"
"Aye," whispered young Dupre, from the warm depths of her shoulder, and
his voice was like gold for joy; "aye,--the end."
He rose swiftly.
"Forgive the passion that could forget the great business of the
night," he said, and they went forward, though Maren's fingers still
rested in his clasp.
Through the thinning wood which neared the stream presently there came
a glow and then the shine of a great fire ahead, with massed figures
that leaped and sprang, fantastic as a witch's carnival, and a roar of
frightful voices.
"Stay now, Ma'amselle!" begged Dupre, at last, for he had caught a
sight that shook him through and through; "stay you here in the wood
while I go forward!"
But his protest was lost on the maid. Eagerly she was pushing on, hid
by the shadows,--nearer and nearer, until suddenly she stopped and
stared upon the scene, the fingers in his clasp gripping Dupre's hand
like steel.
"God! God! God!" breathed Maren Le Moyne at the forest's edge as she
looked once more upon the face of the factor of Fort de Seviere.
Unspeakable was that scene. All reason had fled from the North savages.
What small veneer of docility had been spread over them by their three
years' dealing with the Hudson's Bays and their intercourse with the
quiet and tractable Assiniboines, had vanished.
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