could not read. The awe and the wonder were still there, and her
fingers were unsteady under mine. I dropped to my knees.

"I have done more than you saw," I said, with my eyes on hers. "I have
talked with Onanguissé, and have smoked a full pipe with the old men in
council. Thank you for your interest. Thank you, Madame de Montlivet."

But she would not look at me bent before her. "That I wish you to do
your best, unhampered by me, does not mean that I wish you success,"
she said, with her head high, and she went to Onanguissé, and curtsied
her adieus. Her last words were with Father Nouvel, and she hid her
eyes for a moment, while he blessed her and said good-by.

Our canoes pointed to the sunset as we rounded the headland and slid
outward. On the shore, the Indian women chanted a hymn to Messou,--to
Messou, the Maker of Life, and the God of Marriage, to whom, on our
behalf, many pipes had been smoked that day.




CHAPTER XV

I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER

Now the great bay on which we were embarked was a water empire, fair to
the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French
called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the
shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie
Islands that we had just left well-nigh blocked its mouth, and its