Spring was here and cast its largess at her feet,--fate held back her
eager hand.
A year she must wait, a year in which to win those necessaries of the
long trail, without which all would fail.
Travel, even by so primitive a method as canoe and foot, must demand
its toll of salvage.
At Rainy Lake they had been held by thieving Indians and a great part
of their provisions taken from them, leaving them to make their way in
comparative poverty to the next post of De Seviere.
Further progress that year was impossible. Therefore, the contract of
the trappers with the factor.
And Maren Le Moyne--venturer of the venturers, flame of fire among
them, urger, inspirer, and moral leader, a living pillar before them in
her eagerness--must needs curb her soul in bonds of patience and wait
at Fort de Seviere for another spring.
Close beside her in her visions and her high hope, her courage and her
eagerness, stood that leader of the little band, Prix Laroux. Fed by
her fire, touched by her enthusiasm, the man was the mouth piece for
the woman's force, the masculine expression of that undying hope of
conquest which had drawn the small party together and set it forth on
the perilous venture of pushing toward the unknown West to find for
itself an ideal holding.
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