“Ugh! not for all the King's money. What! marry a red Indian, and carry his pack like Fifine Perotte? I would die first! You are bold indeed, Paul La Crosse, to mention such a thing to me. Go back to the city! I would not trust myself again in your canoe. It required courage to do so at all, but Mademoiselle selected you for my boatmen, not I. I wonder she did so, when the brothers Ballou, and the prettiest fellows in town, were idle on the Batture.” “Ania is niece to the old medicine-woman in the stone wigwam at St. Valier; going to see her, eh?” asked the other boatman, with a slight display of curiosity. “Yes, I am going to visit my aunt Dodier; why should I not? She has crocks of gold buried in the house, I can tell you that, Pierre Ceinture!” “Going to get some from La Corriveau, eh? crocks of gold, eh?” said Paul La Crosse. “La Corriveau has medicines, too! get some, eh?” asked Pierre Ceinture. “I am going neither for gold nor medicines, but to see my aunt, if it concerns you to know, Pierre Ceinture! which it does not!” “Mademoiselle des Meloises pay her to go, eh? not going back ever, eh?” asked the other Indian. “Mind your own affairs, Paul La Crosse, and I will mind mine! Mademoiselle des Meloises paid you to bring me to St. Valier, not to ask me impertinences. That is enough for you! Here is your fare; now you can return to the Sault au Matelot, and drink yourselves blind with the money!” “Very good, that!” replied the Indian. “I like to drink myself blind, will do it to-night! Like to see me, eh? Better that than go see La Corriveau! The habitans say she talks with the Devil, and makes the sickness settle like a fog upon the wigwams of the red men. They say she can make palefaces die by looking at them! But Indians are too hard to kill with a look! Fire-water and gun and tomahawk, and fever in the wigwams, only make the Indians die.” “Good that something can make you die, for your ill manners! look at my stocking!” replied Fanchon, with warmth. “If I tell La Corriveau what you say of her there will be trouble in your wigwam, Pierre Ceinture!” “Do not do that, Ania!” replied the Indian, crossing himself earnestly; “do not tell La Corriveau, or she will make an image of wax and call it Pierre Ceinture, and she will melt it away before a slow fire, and as it melts my flesh and bones will melt away, too! Do not tell her, Fanchon Dodier!” The Indian had picked up this piece of superstition from the white habitans, and, like them, thoroughly believed in the supernatural powers of La Corriveau. “Well, leave me! get back to the city, and tell Mademoiselle I arrived safe at St. Valier,” replied Fanchon, turning to leave them.