thunderous night,--Eh? Is there love, think you, asleep anywhere within
her?"

Whereat Pierre glanced aside under his cap to where Maren hauled up the
bucket from the well, hand over hand, with the muscles slipping under
her tawny skin like whipcords.

"Nom de Dieu!" ejaculated Pierre under his breath; "if there is, I
would not be the one to awaken it and not be found its master! It would
be a thing of flame and fury."

"Ah!" laughed the other, "but I would. It would be, past all chance, a
thing to remember, howe'er it went! But it is not like that you or I
will be the one to wake it. Milady, though clad in seeming poverty,
fixes those disdainful eyes upon the clouds."



CHAPTER III NEW HOMES

The work of raising the new cabins went forward merrily. Every one lent
a hand, and by the end of May the new families were installed and
living happily. In that last house near the northeast corner of the
post dwelt Henri and Marie Baptiste and Maren Le Moyne.

A goodly place it was, divided into two rooms and already the hands of
the two sisters had fashioned of such scant things as they possessed
and dared buy from the factory on the year's debt, a semblance of
comfort.