“No, no. Blackbird she wife of Jean Magliss in de winter camps.” “John McGillis? Is it for marry in' on a haythen wife he is?” “O oui. Two wives. One good Cat'olique. Jean Magliss, he dance every night now with Amable Morin's girl. The more weddings, the more dancing. Me,” Léon shrugged, “I no want a woman eating my wages in Mackinac. A squaw in the winter camps--'t assez.” “Two wives, the bog-trotter!” gulped Owen. “John McGillis is a blayguard!” “Oui, what you call Irish,” assented Léon; and he dodged, but the cobbler threw nothing at him. Owen marked with the awl on his own leather apron. “First a haythen and then a quarther-brade,” he tallied against his countryman. “He will be takin' his quarther-brade to the praste before the boats go gut?” Léon raised fat eyebrows. “Amable Morin, he no fool. It is six daughters he has. O oui; the marriage is soon made.” “And the poor haythen, what does she do now?” “Blackbird? She watch Jean Magliss dance. Then she leave her lodge and take to de pine wood. Blackbird ver fond of what you call de Irish.” Owen was little richer in the gift of expression than the Indian woman, but he could feel the tragedy of her unconfirmed marriage. A squaw was taken to her lord's wigwam, and remained as long as she pleased him. He could divorce her with a gift, proportioned to his means and her worth. When Léon Baudette departed, Owen prepared and ate his supper, brewing himself some herb tea and seasoning it with a drop of whiskey. The evening beauty of the lake, of coasts melting in general dimness, and that iridescent stony hook stretched out from Round Island to grapple passing craft, was lost on Owen. Humid air did not soften the glower which grew and hardened on his visage as he made his preparations for night. These were very simple. The coals of drift-wood soon died to white ashes in his grate. To close the shop was to stand upon the shoemaker's bench and reach for the ladder in his attic--a short ladder that just performed its office and could be hidden aloft. Drawing his stairway after him when he had ascended, Owen spread and arranged his blankets. The ghosts that rose from tortured bodies in the Kitchen below never worked any terror in his imagination when he went to bed. Rather, he lay stretched in his hard cradle gloating over the stars, his wild security, the thousand night aspects of nature which he could make part of himself without expressing. For him the moon cast gorgeous bridges on the water; the breathing of the woods was the breathing of a colossal brother; and when that awful chill which precedes the resurrection of day rose from the earth and started from the rock, he turned comfortably in his thick bedding and taxed sleepy eyes to catch the wanness coming over the lake.