expression of personal dislike, especially as the girl had so
suddenly calmed herself, and extended hospitalities.

He gnashed his teeth that a half-breed girl, in an obscure village,
should resent his advances; he for whom, if his own understanding was
to be trusted, so many bright eyes were languishing. At the evening
meal he received courteous, kindly attention from Annette; but this
was all. He related with much eloquence all that he had seen in the
big world in the East, during his school days, and took good care
that his hosts should know how important a person he was in the
colony of Red River. To his mortification, he frequently observed in
the midst of one of his most self-glorifying speeches that the girl's
eyes were abstracted. He was certain that she was not interested in
him, or in his exploits.

"Can she have a lover?" he asked himself, a keen arrow of jealousy
entering at his heart, and vibrating through his veins. "No, this
cannot be. She said in her musings on the prairie, that she had
nobody who would sing a sad song if she were to go to the South.
Stop! She may love, and not find her passion requited. I shall stay
here until the morrow, and let the great cause wait. Through the
evening I shall reveal who I am, and then see what is in the wind."

During the course of the evening the audacious stranger was somewhat
confounded to learn that the father of his fair hostess was none
other than Colonel Marton, an ex-officer of the Hudson Bay Company, a
man of wide influence among all the Metis people, and one of the most
sturdy champions of the half-breed cause. Indeed he was aware that
Colonel Marton was at this very time about preaching resistance to
the people, organising forces, and preparing to strike a blow at the