e fresh from Canada and
pork eating. "Mange'-du-lard," his companions called him, especially
Charle' Charette, who was the giant and the wearer of the black feather
in his brigade of a dozen boats. Huge and innocent primitive man was
Charle' Charette. He could sleep under snow-drifts like a baby, carry
double packs of furs, pull oars all day without tiring, and dance all
night after hardships which caused some men to desire to lie down and
die. The summer before, at nineteen years of age, this light-haired,
light-hearted voyageur had been married to 'Tite Laboise. Their wedding
festivities lasted the whole month of the Mackinac season. His was the
Wabash and Illinois River outfit, almost the last to leave the island;
for the Lake Superior, Upper and Lower Mississippi, Lake of the Woods,
and other outfits were obliged to seek Indian hunting-grounds at the
earliest breath of autumn.

When the Illinois brigade returned, his wife, who had stood weeping
in the cheering crowd while his companions made islands ring with the
boat-song at departure, refused to see him. He went to the house of
her aunt Laboise, where she lived. Mademoiselle Laboise, her half-breed
cousin, met him. This educated young lady, daughter of a French father
and Chippewa mother, was dignified as a nun in her dress of blue
broadcloth embroidered with porcupine quills. She was always called
Mademoiselle Laboise, while the French girl was called merely 'Tite.
Because 'Tite was married, no one considered her name changed to
Madame Charette. To her husband himself she was 'Tite Laboise, the most
aggravating, delicious, unaccountable creature in the Northwest.

"She says she will not see you, Charle'," said Mademoiselle Laboise,
color like sunset vermilion showing in the delicate aboriginal face.

"What have I done?" gasped the voyageur.

Mademoiselle lifted French shoulders with her father's gesture. She did
not know.

"Did I expect to be treated this way?" shouted the injured husband.

"Who can ever tell what 'Tite will do next?"

That was the truth. No one could tell. Yet her flightiest moods were
her most alluring moods. If she had not been so pretty and so adroit
at dodging whippings when a child, 'Tite Laboise might not have set
Mackinac by the ears as often as she did. But her husband could not
comfort himself with this thought as he turned to the shop of madame her
aunt, who was also a trader.

It had surprised the Indian widow, who betrothed