Maren remembered afterward how
near together they had stood, the wild savage in his elk teeth and
scant buckskin garments, an indiscreet band of yellow paint showing a
corner above his blanket, and the dark, wiry trader with the grey eyes.
Scattered, here and there among the braves were many Bois-Brules, lean
Runners of the Burnt Woods, belonging she knew to the North-west
Company. Also in that moment she saw the frowning face and ugly eyes of
Bois DesCaut beneath the white lock on his temple. Long afterward was
the girl to recall that evening scene.
For another moment she hesitated, and then, from sheer loss of poise,
reached out her hand. The dancing eyes of the cavalier lit with all the
daring of conquest.
"My heart, Ma'amselle," he said gallantly, as he pressed the fragile
thing in her palm; and in another second he had stooped and kissed her,
as he had kissed many another woman, lightly, delicately, in the face of
the populace, joying to the depths of his careless nature in the dare
of the thing.
With a cry the girl sprang back, crushing the birchbark case with its
red flower into shapeless ruin. There was a muffled word, the flash of
a figure, and McElroy the factor had flung himself before her.
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