready for the trail, that small band of wanderers who had come into it in the early spring.
They were fuller of hope, more eager to face the wilderness than on that day, for joy after sorrow sat blithely on their faces, turned to the tall young woman at their head. And they were fully equipped for travel. Three canoes held wealth of supplies, while six huskies whined in leash, nervous under new masters, touched with the knowledge of coming change.
Not a man in De Seviere who had not given gladly, nay, vied with his neighbour to give, to the helping of this woman.
Had they not their factor back from death and its torments?
There was God-speed and hearty handclasp from the men, and Maren smiled into their faces, reading their simple hearts.
With the women it was different. They hung, gazing, on the outskirts, calling farewell to Marie, who wept a little at sight of her deserted cabin, to Anon and Mora and Ninette, but there was no reflection of the feeling of their masters for this girl with her weary beauty, her steady, half-tragic eyes. Nor was there great regret over Micene. Too sharp had been her tongue, too keen her perception of their faults.
True, the autumn was near at hand. Winter would come with its myriad foes before they could hope to be ready for it, and Maren, looking far ahead, saw it and its dangers, and her heart sickened a bit with the thought of her people; but the thing within was stronger than all else.
She must leave De Seviere at once. Therefore, she raised her head with her face to the west.
It was early dawn again. It seemed that it had ever been dawn when fateful things had happened in this post, every log and stone of which was suddenly dear to her.
She stood in the opened gate and looked back upon it, on the cabins, the well where De Courtenay had placed his first red flower in her hair, the storehouses, and the factory.
The factory!
With sight of it once more the wave of anguish swept over her. She saw the small plain room at the back, the figure of a man prone in his helplessness, a fair head with blue eyes, pleading in their honest clearness, and her lips trembled.
“Ready?” she said, and the deep voice slipped unsteadily.
“Aye,” answered Prix Laroux, and picked up the last pack of chattels.
At that moment there was a flurry among the pressing men around, a sound above the many voices wishing them luck, and little Francette broke through.
“Ma'amselle!” she cried, looking up into Maren's eyes with conflicting expressions on her small face, misery and solemn joy and hatred that strove to soften itself beneath a better emotion; “Ma'amselle,—I would thank you! Oh, bon Dieu! I am not all bad! Here!”
She seized Loup by the ears and dragged him forward, snarling. “Take him, Ma'amselle! I love him! Do you take him,—and—and-understand!”
All her red-rose beauty had gone from the little maid along with her dancing lightness.
These long weeks had turned her into a woman with a woman's heart.
They drew back and looked on with wonder, and then smiles of amusement, but Maren, gazing into the tragic little face, saw deeper.
“Why,—little one,” she said gently, unconsciously falling into McElroy's words after a trick she had, “I—I understand. You need not give up the dog,—I know what you would say.”
“No!” cried Francette fiercely. “No! Take him! Take him! I will make you take him! I will!”
She was whimpering, and Maren, stooping, laid a hand on the husky's collar.
Without more words she turned and followed her people down to the landing, half-dragging the brute, who hung back and turned his giant head to the little maid, standing with her hands over her face.
He snarled and bit at Maren's wrist, but she picked him up and flung him, half-dragging on the ground, for he was a mighty beast, into the first canoe.
“Push off,” she said; and, taking her place in the prow, she raised her face to the cool blue sky, and turned once more to that West whose voice had called from her cradle, but, with some strange perversity of fate, her heart drew back to the squat stockade slowly fading into the distance.
The sweet wind of the Whispering Hills was very faint on her soul.