ng fringe drew
back while the factor turned on his heel and strode away toward the
factory, leaving the tall girl alone at the portal, holding her gift.

There was a devilish light in the dancing eyes of Francette as she
flirted away.

But Maren Le Moyne walked slowly back to the cabin, wondering.

CHAPTER X THE SASKATOON

It was at dusk of that same day that McElroy, as near sullen anger
as one of his temperament could be, sat alone on the log step of the
factory, his pipe unlighted in his lips and his moody eyes on the beaten
ground worn hard by the passing feet of moccasined Indians from the four
winds.

Edmonton Ridgar, with that keenness which gave him such tact, had shut
himself in the living-room, and the two clerks were off among the maids
at the cabins.

Once again McElroy had made himself ridiculous by that abrupt turning
away because of a small red flower sent a maid by a man he now knew to
be his foe and rival in all things of a man's life.

Down by the southern wall an old fiddle squeaked dolefully, and from
beyond the stockade came the drowsy call of a bird deep in the forest
depths.

On the river bank young Marc Dupre sang as he fumbled at a canoe
awaiting the morn when he was to set off up-stream for any word that he
might pick up of the coming of the Nakonkirhirinons. There was no moon
and the twilight had deepened softly, covering the post with a soft
mantle of dreams, when there was a step on the hard earth and the factor
turned sharply to behold a little figure in a red kirtle, its curly head
hanging a bit as if in shame, and at its side the shadowy form of the
great dog Loup.

"M'sieu," said Francette timidly, and the tone was new to that audacious
slip of impudence; "M'sieu."

"What is it, little one?" said McElroy gently, his own disgust of his
morning's quickness softening his voice that he might not again play the
hasty fool, and Francette crept nearer until she stood close to the log
step.

The small hands were twisting nervously and the little breast lifting
swiftly with an agitation entirely new to her.

Presently she seemed to find the voice that eluded her.

"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried at last, breaking out as if the words were thick
crowded in her throat; "a heavy burden has fallen upon me! Is it right,
M'sieu, for a maid to die for love of a man, waiting, waiting, waiting
for the look, the word that shall crown her bondage? Love lives all
round in the post save in the he