stronger nature.
"Oh, Maren, what will befall? For love of God, what will befall?"

"Hush, Marie," answered Maren; "'tis but a tragedy of the wild. Naught
will befall us of the post."

"But those without? What is that roaring of many throats? Little Jean
Bleaureau but now ran past crying that the Nakonkirhirinons were killing
the factor"

"No!" Marie jumped at the word like one shot, so wild and sudden it was.
"No! No! Not yet!"

Even in the stress of the moment Marie stared open-mouthed at her
sister.

"Holy Mother! It is love,--that cry! You love the factor!"

"Hush!" whispered Maren, dry-lipped.

The roar from the river bank had sharpened itself into one point of
utterance which pierced the calm heavens in a mingling of native speech,
French and broken English from Nakonkirhirinon and halfbreed, and, worse
than both, dissolute "white Indian," and its burden was,

"A skin for a skin!"

CHAPTER XIV FELLOW CAPTIVES

After that tense moment of hush following the shot, McElroy had no
distinct recollection of what occurred. He was conscious of a sickening
knowledge of Negansahima with his banded brown arms stretching into
the evening light, of the tepees, of the river beyond, of the face of
Edmonton Ridgar, and of all these etched distinctly in that effect of
sun and shade which picks out each smallest detail sometimes of a rare
evening in early summer. Then the whole scene went out in a smother
as an avalanche of bodies descended upon him. He could smell the heavy
odour of flesh half-naked, the scent of the hidden paint, he felt arms
that fought to grip him and fingers that clutched like talons. Under
it all he went down in the grass of the slope, fighting with all his
strength, but powerless as a gnat in a pond. Above the turmoil of cries
and guttural yells, even while he felt himself crushed at the bottom
of that boiling mass, he heard the light voice of De Courtenay ringing
clear in his whimsical farewell to Maren Le Moyne. Then he was wrenched
up through the mass, something struck him on the head with a sharp blow,
a shower of stars fell like a cataract, and the sickening scents in his
nostrils faded away.

When he again opened his eyes it was to behold real stars shining down
from a velvet sky, to hear the river lapping gently at the landing,
and the night birds calling in the forest. From the prairie beyond the
fringe of woods to the east there came the yapping of the coyotes, and
far to the north