eir way like
automatons from bush to tree. The chaos of their minds had numbed
their muscles, and they stripped the young boughs clumsily like a herd
of browsing moose. I did not look at the woman. I knew that she
needed all my courtesy, but it was hard to speak to her just then.

The men wandered for perhaps five minutes, then ranged themselves
before me. They bore a curious collection of grasses, mutilated
tamarack boughs, and crushed brakes. They eyed my sword hilt, and
looked ready for flight. Yet I was master, and they remembered it.
Had I ordered them to eat the fodder that they bore, they would not
have spoken, and I think that they would have endeavored to obey.

I pointed to the canoe where the woman was accustomed to sit. "Place
the greens there," I said. "Make a carpet of them where the red
blanket is lying. Work quickly,--then come here. No talking."

They obeyed. They dressed the canoe like a river barge on a fete day,
and again they lined themselves before me. I took the woman by the
hand.

"You have decked the canoe for my wedding journey," I said, and all my
perverse inner merriment suddenly died. "This traveler, whom you have
known as a man, is Mademoiselle Marie Starling and my promised wife.
We are to be married when we reach the Pottawatamie Islands. She is
your future mistress, and you may come and touch her hand and swear to
serve her as faithfully as you have served me. Pierre, you may come
first."

A man who has seen battle knows that the pang of a bullet can clear
even a peasant's clogged brain. The churls took this blow in silence
and tried to make something out of it. What they made I could not
fathom, but it lifted them out of themselves, for after a moment they
raised their eyes and came forward like men. I had never seen them in
an equal guise; I could have grasped them by the hand had it been wise.

The woman extended her palm to them, and gave them each a word as they
passed in review. She was gracious, she was smiling, yet somehow she
was negligent. I was not prepared that she should be used to homage.
Perhaps I had thought that this bit of vassalage would give her
pleasure. She treated it like an old tale.

"Enough," I ordered. "Pierre, you may draw a portion of brandy all
around and drink to the health of your mistress. Then we shall get
under way."

Pierre's portions were always ample, and the western red was dulling by
the time we were again afloat.