Thus she sat, alone among men, staring into the fire, and it seemed as if the heart in her breast would burst with its anxiety. A woman was at all times a thing of overwhelming interest in the wilderness, and such a woman as this drew every eye in the brigade to feast upon her beauty, each according to the nature of the man, either furtively, with tentative admiration, or openly, with boldness of daring.
And presently, after the meal was over, she saw Mr. Mowbray gather his men in a group. For a few moments he spoke to them, and a ripple of words, of ejaculations and exclamations, went across the assemblage like a wave.
“Nom de Dieu! Not alone?”
“To the Pay d'en Haut,—those two?”
“A woman? Mother of God!”
Wondering eyes turned to the figure in the glow of the fire, to the brown hands hard clasped, the face with its flame-lit eyes.
“Five men and a good canoe I send with them,” said Mowbray quietly; “who goes? Know you it is a quest of death.”
“Who goes, M'sieu?” cried a French trader. “I! 'Tis worth a year of the fur trade!”
“And I!”
“And I!”