“An' to think ye niver told us your name, asthore!” she said, wiping her eyes; “nor yer home place! Were ye raised in this post av haythins?”
“Maren Le Moyne of Grand Portage. My father—was a smith.”
“Of Grand Portage! An' ye are so far inland! I am Sheila O'Halloran, av all Oirland, an' wife to Terence th' same,—yer fri'nd for always, asthore, f'r niver will I be forgettin' this time!”
She turned to the fair woman, smiling and alight.
“Did ye iver dhrame av such romance, my dear?” she asked. “An' isn't it just wonderful to find a real live heroine in th' wilderness?”
The woman was toying with a bunch of grass, winding the slim green blades around her pale fingers, and she looked back with peculiar straightness.
“It is all very wonderful, Sheila, and commands admiration, of course; but, for my part, a strange woman alone on the rivers with a party of men must have something beside her own word to vouch for her before I should take her in with open arms. You are too ready to believe anything. How do you know this venturess is not a—Jezebel?”
For a moment an awful silence fell upon the three, and they could hear the myriad sounds of the evening camp round about.
Then Maren, her eyes wide in amaze, said stupidly:
“Eh,—Madame?”