"Down this shore," responded Louizon.

"Did you take a canoe and come out here last night?"

"Yes, monsieur. I wished to be by myself. The canoe is below. I was
coming home."

"It is time you were coming home, when all the men in the settlement
are searching for you, and all the women trying to console your mother
and your wife."

"My wife--she is not then talking with any one on the gallery?"
Louizon's voice betrayed gratified revenge.

"I do not know. But there is a woman in this canoe who might talk on
the gallery and complain to the priest against a man who has got her
stoned on his account."

Louizon did not understand this, even when he looked at the heap of
dirty blanket in the canoe.

"Who is it?" he inquired.

"The Chippewas call her a windigo. They were all chasing her for
eating you up. But now we can take her back to the priest, and they
will let her alone when they see you. Where is your canoe?"

"Down here among the bushes," answered Louizon. He went to get it,
ashamed to look the young seignior in the face. He was light-headed
from hunger and exposure, and what followed seemed to him afterwards a