together in one long play, broken
only by the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes,
waiting for pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the
other end of the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss
and tropical growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes
and buckskin shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before
Brown went to St. Ignace and brought back denim and white and black
calico, which he presented to Francoise.

"She ought to have a kind of second mourning," he explained to Puttany,
who received his word on any matter as law. "Joe La France wasn't worth
wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and
it won't show in the camp like bright colors would."

The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their
annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the
fact of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was
disciplined to say to strangers, "Dot vas my sister and her little poy."

A tiny cabin was built for Francoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon
floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as
a child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim,
military state which Brown demanded. Francoise had a regard for M'sieu'
Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled
amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu'
Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he
could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from
her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber
his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as
seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics with a
stick:

"Straight out--across the shoulder--under the arm--down on the turf!"

There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled
within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops,
a pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days
of sharp, clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the
water, and any moving object could be seen in the Burning--a growth of
green springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were
often away, guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting
parties from sunset half the night. Francoise and Gou-gou dwelt in