squirrels, which fairly swarmed over the land, many of the people must have starved. Broken, uneven fields stretched to the borders of the forest. Amidst the stumps and prostrate trees of the unsightly clearing, the colonists pursued their labors, protected by a body of regulars whom the merchants had brought from Ville Marie. At short distances sentinels were posted to give the alarm at any sign of approaching danger.

These were troublous times for the handful of French settlers scattered amidst the savage hordes and half-reclaimed forests of the New World. Amid tangled thickets and deep ravines, in the shade and stillness of columned woods, behind woody islets, everywhere there lurked danger and terror. The fierce and cruel Iroquois were on the war-path. These tireless savages owed their triumphs as much to craft as to their extraordinary boldness and bravery. They rarely approached the settlements in winter, when the trees and bushes had no leaves to conceal their advance, and when their movements would be betrayed by the track of their snowshoes, but they were always to be expected at the time of sowing and harvest, when it was possible to do the most mischief.

Scarcely one of the little party collected at Senneville but had passed through scenes of grim horror. Though they chattered over their work with true Gallic light-heartedness and vivacity, most of them could have related experiences of the unsleeping hatred and cruelty of the Iroquois and the hardships of forest life.

Only two years before, Louison Guimond’s young brother had been butchered before her eyes, and with the remains of the mutilated body the dazed and miserable woman had journeyed alone through the wilderness to secure Christian burial for her dead. Sans Quartier, an old soldier, returning from an expedition, had found his home in ashes and his young wife and child carried away captive. Another soldier, Frap d’Abord, held his musket awkwardly (though none could do better service) because his finger had been burned in the bowl of an Indian pipe, one of the many ingenious forms of torture practised by the Iroquois. Baptiste Bras de Fer, a hardy Canadian voyageur and coureur de bois, could tell true tales of peril and adventure in the pathless forest, such as chilled the blood in the listener’s veins—stories of forced marches through sodden snowdrifts and matted thickets, over rocks and cliffs and swollen streams, when men, perishing from cold and famine, boiled moccasins for food, and scraped away the snow in search of beech and hickory nuts. The resignation born of long usage, the conviction that these conditions were beyond remedy, that the only thing to be done was to endure, enabled these people to assume a demeanor of calmness and patience. But there was always an hysterical quiver in Louison’s shrill laughter. When Sans Quartier was silent the lines of pain deepened in his stern, bronzed face; the very name of an Indian was sufficient to make Frap d’Abord swear long strings of queer, quaint oaths. Nevertheless their chatter usually flowed on cheerily, with much merriment and little complaint.

The scanty harvests had been gathered, and the party, with the exception of Gregoire and his wife, Goulet the farmer, and the soldiers left to garrison the fort, prepared for their return to Ville Marie. Though the distance to be traversed was not great, the journey was both toilsome and perilous. In order to escape the turmoil of the Lachine Rapids the canoes had to be shouldered through the forest. The large flat-bottomed boats, being too heavy for such handling, were to be dragged and pushed in the shallow water close to the bank by gangs of men, who toiled and struggled amidst rocks and foam. Just now the danger and inconvenience of transit were considerably increased by the presence of some of the ladies of the Le Ber household who had accompanied the party to Senneville.

Shrewd trader and fearless soldier as was the honest merchant of Ville Marie, he possessed a knightly spirit and had never yet been able to refuse a request urged by his ward, Diane de Monesthrol. When that capricious damsel had determined to accompany the harvesting expedition, and had persuaded Le Ber’s nephew, Le Moyne de St. Helène, and his young wife (who as Jeanne de Fresnoy Carion had also been Le Ber’s ward,) to join it, it was perfectly understood in the household that opposition was useless, and the merchant, against his better judgment, yielded to the girl’s pretty coaxing.

“Throw your tongue to the dogs—of what use to argue with our demoiselle; she has always ten answers to one objection. One fine day she, and we others tied to her heels, will furnish an excellent meal to those sorcerers of Iroquois—faith of Nanon Benest!” cried Madame de Monesthrol’s serving-woman, with the freedom of a faithful and attached French servant.

Jacques Le Ber stood close to the shore, where the men, shouting and joking, were loading the boats. His was a round, bourgeois, somewhat heavy type of face, seamed and tanned by work and weather, decorated by a slight moustache, and redeemed from commonness by bright, earnest eyes. He wore a three-cornered hat, and over his ample shoulders was spread a stiff white collar of wide expanse and studied plainness. He looked what he was, a well-to-do citizen of good renown and sage deportment.

At Diane de Monesthrol’s approach he turned hastily. A true and earnest friendship united the busy trader and this young girl of noble birth. No young cavalier (and Diane was said to be the fairest demoiselle in New France) appreciated the fairness of her gracious youth more thoroughly than the world-worn elderly man whose thoughts were engrossed with so many pressing material interests. His most soothing consolations for several years past had come from this eager-eyed, girlish creature who seemed intuitively to comprehend his feelings.

In the midst of his prosperity the merchant had experienced heavy bereavements. He had lost his wife, the thoughtful and sympathetic partner of all his interests. When their only daughter in the early promise of her youth had resolved to withdraw into absolute seclusion, and devote herself as a public offering to God for the sins of her country, spiritual pride had induced him to consent to the sacrifice. He had been assured by his guides in religion that he and his wife were to serve as models to all the parents in the colony; they would be honored as was Abraham for his sacrifice of Isaac.

Still, even with that consolation, the sundering of domestic ties lay heavily on his heart. In the sober wisdom that came with years of disappointment, through the dark experiences that usually isolate men’s thoughts, he had found comfort in the frank, simple, and guileless spirit of the girl to whom he had afforded protection. In reality the man had two natures: the one practical, ambitious, worldly, which was known to all the world; the other, rarely suspected, was ideal and passionate, and throve apart from all the common requirements of life.

The primeval strength and freshness of a new world, as yet uncontaminated by the vices of advanced civilization, seemed to have breathed into this girl an abounding energy which resulted in a rare union of vigor and native delicacy. The transplanted flower had not lost the charm distinctive of her class, and had gained in spirit and character. The warmth of the sunlight, the flush of youth, the fresh breeze of the springtide had crystallized within her. The glory of this undiscovered country, full of grand perils and deliverances, storms to be braved, griefs, joys and labors to be lived through, were in the highest degree congenial to her dauntless temperament.

As they made ready to start, Le Ber’s eyes rested with satisfied gaze upon the radiant beauty of his young ward. Her complexion was