station above Montreal; interpreters, hired by merchants to serve them during the fair; coureurs de bois stretching up their neck sinews until these knotted with intense and prolonged effort. In this standing wall the habitant was crowded by converted Iroquois from the Mountain mission, who, having learned their rights as Christians, yielded no inch of room.

The sun descended out of sight behind Mount Royal, though his presence lingered with sky and river in abundant crimsons. Still the smoke of the peace pipe rose above the council ring, and eloquence rolled its periods on. That misty scarf around the horizon, which high noon drove out of sight, floated into view again, becoming denser and denser. The pipings of out-door insects came sharpened through twilight, and all the camp-fires were deepening their hue, before a solemn uprising of Frenchmen and Indians proclaimed the council over.

La Salle had sat through it at the governor’s right hand, watching those bronze faces and restless eyes with sympathy as great as Frontenac’s. He, also, was a lord of the wilderness. He could more easily open his shy nature to such red brethren and eloquently command, denounce, or persuade them, than stand before dames and speak one word,—which he was forced to attempt when candles were lighted in the candelabra of the fort.

There was not such pageantry at Montreal as in the more courtly society of Quebec. The appearance of the governor with his train of young nobles drew out those gentler inhabitants who took no part in the bartering of the beaver fair.

Perrot, the sub-governor, had known his period of bitter disagreement with Frontenac. Having made peace with a superior he once defied, he was anxious to pay Frontenac every honor, and the two governors were united in their policy of amusing and keeping busy so varied an assemblage as that which thronged the beaver fair. Festivity as grand as colonial circumstances permitted was therefore held in the governor’s apartments. The guarded fortress gates stood open; torches burned within the walls, and blanketed savages stalked in and out.

Yet that colonial drawing-room lacked the rude elements which go to making most pioneer societies. Human intercourse in frontier towns exposed to danger and hardship, though it may be hearty and innocent, is rarely graceful.

But here was a small Versailles transplanted to the wilderness. Fragments of a great court met Indian-wedded nobles and women with generations of good ancestors behind them. Here were even the fashions of the times in gowns, and the youths of Louis’ salon bowed and paid compliments to powdered locks. These French colonial nobles were poor; but with pioneer instinct they decorated themselves with the best garments their scanty money would buy. Here thronged Dumays, Le Moynes, Mousniers, Desroches, Fleurys, Baudrys, Migeons, Vigers, Gautiers, all chattering and animated. Here stood the Baroness de Saint-Castin like a statue of bronze. Here were those illustrious Le Moynes, father and sons, whose deeds may be traced in our day from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. Here Frontenac, with the graciously winning manner which belonged to his pleasant hours, drew to himself and soothed disaffected magnates of his colonial kingdom.

All these figures, and the spectacles swarming around the beaver fair, like combinations in a kaleidoscope to be seen once and seen no more, gave Tonty such condensed knowledge of the New World as no ordinary days could offer.

La Salle alone, though fresh from audiences at court and distinguished by royal favor, stood abashed and annoyed by the part he must play toward civilized people.

“Look at the Sieur de la Salle,” observed Du Lhut to Tonty. “There is a man who stands and fights off the approach of every other creature.”

“There never was a man better formed for friendship,” retorted Tonty. “Touching his reserve, I call that no blemish, though he has said of it himself, it is a defect he can never be rid of as long as he lives, and often it spites him against himself.”

La Salle turned his shoulder on these associates, uneasily conscious that his weakness was observed, and put many moving figures between himself and them. He had the free gait of a woodsman tempered by the air of a courtier. More than one Montreal girl accusing gold-embroidered young soldiers of finding the Quebec women charming, turned her eyes to follow La Salle. Possible lord of the vast and unknown west, in the flower of his years, he was next to Frontenac the most considerable figure in the colony.

Severe study in early youth and ambition in early manhood had crowded the lover out of La Salle. His practical gaze was oppressed by so many dames. It dwelt upon the floor, until, travelling accidentally to a corner, it rose and encountered Jacques le Ber’s daughter sitting beside her mother.

V.
SAINTE JEANNE.

When La Salle was seignior of Lachine, before the king and Frontenac helped his ambition to its present foothold, he had been in the habit of stopping at Jacques le Ber’s house when he came to Montreal.

The first day of the beaver fair greatly tasked Madame le Ber. She sat drowsily beside the eldest child of her large absent flock, and was not displeased to have her husband’s distinguished enemy approach Jeanne.

The wife of Le Ber had been called madame since her husband bought his patent of nobility; but she held no strict right to the title, even wives of the lesser nobles being then addressed as demoiselles. In that simple colonial life Jacques le Ber, or his wife in his absence, served goods to customers over his own counter. Madame le Ber was an excellent woman, who said her prayers and approached the sacraments at proper seasons. She had abundant flesh covered with dark red skin, and she often pondered why a spirit of a daughter with passionate longings after heaven had been sent to her. If Sieur de la Salle could draw the child’s mind from extreme devotion, her husband must feel indebted to him.

La Salle’s face relaxed and softened as he sat down beside this sixteen-year-old maid in her colonial gown. She held her crucifix in her hands, and waited for him to talk. Jeanne made melody of his silences. As a child she had never rubbed against him for caresses, but looked into his eyes with sincere meditation. Having no idea of the explorer’s aim, Jeanne le Ber was yet in harmony with him across their separating years. She also could stake her life on one supreme idea. La Salle was formed to subdue the wilderness; she was dimly and ignorantly, but with her childish might, undertaking that stranger region, the human soul. She looked younger than other girls of her age; yet La Salle was moved to say, using the name he had given her,—

“You have changed much since last year, Sainte Jeanne.”

“Am I worse, Sieur de la Salle?” she anxiously inquired.

“No. Better. Except I fear you have prayed yourself to a greater distance from me.”

“I name you in my prayers, Sieur de la Salle. Ever since my father ceased to be your friend I have asked to have your haughty spirit humbled.”

La Salle laughed.

“If you name me at all, Sainte Jeanne, pray rather for the humbling of my enemies.”

“No, Sieur de la Salle. You need your enemies. I could ill do without mine.”

“Who could be an enemy to thee?”

“There are many enemies of my soul. One is my great, my very great love.”

La Salle’s face whitened and flushed. He cast a