plessly while Maren looked
down with moist and weary eyes.

"There! There! Hush, ma cherie! Hush!" she was saying, but Henri was
reading with amaze the change in her glorious face.

"It has been a long trail, Prix, but a longer one beckons with ceaseless
insistence. No longer can I sit in idleness. Can we, think you, raise
the debt to carry us on at once? My heart is sick for the Athabasca."

Maren stood by the factory door conversing earnestly with Laroux.

From every point of the post curious eyes looked upon her. Here and
there groups of women whispered in the doorways, and once and again a
laugh, quick hushed, broke on the evening air.

Somehow they struck upon the girl's ears with an ugly sound, reminding
her vaguely of the fair woman who travelled eastward with Sheila
O'Halloran, and her voice grew more earnest.

Laroux, who had not spoken with her since that one word of the morning
at the gate, was dumb of tongue, aching with the old feeling in his
heart which had told him faithfully so long ago that all was not well
with her.

"At once, Maren," he said huskily, "I will raise the debt. When would
you be gone?"

"Soon, my friend,--soon, soon."

"The word shall go round to-night. All shall be ready in forty-eight
hours."

He paused a moment and presently, "Maren, maid," he said.

"Yes?"

"Hold you aught against me for the stand I took that day--the duty I saw
first?"

"Against you, Prix?--the truest, bravest friend I own? Nay, man,--you
are my staff, my hope, my courage. Would I had had your strength these
heavy days."

"Would to the good God you had! It shall not fail you again."

Maren held out her hand and Laroux grasped it in a clasp of faith.

"See!" cried Tessa Bibye, peeping eagerly from among the women, "she
holds hands with that blackhaired man of her people who spurs the rest.
One man or another,--as Francette says,--little cat!--all are fish
who come to Ma'amselle's net! The factor, or the cavalier, or a common
voyageur.

"Can they not see, these fool men, that the woman is a venturess,
playing with all?"

"You lie, Tessa Bibye!"

Micene Bordoux had passed unnoticed. Now she turned her accusing glance
on the loose-tongued girl.

"Because you are so small of soul yourself, are your eyes blinded to the
greater heights? Ma'amselle is lost in the clouds above you."

She went on, and Maren at the factory door turned to enter.

"Give the word,--and make all haste. Fix all things a