Part 19 (1/2)

”I am going to plait it into a braid for the ring,” I said. ”I think that I can file the ends, and make it serve. It is all I have. I wear no jewelry, and would not give you one of the bra.s.s rings we use in trade. This is at least gold.”

She watched me straighten the kinks in the wire. ”You took that from something you valued,” she said. ”I will wear the bra.s.s ring. Surely you can replace this wire where it belongs.”

I shook my head. ”It was a filigree frame,” I volunteered.

I had spoken with as little thought as a dog barks, and quite as witlessly. I knew that as soon as I heard my words. I looked at the woman. But she was not going to question me.

”If it was a frame, it held a miniature,” she said quietly. ”Please twist the wire around it again. I prefer the bra.s.s ring.”

”Because?”

”I would not rob any one. If you have carried the picture all these leagues, it is a token from some one you love; some one who loves you.

I have no part in that.”

I went on plaiting the wire. ”The woman of the miniature will know no robbery,” I said, ”because she knew no possession. Mademoiselle, you seem in every way to be a woman with whom it is wisest to have a clear understanding.”

”You need tell me nothing.”

”It is better to tell the whole, now that you have stumbled on a part.

I was nothing to that woman whose face I carried with me. She did not know I had the picture. I might never have told her. It was nothing, you see. It was all in a man's mind, and the man now has sterner matters to fill his thought. I would like you to wear this ring.”

”Why not the other?”

I laughed at her a little. ”I shall try not to give you spurious metal,--even granted that our bargain is provisional. Now, mademoiselle, may I take you to the lodge I have had made? In two hours we are to be married.”

She followed at my side, and I took her to the lodge, and pointed her within. She glanced at what I had done, and I saw her bite her lip.

She turned to me without a smile.

”It all makes it harder,” she said indefinitely. ”Harder to think of the wrong that I am doing you and the other woman.”

I cannot abide misapprehension. We were alone. ”Wait!” I begged.

”Mademoiselle, you cannot probe a man's thought. Often he cannot probe his own. But I am not unhappy. A man marries many brides, and Ambition, if the truth be told, is, perhaps, the dearest. I shall embrace her. You should be able to understand.”

”But the woman. She must have seen that you loved her. She may have cared more in return than you knew.”

I looked at her. ”The lady of the miniature,” I said slowly, ”had many lovers. If she showed me special favor, I a.s.sure you I did not know.

But even if her fancy did stray toward me,--which I think it did not,--why, she was---- She was a winsome, softly smiling, gentle lady, mademoiselle. She was not fire, and spirit, and courage, and loyalty, and temper, and tenderness. No, she was not in the least like that. I think that she would soon forget. Have we dropped this subject forever, mademoiselle?”

She made me a grave curtsy. ”Till we reach Montreal,” she promised, and she did not raise her eyes.

We were married at noon. The altar stood under an oak tree, and the light sifted in patterns on the ground. I wore satin, and ribbon, and s.h.i.+ning buckle, for I carried those gewgaws in my cargo, but my finery did not shame my bride's attire. She stood proud, and rounded, and supple in her deerskins, and a man might have gloried in her. Seven hundred Indians, glistening like snakes with oil and vermilion, squatted around us, but they held themselves as lifeless as marionettes. It was so still that I heard the snore of a sleeping dog and the gulls in the harbor squawking over a floating fish. Father Nouvel spoke very slowly. This was a real marriage, a sacrament, to him.

As we turned from the ceremony, Onanguisse came forward. He was not painted, but he wore a mantle of embroidered buffalo skin, and his hair, which was dressed high with eagle's feathers, was powdered with down from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of white gulls. He stood in front of the woman.

”Listen,” he said. ”I speak to the white thrush. She cannot understand my words, but her heart has called to my heart, and that will teach her to know my meaning. Brethren, bear witness. An eagle cares naught for a partridge, but an eagle calls to an eagle though there be much water and many high rocks between. You know the lodge of Onanguisse. It has fire, but no warmth. I am old, and age needs love to warm it, but I am alone. First my wife, then my two sons, last of all, at the time the chestnuts were in blossom, my daughter Mimi,--the Master of Life called them one by one. I have washed my face, and I have combed my hair, yet who can say I have not mourned? My life has been as dead as the dried gra.s.s that thatches the muskrat's lodges.

When have any of you seen Onanguisse smile? Yet think not that I stretch out my hands to the country of souls. I will live, and sit at the council fire till many of you who are before me have evaporated like smoke from a pipe. For I am of the race of the bear, and the bear never yields while one drop of blood is left. And the Master of Life has been kind. He has brought me at last a woman who has an eagle's eyesight and a bear's endurance. She is worthy to be of my family. I have waited for such an one. Her speech is strange, but her blood answers mine. It is idle to mourn. I will replace the dead with the living. This woman shall be no more the white thrush. She shall be Mimi, the turtle dove, the daughter of Onanguisse. Brethren, bear witness. Mimi is no longer dead. She stands here.” He stepped closer to the woman. ”I give you this cloak that you may wrap me in your memory,” he went on. ”I hereby confirm my words;” and thereupon, he threw over her shoulders a long, s.h.i.+ning mantle made of the small skins of the white hare. It was a robe for an empress.

I stepped forward, then stood still, and resolved to trust the woman as she had asked.