d a moment in the sunshine before the cabin of old
France Moline.

Clad in a red skirt, brilliant in its adornment of stained quills of the
porcupine got from the Indians, Francette paced daintily here and there
in the clean-swept yard, now snapping her small fingers, now coaxing
with soft noises in her round throat, her sparkling eyes fixed on the
gaunt grey skeleton that stood on its four feet braced wide apart,
wavering dizzily.

For a time she did not answer, as if he who spoke was no more than any
youth of the settlement, so exaggeratedly absorbed was she.

Then, pushing back the curls from her face, a pretty motion that always
wakened a look of admiration in masculine eyes beholding,--

"If he would only try, M'sieu," she said, frowning, "but he does nothing
save stand and look at me like that. The strength is gone from his
legs."

It seemed even as the little maid protested. Massive, silent,
contemptuous, his small eyes under the wolfish skull cold and alight
with a look that sent shuddering from him the timid,--thus he had been
in his hard-fought and hard-won supremacy, a great, mysterious beast
brought full-grown from the snowbound wilderness of the forest one
famine-time by old Aquamis and sold to Bois DesCaut for a tie of
tobacco.

Now he stood, a pitiable shadow, and begged mutely of the only tender
hand he had known for understanding of this strange weakness that took
his limbs and sent the heavens whirling.

McElroy looked long upon him.

"'Tis a shame," he said, his straight brows drawing together, "the dog
is a better brute than Bois."

"Aye," flashed Francette, talking as though it were no uncommon thing
for the factor to stop at the cabin of the Molines, "and no more shall
the one brute serve the other. You have said, M'sieu."

"Yes," laughed the factor, "I have said and it shall be so. I will buy
the dog from Bois if he speaks of the matter. Take good care of him,
little one," and McElroy turned down toward the gate. As he moved away,
free of step and straight as an Indian, he filliped away a small budding
twig of the saskatoon which one of the youths had brought in to show
how the woods were answering the call of the warm sun, and which he had
dandled in his fingers as he walked. It fell at the edge of the beaded
skirt and quick as thought the hand of Francette shot out and covered
it. A hot flush mounted under the silken black curls and she dropped her
eyes, peering under their lashes t