The somewhat fickle stream of the Assiniboine had loosed its locks of
ice and rolled and gurgled, full to its low banks, as if the late
summer would not see it shrunk to a lazy thread, refusing sometimes
even the shallow canoes and barely licking the parched lips of the
land.

In gay attire the maids of De Seviere ventured beyond the gates to
stray a little way into the forest and come back laden with tiny green
sprays of the golden trailer, with wee white blossoms and now and again
a great swelling bud of the gorgeous purple flower of the death plant.

"Bien! It is of a drollness, mes cheries," laughed Tessa Bibye one day,
stopping at the cabin by the south wall; "how Francette does but sit in
the shade and nurse that half-dead wolf. Is it by chance because of the
owner, or that hand which carried it here, Francette? Look for the man
behind Francette's devotion ever!"

Whereat there was a laugh and crinkling of pretty dark eyes at the
little maid's expense, but she sprang to her feet and faced her mates
in anger.

"Begone, you Tessa Bibye!" she cried hotly; "'tis little you know
beyond the thought of a man truly, and that because you have lacked one
from the cradle!"

Tessa flushed and drew away, vanquished. Merry laughter, turned as
readily upon her, wafted back on the golden wind. Francette, her eyes
flaming with all too great a fire, set a pan of cool water beneath the
fevered muzzle of the husky and glanced, scowling, across her shoulder
toward the factory.