The Maid of the Whispering Hills | Page 6

even though that world were but one tiny finger of the great
system spreading itself like a stretching hand outward from the shores
of the Bay to that interior whose fringed skirts alone had been explored.
A high station it was for so young a man, for his twenties were not yet
behind him, and the pride of his heart, its holding.
Therefore, life was a living wine to Anders McElroy, and the small
world of his post a kingdom. And into it, with that travel-tired band of

venturers from Rainy Lake, had passed a princess.
Not yet did he know this,--not for many days, in which he looked from
the factory door among the women, singling out one who wore no
brilliant garment, yet whose shining head drew the eyes of the men like
a magnet.
Slowly speech grew among them, very slowly, as if something held
back the usual comment of the trappers, concerning this Maren Le
Moyne.
"Look you, Pierre," ventured Marc Dupre to Pierre Garcon, as they
beached their canoe one dusk after a short trip up the river; "yonder is
the young woman of the strong arm. A high head, and eyes like a
thunderous night,--Eh? Is there love, think you, asleep anywhere within
her?"
Whereat Pierre glanced aside under his cap to where Maren hauled up
the bucket from the well, hand over hand, with the muscles slipping
under her tawny skin like whipcords.
"Nom de Dieu!" ejaculated Pierre under his breath; "if there is, I would
not be the one to awaken it and not be found its master! It would be a
thing of flame and fury."
"Ah!" laughed the other, "but I would. It would be, past all chance, a
thing to remember, howe'er it went! But it is not like that you or I will
be the one to wake it. Milady, though clad in seeming poverty, fixes
those disdainful eyes upon the clouds."

CHAPTER III
NEW HOMES
The work of raising the new cabins went forward merrily. Every one
lent a hand, and by the end of May the new families were installed and
living happily. In that last house near the northeast corner of the post
dwelt Henri and Marie Baptiste and Maren Le Moyne.
A goodly place it was, divided into two rooms and already the hands of
the two sisters had fashioned of such scant things as they possessed and
dared buy from the factory on the year's debt, a semblance of comfort.
In the other cabins the rest of the party managed to double, each family
taking one of the two rooms in each, and the women at least drew a
sigh of content that the long trail had at last found an end, however

unstable of tenure.
"Ah, Maren," said Marie Baptiste, sitting on the shining new log step of
her domicile, "what it is to have a home! Does it not clutch at your
heart sometimes, ma cherie, the desire for a home, and that which goes
with it, the love of a man?"
She raised her eyes to the face of Maren leaning above her against the
lintel, and they were full of a puzzled question.
Maren answered the look with a swift smile, toying lightly with a fold
of the faded sleeve rolled above her elbow.
"Home for me, Marie, is the wide blue sky above, the wind in the
tossing trees, the ripple of soft waters on the bow of a canoe. For me,--I
grieve that we have stopped. Not this year do we reach the Land of the
Whispering Hills."
A swift change had fallen into the depth of her golden voice, a subtle
wistfulness that sang with weird pathos, and the eyes raised toward the
western rim of the forest were suddenly far and sombre.
"Forgive!" said her sister gently; "I had forgot. I know the dream, but is
it not better that we rest and gain new strength for another season? Here
might well be home, here on this pretty river. We have come a mighty
length already. What could be fairer, cherie,--even though we leave
another to win to the untracked West."
A small spasm drew across the features of Maren, a twitching of the
full lips.
"Faint heart of you," she said sadly. "Oh, Marie, 'tis your voice has ever
held us back. They would prod faster but for you. Is there no glory
within you, no daring, no dreams of conquest? Bien! But I could go
alone. This dallying stiffles the breath in me!"
She put up a hand and tore open the garment at her throat, taking a deep
breath of the sunlit air.
"But it is poverty that must be reckoned with. By spring again we may
be better equipped than ever."
So