ged shore, one hand caught in the buckskin fringe at her
throat and her eyes on Mr. Mowbray's upright face.

"Upon my word, Madame--?" he said when she had finished.

"Ma'amselle, M'sieu," she corrected simply.

"Ma'amselle,--your pardon,--upon my word, have I never seen such
appalling courage! Do you not know that you go upon a quest as hopeless
as death? This tribe,--I have heard a deal too much about them, and
once they came to York two seasons back,--are unlike any others of the
Indians of the country. Ruled by a peculiar justice which takes 'a
skin for a skin'--not ten or an hundred as do the Blackfeet or the
Sioux,--they yet surpass all others in the cruelty of that taking. Have
you not heard tales of this surpassing cruelty, Ma'amselle?"

"Aye, we have heard. It hastens our going. M'sieu the factor awaits
that cruelty in its extremest manner with the reaching of the Pays d'en
Haut."

"Mother of God!" said Mr. Mowbray wonderingly. "And yet,--I see!"

"And he is Hudson's Bay, M'sieu," said the girl sharply; "a good factor.
Would the Company not make an effort to save such, think you?"

Mr. Mowbray stood a moment, many moments, thinking with a line drawn
deep between his eyes. Out on the burnished water the canoes lay idly,
the red kerchiefs of the trappers making bright points of colour against
the blue background.

Presently he said slowly

"What you ask is against all precedent, Ma'amselle, and I may lose my
head for tampering with my orders,--but I will see what can be done."

The brigade drew in, and when dusk fell upon the wilderness a dozen
fires kept company with the lone little spiral from Dupre's camp.

Sitting upon the shingle with her hands clasped hard on her knees,
Maren shook her head when the young trapper brought her the breast of a
grouse, roasted brown, along with tea and pemmican from the packs of the
H. B. men.

"I thank you, my friend," she said uncertainly; "but I cannot--not now.
Not until I know, M'sieu. Without many hands at the paddles how can we
overtake the Nakonkirhirinons?"

Thus she sat, alone among men, staring into the fire, and it seemed as
if the heart in her breast would burst with its anxiety. A woman was at
all times a thing of overwhelming interest in the wilderness, and such
a woman as this drew every eye in the brigade to feast upon her
beauty, each according to the nature of the man, either furtively, with
tentative admiration, or openly, with boldness of dar