Their soldier signaled for the gates to be opened, and they entered the
fort. Marie was on her morning round of inspection. She had just given
back to a guard the key of the powder magazine. Well, storehouse,
fuel-house, barracks, were in military readiness. But refuse stuff had
been thrown in spots which her people were now severely cleaning. She
greeted her returning guests, and heard the report of Zelie's husband. A
lace mantle was drawn over her head and fastened under the chin,
throwing out from its blackness the warm brown beauty of her face.

"So our Indians are leaving the falls already?" she repeated, fixing
Zelie's husband with a serious eye.

"Yes, madame," witnessed Zelie. "I myself saw women packing tents."

"Have they heard any rumor which scared them off early,--our good lazy
Etchemins, who hate fighting?"

"No, madame," Van Corlaer answered, being the only person who came
directly from the camp, "I think not, though their language is not clear
to me like our western tongues. It is simply an early spring, calling
them out."

"They have always waited until Paques week heretofore," she remembered.
But the wandering forth of an irresponsible village had little to do
with the state of her fort. She was going upon the walls to look at the
cannon, and asked her guests to go with her.

The priest and his donne and Van Corlaer ascended a ladder, and Madame
La Tour followed.

"I do not often climb like a sailor," she said, when Van Corlaer gave
her his hand at the top. "There is a flight of steps from mine own
chamber to the level of the walls. And here Madame Bronck and I have
taken the air on winter days when we felt sure of its not blowing us
away. But you need not look sad over our pleasures, monsieur. We have
had many a sally out of this fort, and monsieur the priest will tell you
there is great freedom on snowshoes."

"Madame Bronck has allowed herself little freedom since I came to Fort
St. John," observed Van Corlaer.

They all walked the walls from bastion to bastion, and Marie examined
the guns, and spoke with her soldiers. On the way back Father Jogues and
Lalande paused to watch the Etchemins trail away, and to commune on what
their duty directed them to do. Marie walked on with Van Corlaer toward
the towered bastion, talking quickly, and ungloving her right hand to
help his imagination with it. A bar of sunlight rested with a long slant
through vapor on the fortress. Far blue distances were