The Maid of the Whispering Hills Part 43

At the head of the mound towered a gigantic totem pole, carved and painted with scenes of a most minute history, while at the foot of a smaller stake, alike carved and coloured, bore, one upon another, twelve rings of bone, each one of which stood for the circle of a year.

Crossed and shielded with infinite care, in the centre there lay a set of smith's tools, crudely fashioned and well worn, tongs and a heavy hammer and a small anvil.

But beyond all this, a thing that held his wondering gaze and brought the fur cap from his head, there stood an altar, rude as the rest, but still an altar of G.o.d, with a black iron crucifix, whose pale ivory Christ glimmered in the gathering evening, upright upon it. Before the crucifix, and at either end, were the burnt-out evidences of tallow candles, while flanking the holy Symbol there stood two wooden crosses, their pieces held together by bindings of thread. Before one there lay a heap of little withered flowers, frail things of the forest and the spring, and every one was snowy white. Across the other hung a solitary blossom, first of its kind to open its pa.s.sionate eyes to the sun, and it was blood-red, counterpart of that wee star which Alfred de Courtenay had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the stockade wall one day in another spring.

The earnest blue eyes of the man were very grave, touched with a deep tenderness.

"Maren!" he whispered reverently; "maid of the splendid heart!"

So deep was he in contemplation of the things before him and his own holy thoughts that he did not hear a soft sound behind him, the fall of a light step.

A breath that was half a gasp turned him on his heel.

Leaning through the parted curtain of the hanging vines, one hand at her throat, the other holding three candles, and her dark eyes wide above her thinned brown cheeks, she stood herself. At her knee there hung the heavy head of the great dog, Loup.

She, as she had been when first he looked upon her, yet intangibly changed, the same yet not the same.

They stood in silence and looked into each other's eyes as if void of speech, of motion, held by the mighty yearning that must look and look with insatiable intensity, the half unreal reality of the moment.

And then the stopped breath in the girl's throat caught itself with a little sound that broke the spell.

The man sprang forward and took her in his arms, not pa.s.sionately, strongly, as he had done once before, but with a love so high, so chastened, so humble that it gentled his touch to reverence.

"I have come, Maren," he said brokenly; "I have followed you to the land you sought. Maid of my heart! My soul!"

Without words, without question, she yielded herself to his embrace, lifted her face to him and gave into his keeping that which was his from the beginning.

"Mother Mary! I thank Thee!" he heard her whisper, and when he loosed her to look once more into her level eyes, they were dim with tears.

Night had fallen on the Athabasca when they pa.s.sed out of the wood across the field, and they walked together hand in hand.

A great round moon was rising over the eastern forest, silvering the hills with shining crowns.

Peace brooded on the world.

"And here I found him, M'sieu," Maren Le Moyne was saying sadly, "in that low mound, cared for and worshipped by these peaceful beings who till the land and follow his teachings. They were his people. He taught them purity and peace, the use of plough and tool, the creed of love and kindness. Here was his dream of empire, his plan of progress. He of the Good Heart they called him, these Indians who were his people, and mourn him as a chief. That was his castle yonder, the older cabin to the east.

Here is the fruit of his labour." She motioned over the new-ploughed land.

"Beyond the trees yonder are bigger fields, a wider holding. And yet they are poor, these people of peace. The tribes despise them and scoff at their worship...He taught them the prayers,--the rosary. I have come after him...Who knows? This is my dream also, my fulfilment. Love, M'sieu," she raised her face to him, and the deep eyes flickering with the old elusive light, "Love shall be my crown!"

"Aye," said Anders McElroy, after the manner of a covenant, "together we shall work and dream yet greater things, trusting in G.o.d,--live and love and enter into our heritage.... I have left the Company forever.

Together we shall build the empire of your dreams.... Oh, Maid of my Heart, the Long Trail has ended in the harbour of New Homes!"