Part 33 (2/2)

At ten the ”Flying Star” went up the river.

”Thou hast been a foolish girl, Jeanne Angelot!” declared one of the neighbors. ”Think how thou mightst have gone up the river on a wedding journey, and a handsome young husband such as falls to the lot of few maids, with money in plenty and furs fit for a queen. And there is, no doubt, some Indian blood in thy veins! Thou hast always been wild as a deer and longing to live out of doors.”

Jeanne only laughed. She was so glad to feel at liberty once more. For a month she had virtually been a prisoner.

Madame De Ber, though secretly glad, joined the general disapproval. She had half hoped he might fancy Rose, who sympathized warmly with him. She could have forgiven the alien blood if she had seen Rose go up the river, in state, to such a future.

And though Jeanne was not so much beyond childhood, it was settled that she would be an old maid. She did not care.

”Let us go out under the oak, Pani,” she exclaimed. ”I want to look at something different from the Citadel and the little old houses, something wide and free, where the wind can blow about, and where there are waves of sweetness bathing one's face like a delightful sea. And to-morrow we will take to the woods. Do you suppose the birds and the squirrels have wondered?”

She laughed gayly and danced about joyously.

Wenonah sat at her hut door making a cape of gull's feathers for an officer's wife.

”You did not go north, little one,” and she glanced up with a smile of approval.

For to her Jeanne would always be the wild, eager, joyous child who had whistled and sung with the birds, and could never outgrow childhood. She looked not more than a dozen years old to-day.

”No, no, no. Wenonah, why do you cease to care for people, when you have once liked them? Yet I am sorry for Louis. I wish he had loved some one else. I hope he will.”

”No doubt there are those up there who have shared his heart and his wigwam until he tired of them. And he will console himself again. You need not give him so much pity.”

”Wenonah!” Jeanne's face was a study in surprise.

”I am glad, Mam'selle, that his honeyed tongue did not win you. I wanted to warn, but the careful Pani said there was no danger. My brave has told some wild stories about him when he has had too much brandy. And sometimes an Indian girl who is deserted takes a cruel revenge, not on the selfish man, but on the innocent girl who has trusted him, and is not to blame. He is handsome and double of tongue and treacherous.

See--he would have given me money to coax you to go out in the canoe with me some day to gather reeds. Then he could s.n.a.t.c.h you away. It was a good deal of money, too!”

”O Wenonah!” She fell on the woman's neck and kissed the soft, brown cheek.

”He knew you trusted me, that was the evil of him. And I said to Pani, 'Do not let her go out on the river, lest the G.o.d of the Strait put forth his hand and pull her down to the depths and take her to his cave.' And Pani understood.”

”Yes, I trust you,” said the girl proudly.

”And I have no white blood in my veins.”

She went down to the great oak with Pani and they sat shaded from the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne with the lovely river stretching out before them. She did not care for the old story any more, but she leaned against Pani's bosom and patted her hand and said: ”No matter what comes, Pani, we shall never part. And I will grow old with you like a good daughter and wait on you and care for you, and cook your meals when you are ill.”

Pani looked into the love-lit, s.h.i.+ning eyes.

”But I shall be so very, very old,” she replied with a soft laugh.

CHAPTER XIV.

A HIDDEN FOE.

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