It had been raining, and the island was fresh as if new made.  Boats and bateaux, drawn up in a great semicircle about the crescent bay, had also been washed; but they kept the marks of their long voyages to the Illinois Territory, or the Lake Superior region, or Canada.  The very last of the winterers were in with their bales of furs, and some of these men were now roaring along the upper street in new clothes, exhilarated by spending on good cheer in one month the money it took them eleven months to earn.  While in “hyvernements,” or winter quarters, and on the long forest marches, the allowance of food per day, for a winterer, was one quart of corn and two ounces of tallow.  On this fare the hardiest voyageurs ever known threaded a pathless continent and made a great traffic possible.  But when they returned to the front of the world,—­that distributing point in the straits,—­they were fiercely importunate for what they considered the best the world afforded.

A segment of rainbow showed over one end of Round Island.  The sky was dull rose, and a ship on the eastern horizon turned to a ship of fire, clean-cut and poised, a glistening object on a black bar of water.  The lake was still, with blackness in its depths.  The American flag on the fort rippled, a thing of living light, the stripes transparent.  High pink clouds were riding down from the north, their flush dying as they piled aloft.  There were shadings of peacock colors in the shoal water.  Jenieve enjoyed this sunset beauty of the island, as she ran over the rolling pebbles, carrying some leather shoes by their leather strings.  Her face was eager.  She lifted the shoes to show them to three little boys playing on the edge of the lake.

“Come here.  See what I have for you.”

“What is it?” inquired the eldest, gazing betwixt the hairs scattered on his face; he stood with his back to the wind.  His bare shins reddened in the wash of the lake, standing beyond its rim of shining gravel.

“Shoes,” answered Jenieve, in a note triumphant over fate.

“What’s shoes?” asked the smallest half-breed, tucking up his smock around his middle.

“They are things to wear on your feet,” explained Jenieve; and her red-skinned half-brothers heard her with incredulity.  She had told their mother, in their presence, that she intended to buy the children some shoes when she got pay for her spinning; and they thought it meant fashions from the Fur Company’s store to wear to mass, but never suspected she had set her mind on dark-looking clamps for the feet.

“You must try them on,” said Jenieve, and they all stepped experimentally from the water, reluctant to submit.  But Jenieve was mistress in the house.  There is no appeal from a sister who is a father to you, and even a substitute for your living mother.

“You sit down first, Francois, and wipe your feet with this cloth.”

The absurdity of wiping his feet before he turned in for the night tickled Francois, though he was of a strongly aboriginal cast, and he let himself grin.  Jenieve helped him struggle to encompass his lithe feet with the clumsy brogans.