er
feet, and they turned toward where the familiar river came rushing to
the lake.

The summer lay heavy on the land when they reached the Assiniboine.

Deep green of the forests, deep green of fern and bush and understuff,
told of the full tide of the year. Here and there a leaf trailed in the
shallows, yellow as gold in an early death.

She thought of the spring, so long past, when she had first come into
this sweet land, and it seemed like another time, another life, another
person.

This day at dusk they passed the hidden cove where she had found Marc
Dupre waiting to build her fire. The abandoned canoe still lay hidden
where he left it.

Cool blue dawn, hushed and wide-reaching, still with that stillness
which precedes the sunrise, lay over the river, when the lone canoe
rounded the lower bend and Anders McElroy, factor of Fort de Seviere,
came back to his own again.

In the prow there knelt a weary figure in a soiled and sun-bleached
garment of doeskin, its glittering plastron of bright beads broken here
and there, the ragged ends of sinews hanging as they were left by
briar and branch, and the haggard eyes went with eager swiftness to the
stockade standing in its grim invincibility facing the east.

The row of wonted canoes lay upturned upon the shelving shore at the
landing, the half-moon at the right still glowered with its puny cannon
which had spoken no word to save their master on that fateful day, and
all things looked as if but a day had passed between.

The great gate with its studded breast was closed, the bastions at the
corners were empty of watchers, for peace folded its wings above the
past.

Without sound the boat cut up to the landing, Brilliers leaped out and
steadied it to place, and Maren stepped once more upon the familiar
slope.

They lifted McElroy, swinging in his blanket, and the tread of the
moccasined feet was hollow on the planks.

Thus there passed up to the gate of De Seviere a triumphal procession
of victory, whose heart was heavy within it, and whose leader in her
tattered dress was the saddest sight of all.

She raised her hand and beat upon the gate, and a voice cried, "Who
comes?"

"Open, my brother," she called, for the voice was that of Henri
Baptiste, whose turn at the gate it was.

There was an ejaculation, a swift rattle of chains, and the heavy portal
swung back, while the blanched face of young Henri stared into the dawn.
Maren motioned to the men and th