Within the big trading-room at the factory, seats had been placed, the chief and his headmen sat in a solemn circle, and McElroy, holding in his two hands the long calumet, stood in the centre of the small conclave.
Very gravely he pointed the stem, clinking with its dangling ornaments, to east and west, to the heavens and to the earth, and then with a deft motion swung it around his head.
“My brothers,” he said, glancing around at the solemn visages of these his friends and people, “may the sun smile all day upon us together in peace.”
Wherewith he smoked a moment at the carven mouthpiece and handed the pipe to Quamenoka.
With the utmost gravity Ridgar took it from the chief, passed it to the savage on his right, who likewise smoked and passed, it on, and presently the ceremony was done and the visit had begun.
“My brothers are late this year at the trading,” said the factor. “For a fortnight has the ox waited in the pen, the bread of the feast been set. So do we love our brothers of the forest. What is the word of the west? What tribes come in to the factory with peltry? We would hear Quamenoka speak.”
He fell silent, sat down in his chair, and waited.
In the hush of that moment a shadow falling in the open door of the factory caught his eye and he looked up to see the form of Maren Le Moyne leaning against the lintel, her face filled with eagerness, her eyes, clear as a child's and as far-seeing, fixed on the Indians. He glanced swiftly to that tight braid just above the temple, where he had last seen a small red flower nodding impishly, and was conscious of a feeling of relief to find it gone.
It was irregular, the intrusion of an outsider in the ceremony of the opening of the trade; but for his life the young factor of De Seviere could not have said so to this girl who went fearlessly where she listed and whose eyes held such mystery of strength and wistfulness.
Moreover, Quamenoka was speaking and the council harkened.