noe with one hand, and
turning her unresisting face with the other. Jacques and Louizon took
off their hats.

They heard the cry of the whip-poor-will. The river had lost all its
green and was purple, and purple shadows lay on the distant mountains
and opposite ridge. Darkness was mercifully covering this poor
demented Indian woman, overcome by the burdens of her life, aged
without being venerable, perhaps made hideous by want and sorrow.

When they had looked at her in silence, respecting her because she
could no longer be hurt by anything in the world, Louizon whispered
aside to his seignior,--

"What shall we do with her?"

"Bury her," the old canoeman answered for him.

One of the party yet thought of taking her back to the priest. But she
did not belong to priests and rites. Jean Boucher said they could dig
in the forest mould with a paddle, and he and his son would make her a
grave. The two Chippewas left the burden to the young men.

Jacques Repentigny and Louizon Cadotte took up the woman who, perhaps
had never been what they considered woman; who had missed the good,
and got for her portion the ignorance and degradation of the world;
yet who must be something to the Almighty, for he had sent youth and
love to pity and take care of her in her death. They carried her into
the woods between them.

THE KIDNAPED BRIDE.

(For this story, little changed from the form in which it was handed
down to him, I am indebted to Dr. J.F. Snyder of Virginia, Illinois,
a descendant of the Saucier family. Even the title remains unchanged,
since he insisted on keeping the one always used by his uncle, Mathieu
Saucier. "Mon Oncle Mathieu," he says, "I knew well, and often sat
with breathless interest listening to his narration of incidents
in the early settlement of the Bottom lands. He was a very quiet,
dignified, and unobtrusive gentleman, and in point of common sense and
intelligence much above the average of the race to which he belonged;
but, like all the rest of the French stock, woefully wanting in energy
and never in a hurry. He was a splendid fiddler, and consequently a
favorite with all, especially the young folks, who easily pressed him
into service on all occasions to play for their numerous dances. He
died at Prairie du Pont, in 1863, at the age of eighty-one years.
His mother, Manette Le Compt, then a young girl, was one of the
bridesmaids of the kidnaped bride.")

Yes, the marshes were then in a ch