Annette, The Metis Spy | Page 3

going to the bars where the cows were lowing, waiting to be milked. The persistent stranger had not, by any means, made up his mind to desist in his wooing.
"The colt shies," he murmured, "when she first sees the halter. Presently, she becomes tractable enough." Then, while he sat waiting for the evening meal, blithely through the hush of the exquisite evening came the voice of the girl. She was singing from La Claire Fontaine.
"A la claire fontaine Je m'allais promener, J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Que je me suis baigne"
Her song ended with her work, and as she passed the strangers with her two flowing pails of yellow milk, Riel whispered softly, as he touched her sweet little hand:
"Ah, ma petite amie!"
The same flash came in her eyes, the same proud blood appeared red through the dusk of her cheek, but she restrained herself. He was a guest under her father's roof, and she would suffer the offence to pass. The persistent gallant was more crest-fallen by this last silent rebuke than by the first with its angry words. The first, in his vanity, he had deemed an outburst of petulance, instead of an expression of personal dislike, especially as the girl had so suddenly calmed herself, and extended hospitalities.
He gnashed his teeth that a half-breed girl, in an obscure village, should resent his advances; he for whom, if his own understanding was to be trusted, so many bright eyes were languishing. At the evening meal he received courteous, kindly attention from Annette; but this was all. He related with much eloquence all that he had seen in the big world in the East, during his school days, and took good care that his hosts should know how important a person he was in the colony of Red River. To his mortification, he frequently observed in the midst of one of his most self-glorifying speeches that the girl's eyes were abstracted. He was certain that she was not interested in him, or in his exploits.
"Can she have a lover?" he asked himself, a keen arrow of jealousy entering at his heart, and vibrating through his veins. "No, this cannot be. She said in her musings on the prairie, that she had nobody who would sing a sad song if she were to go to the South. Stop! She may love, and not find her passion requited. I shall stay here until the morrow, and let the great cause wait. Through the evening I shall reveal who I am, and then see what is in the wind."
During the course of the evening the audacious stranger was somewhat confounded to learn that the father of his fair hostess was none other than Colonel Marton, an ex-officer of the Hudson Bay Company, a man of wide influence among all the Metis people, and one of the most sturdy champions of the half-breed cause. Indeed he was aware that Colonel Marton was at this very time about preaching resistance to the people, organising forces, and preparing to strike a blow at the authority of the Government in the North-West.
"It is discourteous, perhaps, Mademoiselle, that I should not disclose to you who I am, even though the safety of my present undertaking demands that I should remain unknown."
"If Monsieur has good reasons, or any reasons, for withholding his name, I pray that he will not consider himself under any obligation to reveal it."
"It would be absurd to keep such a secret, Ma petite Brighteye, from the beautiful daughter of a man so prominent in our holy cause as Colonel Marton. You this evening entertain, Mademoiselle, none other than Louis Riel, the Metis chief."
"Monsieur Riel," exclaimed the girl in astonishment, and somewhat in awe. "Why, we thought that Monsieur was far beyond the prairie, providing ammunition for the troops."
"I have been there Mademoiselle, and seen every trusty Metis armed, and ready to follow when the leaders cry Allons!"
Paul, the girl's brother, believed that there had never lived a hero so brave and so mighty as the man now under his father's roof. As for poor Annette, she bethought of her outburst of temper and lack of respect toward the chief; and she trembled to think that she might have given offense to a man so illustrious, and one who was the head of the sacred cause of her father and of her people.
"But why should he address a poor simple girl like me?" she mused; and then as she reflected that the leader had a wife and children in Montana, and if report spoke true, a half-breed bride in a prairie village besides, a round red spot came into each cheek and burned there like a little fire.
The chief watched the changing colour in the maiden's face, and saw also in the great dark, velvety