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if we can hold them against D'Aulnay de Charnisay." The lady of the fort shook out Father Jogues' cassock and rose from the mending. Antonia picked up their tools and flicked bits of thread from her skirt. "I am glad it is done, madame, for you look heavy-eyed, as any one ought, after tossing two nights on Fundy Bay and sewing on a black gown until midnight cock-crow of the third." "I am not now fit to face a siege," owned Marie. "We must get to bed. Though first I crave one more look at the dead baby Zelie hath in charge. There is a soft weakness in me which mothers even the outcast young of my enemy." VII. A FRONTIER GRAVEYARD. The next morning was gray and transparent: a hemisphere of mist filled with light; a world of vapor palpitating with some indwelling spirit. That lonesome lap of country opposite Fort St. John could scarcely be defined. Scraps of its dawning spring color showed through the mobile winding and ascending veil. Trees rose out of the lowlands between the fort and the falls. Van Corlaer was in the gorge, watching that miracle worked every day in St. John River. The tide was racing inland. The steep rapids within their throat of rock were clear of fog. Foam is the flower of water; and white petal after white petal was swept under by the driving waves. As the tide rose the tumult of falls ceased. The channel filled. All rocks were drowned. For a brief time another ship could have passed up that natural lock, as La Tour's ship had passed on the cream-smooth current at flood tide the day before. Van Corlaer could not see its ragged sails around the breast of rock, but the hammering of its repairers had been in his ears since dawn; and through the subsiding wash of water he now heard men's voices. The Indians whose village he had joined were that morning breaking up camp to begin their spring pilgrimage down the coast along various fishing haunts; for agriculture was a thing unknown to these savages. They were a seafaring people in canoes. At that time even invading Europeans had gained little mastery of the soil. Camp and fortress were on the same side of the river. Lounging braves watched indifferently some figures wading fog from the fort, perhaps bringing them a farewell word, perhaps forbidding their departure. The Indian often humored his invader's feudal airs, but he never owned the mastery of any white man. Squaws took down cone-shaped tents, while their half-naked bab
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