years yet, little one, and think not of the bonds
and cares of marriage. How could these little hands lift the heavy
kettles, wash the blankets, and do the thousand tasks of a household?
You are mistaken, child. It is not love you feel, but the changing
fancies of maidenhood. Play in the sun with Loup and wait for the real
prince. He will come some day with great beauty and you will give no
more thought to me. He must be young, little one, a youth of twenty; not
one like me, nearer the mark of another decade. It would not be fitting.
Youth to youth, and those of a riper age to each other." He was thinking
of a tall form, full and round with womanhood, whose eyes held knowledge
of the earth, and yet, had he been able to define their charm, were
younger even than Francette's.

The little maid had ceased her weeping long since and the face on
McElroy's shoulder, turned out toward the night, was drawn and hard.
The black eyes were no longer starry with passion, but glittering with
failure. And the man, stupid and good of heart as are all men of his
type, congratulated himself that he had talked the nonsense out of her
little head.

Suddenly he felt the slender figure shiver in his arms and the curly
head brushed his cheek as she raised her face.

"Aye, M'sieu," she whispered, "it is as you say, but only one thing
remains. Kiss me, M'sieu, and I go to--forget."

The factor hesitated.

He felt again his one passionate avowal on the lips of his one woman.

This was against the grain.

"Please, M'sieu," begged the childish voice, with a world of coaxing;
and, thinking to finish his gentle cure, he bent his head and kissed her
lightly on the cheek.

"And now--" he started to admonish, when she threw her arms about his
neck, stiffling the words in her garments.

At the corner of the factory Maren Le Moyne stood looking through the
twilight at the scene.

When Francette released him there were only they two and he had heard no
step nor seen the silent beholder.

When the little French maid slipped away with the husky she fingered the
carved toy of a knife in her sash and tossed her short curls in triumph.

Her failure had taken on a hue of victory.

CHAPTER XI LEAVEN AT WORK

"M'sieu," said Marc Dupre, coming up the slope from the river, his
buckskins much tattered, showing a swift cross-country run, "I have news
of the great tribe. Like the forest leaves in fall in point of numbers
they are, and they wear a