Part 10 (1/2)

”Monsieur, it would be better for us to hurry back to the fortress and call my uncle La Salle.”

”Nothing will satisfy you, mademoiselle,” denounced Colin. ”Out you must come to stop Monsieur de Tonty. Now back you must go through weather which is not fitting for any demoiselle to face.”

”Mademoiselle,” said Tonty, ”if you return now it will be my duty to escort you as far as the fortress gate.”

Barbe drew her wrappings over her face, as he had seen a wild sensitive plant fold its leaves and close its cups.

”I will retire to the chapel and wait there until my uncle La Salle comes,” she decided, ”and my brother must run to call him.”

”You may take to sanctuary as soon as you please,” responded Colin, ”and I will attend to my uncle La Salle's business. But the first call I make shall be upon the cook in this camp.”

FOOTNOTES:

[11] ”He (La Salle) gave us a piece of ground 15 arpents in front by 20 deep, the donation being accepted by Monsieur de Frontenac, syndic of our mission.” From Le Clerc.

V.

FATHER HENNEPIN'S CHAPEL.

Tonty held a buffalo robe over Barbe during her quick transit from cabin to church. Its tanned side was toward the weather, and its woolly side continued to comfort her after she was under shelter. Tonty bestowed it around her and closed the door again, leaving her in the dim place.

Father Hennepin's deserted chapel was of hewed logs like his dwelling. A rude altar remained, but without any ornaments, for the Recollet had carried these away to his western mission. Some unpainted benches stood in a row. The roof could be seen through rafters, and drops of rain with reiterating taps fell along the centre of the floor. A chimney of stones and cement was built outside the chapel, of such a size that its top yawned like an open cell for rain, snow, or summer suns.h.i.+ne. Within, it spread a generous hearth and an expanse of grayish fire-wall little marked by the blue incense which rises from burning wood.

Barbe looked briefly around the chapel. She laid the buffalo hide before the altar and knelt upon it.

Tonty returned with a load of fuel and busied himself at the fireplace.

The boom of the lake, and his careful stirring and adjusting in ancient ashes, made a background to her silence. Yet she heard through her devotions every movement he made, and the low whoop peculiar to flame when it leaps to existence and seizes its prey.

A torrent of fire soon poured up the flue. Tonty grasped a brush made of wood shavings, remnant of Father Hennepin's housekeeping, and whirled dust and litter in the masculine fas.h.i.+on. When he left the chapel it glowed with the resurrected welcome it had given many a primitive congregation of Indians and French settlers, when the lake beat up icy winter foam.

Beside the fireplace was a window so high that its log sill met Barbe's chin as she looked out. Jutting roof and outer chimney wall made a snug spot like a sentry-box without. She dried her feet, holding them one at a time to the red hot glow, and glanced through this window at the mission house's sodden logs and crumbled c.h.i.n.king. The excitement of her sally out of Fort Frontenac died away. She felt distressed because she had come, and faint for her early convent breakfast.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

She saw Tonty through the window carrying a dish carefully covered. He approached the broken pane, and Barbe eagerly helped him to unfasten the sash and swing it out. In doing this, Tonty held her platter braced by his iron-handed arm.

The fare was pa.s.sed in to her without apology, and she received it with sincere grat.i.tude, afterward drawing a bench near the fire and sitting down in great privacy and comfort.

The moccasins of a frontiersman could make no sound above flap of wind and pat of water. Tonty paced from window to chapel front, believing that he kept out of Barbe's sight. But after an interval he was amused to see, rising over the sill within, a topknot of curls, and eyes filled with the alert, shy spirit of the deer whose flesh she had just eaten.

For some reason this scrutiny of Barbe's made him regret that he had lain aside the gold and white uniform of France, and the extreme uses to which his gauntlets had been put. Entrenched behind logs she unconsciously poured the fires of her youth upon Tonty.

Not only was one pane in the sash gone, but all were shattered, giving easy access to his voice as he stood still and explained.

”Frontenac is a lonely post, mademoiselle. It is necessary for you to have a sentinel.”

”Yes, monsieur; you are very good.” Barbe accepted the fact with lowered eyelids. ”Has my brother yet gone to call my uncle La Salle?”