Here had the Indians summarily sent ashore all of the Nor'westers who had been with De Courtenay and who had followed in the uncertainty of fear, not daring to desert lest they be overtaken and massacred.
All, that is, save Bois DesCaut and the lean, hawk-faced Runners of the Burnt Woods.
Thanking their gods, the North-west servants had lost no time in taking advantage of the fact that they were not wanted, leaving their Montreal master to whatever fate might befall him.
Dupre went ashore and examined the reach of land, the trampled grass, a broken bush or two.
“Ten men, I think,” he said, returning, “and all in tremendous haste. The Nor'westers escaping, I have no doubt. Would our captives were among them.”
“No such fortune, M'sieu,” said Maren calmly, “Heard you not the cry before the gate in that unhallowed scramble what time they took the factor and the venturer? 'Twas 'a skin for a skin.' There are many guards.”
The summer day dreamed by in drowsy beauty, like a woman or a rose full-blown, and Maren, who would at another time have seen each smallest detail of its perfection through the eye of love, saw only the rushing water ahead and counted time and distance.
Dupre, kneeling in the bow, his lithe brown arms bare to the shoulder, where the muscles lifted and fell like waves, was silent. Sadness sat upon him like a garment, yet lightened by a holy joy.
Odd servers of Love, these two, who knew only its pain without its pleasure, yet who were standing on the threshold of its Holy of Holies.
Of nights they sat together at the tiny fire of a few laid sticks and talked at intervals in a strange companionship.