Archange snatched the curtain aside, and leaned out to see the orphan sprawled on a bearskin in front of the collapsing logs.  He had pushed the sashes inward from the gallery and hoisted himself over the high sill after the bed drapery was closed for the night, for the window yet stood open.  Madame Cadotte sheltered the candle she carried, but the wind blew it out.  There was a rich glow from the fireplace upon Michel’s stuffed legs and arms, his cheeks, and the full parted lips through which his breath audibly flowed.  The other end of the room, lacking the candle, was in shadow.  The thump of the Indian drum could still be heard, and distinctly and more distinctly, as if they were approaching the house, the rapids.

Both women heard more.  They had not noticed any voice at the window when they were speaking themselves, but some offensive thing scented the wind, and they heard, hoarsely spoken in Chippewa from the gallery,—­

“How fat he is!”

Archange, with a gasp, threw herself upon her mother-in-law for safety, and Madame Cadotte put both arms and the smoking candle around her.  A feeble yet dexterous scramble on the sill resulted in something dropping into the room.  It moved toward the hearth glow, a gaunt vertebrate body scarcely expanded by ribs, but covered by a red blanket, and a head with deathlike features overhung by strips of hair.  This vision of famine leaned forward and indented Michel with one finger, croaking again,—­

“How fat he is!”

The boy roused himself, and, for one instant stupid and apologetic, was going to sit up and whine.  He saw what bent over him, and, bristling with unimaginable revolutions of arms and legs, he yelled a yell which seemed to sweep the thing back through the window.

Next day no one thought of dancing or fishing or of the coming English.  Frenchmen and Indians turned out together to search for Louizon Cadotte.  Though he never in his life had set foot to any expedition without first notifying his household, and it was not the custom to hunt alone in the woods, his disappearance would not have roused the settlement in so short a time had there been no windigo hanging about the Sault.  It was told that the windigo, who entered his house again in the night, must have made way with him.

Jacques Repentigny heard this with some amusement.  Of windigos he had no experience, but he had hunted and camped much of the summer with Louizon.

“I do not think he would let himself be knocked on the head by a woman,” said Jacques.

“White chief doesn’t know what helps a windigo,” explained a Chippewa; and the canoeman Jean Boucher interpreted him.  “Bad spirit makes a windigo strong as a bear.  I saw this one.  She stole my whitefish and ate them raw.”

“Why didn’t you give her cooked food when you saw her?” demanded Jacques.

“She would not eat that now.  She likes offal better.”

“Yes, she was going to eat me,” declared Michel Pensonneau.  “After she finished Monsieur Louizon, she got through the window to carry me off.”