men amidst the license of the wilderness.

Saint-Castin wanted to ask her pardon for entering; but he sat without
a sound. Some power went out from that silent shape far stronger than
the hinted beauty of girlish ankle and arm. The glow of brands lighted
the lodge, showing the bark seams on its poles. Pale smoke and the
pulse of heat quivered betwixt him and a presence which, by some swift
contrast, made his face burn at the recollection of his household
at Pentegoet. He had seen many good women in his life, with the
patronizing tolerance which men bestow on unpiquant things that are
harmless; and he did not understand why her hiding should stab him
like a reproach. She hid from all common eyes. But his were not common
eyes. Saint-Castin felt impatient at getting no recognition from a
girl, saint though she might be, whose tribe he had actually adopted.

The blunt-faced Etchemin woman, once a prisoner brought from northern
Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to
the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil
it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees
over-topping his tuft of hair when he squatted on his heels. He looked
like a man whose emaciated trunk and arms had been taken possession of
by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best
hunter in his tribe. He tracked game with a sweep of great beams as
tireless as the tread of a modern steamer. The little sense in his
head was woodcraft. He thought of nothing but taking and dressing
game.

Saint-Castin barely tasted the offered meat; but La Hontan enjoyed it
unabashed, warming himself while he ate, and avoiding any chance of a
hint from his friend that the meal should be cut short.

"My child," he said in lame Abenaqui to the Etchemin woman, while his
sly regard dwelt on the blanket-robed statue opposite, "I wish you the
best of gifts, a good husband."

The Etchemin woman heard him in such silence as one perhaps brings
from making a long religious retreat, and forbore to explain that
she already had the best of gifts, and was the wife of the big-legged
hunter.

"I myself had an aunt who, never married," warned La Hontan. "She
was an excellent woman, but she turned like fruit withered in the
ripening. The fantastic airs of her girlhood clung to her. She was at
a disadvantage among the married, and young people passed her by as
an experiment that had failed. So she