The Maid of the Whispering Hills

the end of May the new families were installed and living happily. In that last house n

the two sisters had fashioned of such scant things as they possessed an

ing one of the two rooms in each, and the women at least drew a sigh of cont

icile, "what it is to have a home! Does it not clutch at your heart sometimes, m

leaning above her against the lintel, a

mile, toying lightly with a fold of th

es, the ripple of soft waters on the bow of a canoe. For me,-I grieve that w

btle wistfulness that sang with weird pathos, and the eyes raised

ain new strength for another season? Here might well be home, here on this pretty river. We have come a mig

the features of Maren, a t

k. They would prod faster but for you. Is there no glory within you, no daring, no dre

the garment at her throat, takin

eckoned with. By spring again we

e hope that w

arie, "as the g

be her own for the length of the four seasons. And

her in the form of Love itself to put within the soul of the restless conq

nd the shimmering smile, like light a

fret not. It is spring-an

it was

dding forest without the post, each burst of song from some hot-blooded youth w

ars, with her head lifted as if to drink the keen, sweet darkness; called to her from far-distant plains of blowing grass, virgin of man's foot;

ts largess at her feet,-fa

to win those necessaries of the long

a method as canoe and foot, m

part of their provisions taken from them, leaving them to make

possible. Therefore, the contract

spirer, and moral leader, a living pillar before them in her eagerness-must needs

re, touched by her enthusiasm, the man was the mouth piece for the woman's force, the masculine expression of that undying hope of conquest which

nd stray Indians smoking the peace-pipe at his hearth. Long before she had reached the stature of woman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grim

ich slept unsuspected in the breast of the blacksmith, then old as the way of life runs, and he had closed his cabin and his forge, g

ned,-only vague rumors that had sunk in tears the head of gentle Marie, the younger o

oke of his humble craft those luckier ones who streamed through the stirring headquarters of Grand Portage at the mouth of Pigeon River each season, going into that untracked region of romance and dreams where the call of

children. For that, they were well provided for since he had left with Jacques Baptiste

fulfilled the trust,-Maren's dark eyes were often

of the family that Marie had, but at the start o

ll as her father had done before her, and lifted her face, rapt as some pagan Priestess', toward that mystic West,-bound for the Land of the Whispering Hills,

ting hope, her courage, and her magnetism, went that small band of men and women, all young,

the wilderness, for until they trod the trace

Moyne, and gazed away above the rim of the budding forest, and her spir

he good God willed, the leap forward, the wild br

said again, "it

s a slim youth swung jauntily up the

rs, Maren? You know, as it is always, every man in the post already. It is not so with the

"as for the youth, 'tis young Marc Dupre, and one of a sturdy nature. I like his spirit, though al

ove interest, but she saw Maren's eyes, cool and shining, watching the swaggering figure with a loo

he said, with a touc

so,-eliciting only that interest whi

had softened a bit under their da

maid, but a WOMAN-for whose word one would fillip the face