ry a wife, and get tired of her and turn her off with
two children. The priest not able to scare him; he smoke and take his
dram and enjoy life. If I was Paul Pepin I would not be torment."

"But you are not torment," says Rosalin. "Everybody speak well of you."

"Oh God, yes," I tell her; "but a man not live on the breath of his
neighbors. I am thirty years old, and I have take care of my mother and
brothers and sisters since I am fifteen. I not made so I can leave them,
like Paul Pepin. He marry when he please. I not able to marry at all. It
is not far I can go from the island. I cannot get rich. My work must be
always the same."

"But why you want to marry?" says Rosalin, as if that surprise her.
And I tell her it is because I have seen Rosalin of Green Bay; and she
laugh. Then I think it is time for the vild-cat to jump. I am thirty
years old, and have nothing but what I can make with the boats or my
traino; the children are not grown; my mother depend on me; and I have
propose to a woman, and she laugh at me!

But I not see, while we sing and talk, that the fire is burn lower, and
old Sauvage has crept around the camp into the bushes.

That end all my courtship. I not use to it, and not have any business
to court, anyhow. I drop my head on my breast, and it is like when I am
little and the measle go in. Paul Pepin he take a woman by the chin and
smack her on the lips. The women not laugh at him, he is so rough. I am
as strong as he is, but I am afraid to hurt; I am oblige to take care of
what need me. And I am tie to things I love--even the island--so that I
cannot get away.

"I not want to marry," says Rosalin, and I see her shake her head at me.
"I not think about it at all."

"Mamselle," I say to her, "you have not any inducement like I have, that
torment you three years."

"How you know that?" she ask me. And then her face change from laughter,
and she spring up from the blanket couch, and I think the camp go around
and around me--all fur and eyes and claws and teeth--and I not know what
I am doing, for the dogs are all over me--yell--yell--yell; and then
I am stop stabbing, because the vild-cat has let go of Sauvage, and
Sauvage has let go of the vild-cat, and I am looking at them and know
they are both dead, and I cannot help him any more.

[Illustration: The camp go round and round 086]

You are confuse by such things where there is noise, and howling
creatures sit up and put their noses in the ai