“Let it be, Marc Dupre,” as the youth dropped his and from Maren’s arm.  “Ma’amselle does not object,—­a trapper or a cavalier, all are fish to Ma’amselle’s net.  Mon Dieu!  If all were so attractive as Ma’amselle!”

The little maid sighed in exaggerated dolour.

Dupre flashed round on his moccasined heel and reached her in a stride.

“Aha!  It is you, by all the saints!” he said beneath his breath, as he took her none too gently by the shoulder.  “I know your tricks.”

Aloud he said, “Francette, children should keep from where they are not wanted.  Get you back to your mother.”

“Children, you say, M’sieu Dupre?  Is eighteen so far behind twenty-two?  Grow a beard on your cheek before you give yourself the airs of a man.  And, anyway, grown men of twice eighteen have been known to love children of that age.”

It was a dagger thrust, and it found its mark even as the girl glanced slily at her victim.  Maren’s full mouth twitched and she looked dully away to the fort gate.  Dupre gave Francette an ungallant push.  “Begone!” he cried angrily; “you little cat!”

With a ringing laugh the maid danced away in the sunshine, and Dupre faced Maren.

“It is that imp of le diable, Francette?” he asked.  “What has she done to you, Ma’amselle?”

But Maren shook her head.

“The maid is not to blame.  She is but a child in spirit and what le bon Dieu has seen fit to give her has gone to her head.  That is all, save as your quick eye has detected, M’sieu, I have received a heavy hurt.”

Suddenly, with that whimsical youthfulness of soul which glimmered at times through her apparent strength, she looked at Dupre with a sort of fright.

“Merci, M’sieu!  For what reason does the good God let some things befall? ...But I have still a stone.  Throughout I will remember that.”

In a moment she was gone, walking toward the cabin of Micene Bordoux, and Marc Dupre went on his quest of Pierre, wondering and all a-tremble with pity and thought of that promise.

Where Marc, with the revelation of adoration, had seen sharply, Micene with her good sense felt vaguely that something was wrong with the intrepid leader of the long trail.

“Maren,” she said this day, as she took the bread pan which had been borrowed, “I fear there is something troubling you.  Is there bad news from Athabasca?”

Always there lay behind Maren’s eagerness a fear, sleeping like a hidden fawn but ever ready to quiver into life, a fear of news from the Whispering Hills, news that should make the promise of the trail a sudden void.

“Nay, Micene,” smiled Maren, “these latest Indians come from the south.”

“And all is well with the plans?”

The vague uneasiness was not stilled in Micene.

“All is well with the plans.  There is not a year now.”

The girl looked straight in her friend’s eyes without a trace of the dazed misery which Marc Dupre had surprised in her own.