tity vigilantly. Every one, man or woman, who marries into the
tribe, as they religiously call it, is from then on a Huron. And only
those who have Huron blood may own land in Lorette. The Hurons were, as
Parkman put it, 'the gentlemen of the savages,' and the tradition lasts.
The half-breed of today is a good sort, self-respecting and brave, not
progressive, but intelligent, with pride in his inheritance, his
courage, and his woodscraft."

The Canadian, facing me, spoke distinctly and much as Americans speak; I
caught every word. But I missed what the French general threw back
rapidly. I wondered why the Frenchman should be excited. I myself was
interested because my guides, due to meet me at the club station
tomorrow, were all half-breed Hurons. But why the French officer? What
should a Frenchman of France know about backwaters of Canadian history?
And with that he suddenly spoke slowly, and I caught several sentences
of incisive if halting English.

"Zey are to astonish, ze Indian Hurong. For ze sort of work
special-ment, as like scouting on a stomach. Qu-vick, ver' qu-vick, and
ver' quiet. By dark places of danger. One sees zat nozzing at all
af-frightens zose Hurong. Also zey are alike snakes, one cannot catch
zem--zey slide; zey are slippy. To me it is to admire zat courage
most--personnel--selfeesh--because an Hurong safe my life dere is six
mont', when ze Boches make ze drive of ze mont' of March."

At this moment food arrived in a flurry, and I lost what came after. But
I had forgotten the Chateau Frontenac; I had forgotten the group of
officers, serious and responsible, who sat on at the next table. I had
forgotten even the war. A word had sent my mind roaming. "Huron!" Memory
and hope at that repeated word rose and flew away with me. Hope first.
Tomorrow I was due to drop civilization and its tethers.

"Allah does not count the days spent out of doors." In Walter Pater's
story of "Marius the Epicurean" one reads of a Roman country-seat called
"Ad Vigilias Albas," "White Nights." A sense of dreamless sleep distils
from the name. One remembers such nights, and the fresh world of the
awakening in the morning. There are such days. There are days which
ripple past as a night of sleep and leave a worn brain at the end with
the same satisfaction of renewal; white days. Crystal they are, like the
water of streams, as musical and eventless; as elusive of description as
the ripple over rocks or brown pools foaming.