“Athabasca!”

Maren’s head was up and she was looking at the little woman with an eager wistfulness.

“The Land of the Whispering Hills!”

“Thrue,—­’tis th’ Injun word,—­but a woild, woild land f’r all that.”

“But beautiful, Madame,—­oh! it is beautiful, is it not?”

“Fair,—­wid high hills an’ a great blue lake an’ woildness!—­Ah!”

But the tall leader was calling and camp was breaking for another stretch.

And under the travelling stars of that night there awoke in the heart of the maid of the trail something of the old love, the old longing for that goal of her life’s ambition.

She had turned aside from it, only to be taught a lesson whose scars would stay deep in her soul so long as life lasted.

At last came an hour when the party under O’Halloran must turn to the east, where the bottle-neck of Winnipeg split in two, going down that well-worn way which led to Lake of the Woods, Rainy River, and at last to the wide lakes, whose sparkling waves would waft them on to the great outside world.

There was a scene at parting, when the warmhearted Irishwoman clung to Maren and wept against her bosom, calling her all the hundred words for “darling” in the Celtic and vowing to remember her always.

The fair woman, wife of a Scotchman who acted as some sort of secretary to O’Halloran, sat apart in cold silence.

“M’sieu,” said Maren, at the last, “I have no words to thank you for this that you have done.  I but cast it into the balance of God, which must hang heavy with your goodness.”

She had given her hand to the leader, and that impulsive son of the ould sod kissed it gallantly.

“’Tis little we did, lass, for you and your poor lad yonder, and ’twas in our hearts to do more.  But here’s luck to you both,—­an early weddin’ an’ sturdy sons!”

And, as the morning sun glittered on the ripples of the departing boats, Maren stood long looking after them, a mist in her eyes and her full lips quivering.

She looked until the gathering dimness hid the waving kerchief of the only woman friend who had ever truly reached her heart.

Then she sat down and took up a paddle.

“Last lap, Messieurs,” she said, above the mutter of McElroy at her feet, and they turned toward where the familiar river came rushing to the lake.

The summer lay heavy on the land when they reached the Assiniboine.

Deep green of the forests, deep green of fern and bush and understuff, told of the full tide of the year.  Here and there a leaf trailed in the shallows, yellow as gold in an early death.

She thought of the spring, so long past, when she had first come into this sweet land, and it seemed like another time, another life, another person.

This day at dusk they passed the hidden cove where she had found Marc Dupre waiting to build her fire.  The abandoned canoe still lay hidden where he left it.