The Maid of the Whispering Hills Part 38

And, as the morning sun glittered on the ripples of the departing boats, Maren stood long looking after them, a mist in her eyes and her full lips quivering.

She looked until the gathering dimness hid the waving kerchief of the only woman friend who had ever truly reached her heart.

Then she sat down and took up a paddle.

"Last lap, Messieurs," she said, above the mutter of McElroy at her 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 a.s.siniboine.

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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, 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 they stepped in with their burden.

"Holy Mary! Maren! Maren! Maren!" cried Henri Baptiste, and took both her arms in a gripping clasp. He looked into her face with fear and wonder, as if the girl had returned from the dead, while joy unspeakable began to lighten his features.

"Sister! Holy Mary!"

And then, when the touch of her in the flesh had dispelled his first horror, when the sight of the factor swinging grotesquely in the blanket had taken on the sense of reality, he raised his voice in a stentorian call.

From every door it brought the populace running, half-dressed and startled, and in scant s.p.a.ce a ring of faces stared upon the strangers in stupid awe.

"Ma'amselle Le Moyne!" they whispered, fearfully.

"Mother of Heaven! The factor!"

"Our factor! Out of the hands of Death!"

"Mon Dieu! One of them! And the maid!"

And in the midst of the awed and hushed excitement that was growing with each pa.s.sing moment, there cut the voice of McElroy, babbling from the blanket.

"Throw! Throw, Ma'amselle,--for M'sieu!"

"Hush!" said Maren; "where is Prix Laroux?"

"Here!"

The big fellow was pushing through the gathering crowd, to stand before the weary girl with burning eyes.

"Maren!" he said simply, and could say no more.

"Take him, Prix," she said quietly; "take him to the factory. Get Rette de Lancy's hand above him for care, and Jack for all things else. Take these my men, and give them all the post affords, but chiefly rest at present. They have--"

Here there came a tumult among the listening populace, and Marie rushed through and flung herself upon Maren and there was time for nothing else, save that, as Maren turned with her hanging like a vice about her throat and Henri's arm across her shoulders, there was a streak of crimson, a flash of ornaments in the sun, but now risen above the forest's rim, and some one threw herself upon the unconscious form of McElroy, kissing his face and his helpless hands and weeping terribly.

It was the little Francette. At her heels the great dog, Loup, halted and glowered at the strangers.

CHAPTER XXVIII THE OLD DREAM ONCE MORE

They led her through the new day, between the staring, whispering people, this comer from beyond the grave, to the little new cabin beside the northern wall, across its step and into its sweet, fresh cleanliness of home; and when Henri had shut the door they stood together in a group, their arms inwound, and Marie wept helplessly 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?"