“I?” said Maren, swaying where she stood.  “I followed, M’sieu.”

“Followed?  From the Assiniboine?  Alone?”

“Nay.  There was one came with me,—­a youth,—­a trapper,—­my comrade, my friend.  He died yonder in that surging purgatory—­”

The tears were welling to her weary eyes.

“The Nor’wester, Alfred de Courtenay, also—­We only of that venture are escaped alive,—­a sorry showing.  The five men who man my boat belong to the brigade under Mr. Mowbray, which we met on Winnipeg.  Such is our small history, M’sieu, and all we ask is your protection out of the reach of the Nakonkirhirinons.  I take him back to De Seviere,—­God knows if he will live to reach it.  He lies so still.  But I must get him back—­”

She ceased and passed her hand across her eyes.

“I must get him back,—­I must get him back.”

“Aye, aye.  Ye come with me.  Ye need a woman’s hand, girl.  Ye’re well in yerself.”

There was a huskiness to the sharp voice and the man took her by the arm, turning her toward the fire and the two women.  She stumbled a step or two in the short stretch.

“I must go back to him, M’sieu!” she protested.  “He will need—­will need—­broth—­and a wet cloth to his bruised head—­”

“We’ll see to him, don’t ye fret.  It’s shlape ye need yerself.  Sheila, whativer do ye think o’ this!  Here’s a colleen shlipped through the fingers of those bow-legged signboards and fair done wid heroism an’ strategy, an’ Lord knows what all, an’ off her feet wid tire!  Do ye take her an’ feed her.  Put her to bed on th’ blankets an’ do for her like yerself knows how, darlint!  ’Tis an angel unaware, I’m thinkin’—­ an’ her on Deer River!”

One of the women, a little creature with dark hair and blue eyes, Irish eyes “rubbed in with a smutty finger,” came forward and looked up into Maren’s stained face, streaked with her tears, her eyes dazed and all but closing with the weariness that had only laid its hand upon her in the last few moments, but whose sudden touch was heavy as lead.

“Say ye so!” she said wonderingly; “a girl!  So this was what caused the rumpus in the night!  But come, dearie, ’tis rest ye want, sure!”

She laid her and on Maren’s arm and there was in its gentle touch something which broke down the last quivering strand of strength within the girl, striving to stand upright.

“Yes, Madame,” she said dreamily.  “Yes, but he must have—­he must have —­broth—­and a bandage,—­wet”

“Sure, sure,—­he shall,—­but come to the blankets!”

As Maren went down with a long sigh, her limbs shirking the last task of straightening themselves upon the softness of the unwonted couch, the little woman looked up across her at the man with a world of questions in her face.

“Poor darlin’!” she said softly.  “Whativer is it, Terence?”

“A heroine, if all she says be thrue, an’ as unconscious of it as a new-born babe!”