“Sure, sure,—he shall,—but come to the blankets!”
As Maren went down with a long sigh, her limbs shirking the last task of straightening themselves upon the softness of the unwonted couch, the little woman looked up across her at the man with a world of questions in her face.
“Poor darlin'!” she said softly. “Whativer is it, Terence?”
“A heroine, if all she says be thrue, an' as unconscious of it as a new-born babe!”
When Maren awoke the sun was straight overhead and some one had been calling from a distance for a very long time.
“Come, come, asthore! Opin yer eyes! That's it! A little more, now. Wake up, for love av Heaven, or we'll all be overtaken be th' Injuns!”
Ah! Indians! At that she opened her eyes and looked into the pretty blue ones she remembered last.
The little woman was kneeling beside her with an arm about her shoulder, trying to lift her heavy head and falling short in the endeavour.
Maren was too much in her muscled height for the bird-like creature. She sat up at once and looked around. The canoes were in the water, all the miscellaneous luggage had been put aboard, and every one was ready for a new start. Only herself, the blanket bed, and the little woman were unready.
Just below, her own canoe, with Brilliers, Wilson, Frith, McDonald, and Alloybeau in place, waited her presence. She could see, from the elevation of the shore, the stretched form of McElroy in the bottom, a bright blanket beneath him and his fair head pillowed on a roll of leaves. A shelter of boughs hid his face, and for one moment her heart stopped while the river and the woods, the people and the boats whirled together in a senseless blur.