She took the news quietly but with shining eyes, though her pleasure was no greater or more genuine than Poleon's, who grasped both her hands in his and shouted, gleefully:
"Bien! I'm glad! You'll be riche gal for sure now, an' wear plaintee fine dress lak' I fetch you. Jus' t'ink, you fin' gol' on your place more queecker dan your fader, an' he's good miner, too. Ha! Dat's bully!"
"Oh, Poleon! I'll be a fine lady, after all," she cried—"just as I've dreamed about! Wasn't it beautiful, that pile of yellow grains and nuggets? Dear, dear! And part of it is mine! You know I've never had money. I wonder what it is like to be rich!"
"How I'm goin' tell you dat?"
"Oh, well, they will find it on your claims very soon."
He shook his head. "You better knock wood w'en you say dat. Mebbe I draw de blank again; nobody can't tell. I've do de sam' t'ing before, an' dose men w'at been workin' my groun' dey're gettin' purty blue."
"It's impossible. You're sure to strike it, or if you don't, you can have half of what I make—I'll be too wealthy, anyhow, so you might as well."
He laughed again, at which she suddenly remembered that he had not laughed very much of late, or else she had been too deeply absorbed in her own happiness to mark the lack of his songs and merriment.
"When you do become a Flambeau king," she continued, "what will you do with yourself? Surely you won't continue that search for your far country. It could never be so beautiful as this." She pointed to the river that never changed, and yet was never the same, and to the forests, slightly tinged with the signs of the coming season. "Just look at the mountains," she mused, in a hushed voice; "see the haze that hangs over them—the veil that God uses to cover up his treasures." She drew a deep breath. "The breeze fairly tastes with clean things, doesn't it? Do you know, I've often wanted to be an animal, to have my senses sharpened—one of those wild things with a funny, sharp, cold nose. I'd like to live in the trees and run along the branches like a squirrel, and drink in the perfume that comes on the wind, and eat the tender, growing things. The sun is bright enough and the world is good enough, but I can't feel enough. I'm incomplete."
"It's very fine," agreed the Canadian. "I don' see w'y anybody would care for livin' on dem cities w'en dere's so much nice place outside."