"
"And they will surely lend help, think you, to a factor of the Company
in such grave plight?"
"Surely, Ma'amselle."
So the hours of day and darkness slipped by with dip of paddle and with
portage, with snatched rest and fare of the wild.
In a plentiful forest and on an abundant stream Dupre was at no loss
for food. Trout, sparkling and fresh from the icy water, roasted on
forked sticks stuck in the ground beside a bed of coals, made fare for
an epicure, and the young trapper, watching Maren as she knelt to tend
them, shielding her face with her hand, thought wistfully of a cabin
where the fire leaped on the hearth and where this woman passed back
and forth at the tasks of home.
"'Tis too great a thing to ask of le bon Dieu," he said in his heart;
"'tis not permitted even that one dream of such joy,--'twould be heaven
robbed of its glory."
So he fished and hunted for her, as the primal man has hunted and
fished for his woman since time began, tended her fires and guarded her
sleep, and the wistful sadness within him grew with the passing days.
Down that northbound river the lone canoe with its two people hurried
after the great flotilla, silent and determined, like a starved wolf on
the flanks of a caribou herd.
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