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ed, a few hours' sleep. At dawn they returned to the cabin. It was a cautious approach. There was no smoke coming from the chimney. The door was closed. Pierrot and Bush McTaggart were gone.
CHAPTER 16
It was the beginning of August--the Flying-up Moon--when Pierrot returned from Lac Bain, and in three days more it would be the Willow's seventeenth birthday. He brought back with him many things for Nepeese--ribbons for her hair, real shoes, which she wore at times like the two Englishwomen at Nelson House, and chief glory of all, some wonderful red cloth for a dress. In the three winters she had spent at the mission these women had made much of Nepeese. They had taught her to sew as well as to spell and read and pray, and at times there came to the Willow a compelling desire to do as they did.
So for three days Nepeese worked hard on her new dress and on her birthday she stood before Pierrot in a fashion that took his breath away. She had piled her hair in great coils on the crown of her head, as Yvonne, the younger of the Englishwomen, had taught her, and in the rich jet of it had half buried a vivid sprig of the crimson fireflower. Under this, and the glow in her eyes, and the red flush of her lips and cheeks came the wonderful red dress, fitted to the slim and sinuous beauty of her form--as the style had been two winters ago at Nelson House. And below the dress, which reached just below the knees--Nepeese had quite forgotten the proper length, or else her material had run out--came the coup de maitre of her toilet, real stockings and the gay shoes with high heels! She was a vision before which the gods of the forests might have felt their hearts stop beating. Pierrot turned her round and round without a word, but smiling. When she left him, however, followed by Baree, and limping a little because of the tightness of her shoes, the smile faded from his face, leaving it cold and bleak.
"Mon Dieu," he whispered to himself