lightly at the ends, tossed ever back, ready to laugh. Scottish blood,
mingled with a strong Irish strain, ran riot in him, giving him at once
both love of life and honour.

They had known what they were doing, those lords of the H. B. Company,
when they had sent this young adventurer from Fenchurch Street to the
new continent, and, after five years among the hardships of the trade,
he found himself factor of Fort de Seviere,--lord of his little world,
even though that world were but one tiny finger of the great system
spreading itself like a stretching hand outward from the shores of the
Bay to that interior whose fringed skirts alone had been explored.

A high station it was for so young a man, for his twenties were not yet
behind him, and the pride of his heart, its holding.

Therefore, life was a living wine to Anders McElroy, and the small
world of his post a kingdom. And into it, with that travel-tired band
of venturers from Rainy Lake, had passed a princess.

Not yet did he know this,--not for many days, in which he looked from
the factory door among the women, singling out one who wore no
brilliant garment, yet whose shining head drew the eyes of the men like
a magnet.

Slowly speech grew among them, very slowly, as if something held back
the usual comment of the trappers, concerning this Maren Le Moyne.

"Look you, Pierre," ventured Marc Dupre to Pierre Garcon, as they
beached their canoe one dusk after a short trip up the river; "yonder
is the young woman of the strong arm. A high head, and eyes like a