an carried water in his cap with which they washed the wound
and the stolid savage face. Then Alice tore up her cotton apron, in
which she had hoped to bear home a load of lilies, and with the strips
bound the wound very neatly. It took a long time, during which the
Indian remained silent and apparently quite indifferent.

Long-Hair was a man of superior physique, tall, straight, with the
muscles of a Vulcan; and while he lay stretched on the ground half clad
and motionless, he would have been a grand model for an heroic figure
in bronze. Yet from every lineament there came a strange repelling
influence, like that from a snake. Alice felt almost unbearable disgust
while doing her merciful task; but she bravely persevered until it was
finished.

It was now late in the afternoon, and the sun would be setting before
they could reach home.

"We must hurry back, Jean," Alice said, turning to depart. "It will be
all we can do to reach the other side in daylight. I'm thinking that
they'll be out hunting for us too, if we don't move right lively. Come."

She gave the Indian another glance when she had taken but a step. He
grunted and held up something in his hand--something that shone with a
dull yellow light. It was a small, oval, gold locket which she had
always worn in her bosom. She sprang and snatched it from his palm.

"Thank you," she exclaimed, smiling gratefully. "I am so glad you found
it."

The chain by which the locket had hung was broken, doubtless by some
movement while dragging Long-Hair out of the mud, and the lid had
sprung open, exposing a miniature portrait of Alice, painted when she
was a little child, probably not two years old. It was a sweet baby
face, archly bright, almost surrounded with a fluff of golden hair. The
neck and the upper line of the plump shoulders, with a trace of richly
delicate lace and a string of pearls, gave somehow a suggestion of
patrician daintiness.

Long-Hair looked keenly into Alice's eyes, when she stooped to take the
locket from his hand, but said nothing.

She and Jean now hurried away, and, so vigorously did they paddle the
pirogue, that the sky was yet red in the west when they reached home
and duly received their expected scolding from Madame Roussillon.

Alice sealed Jean's lips as to their adventure; for she had made up her
mind to save Long-Hair if possible, and she felt sure that the only way
to do it would be to trust no one but Father Beret.

It turned ou