"I'm afraid that is not very definite. You see I didn't even know the moon had been turned. Who turned it? And is it really turned to cheese or just turned around?" The girl regarded him gravely, a puzzled expression puckering her face. Bill laughed. "Forgive me," he begged. "I was talking nonsense. Can you tell me how many days I have been here?" "It is fifteen days since we drew you from the river." "Who's _we_?" Again the girl seemed perplexed. "I mean, who helped you pull me out of the drink?" "Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She is my mother. She is an Indian, and very old." "Are _you_ an Indian?" asked the man in such evident surprise that the girl laughed. "My father was white. I am a breed," she answered; then with a quick lifting of the chin, hastened to add: "But not like the breeds of the rivers! My father was Lacombie, the factor at Crossette, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, and they were married by a priest at the mission. "That was very long ago, and now Lacombie is dead and the priest also, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta has a paper; also it is written in the book at the mission that men may read it and know." Carmody was amused at her eagerness and watched the changing expression of her face as she continued more slowly: "My father was good. But he is dead and, until you came, there has been no good white man." Bill smiled at the naive frankness of her. "Why do you think that I am good?" he inquired. "In your eyes I have read it. That night, before the wild fever-spirit entered your body, I looked long into your eyes. And has not Jacques told me of how you killed the _loup-garou_; of how you are hated by Moncrossen, and feared by Creed? "Do I not know that fire cannot burn you nor water drown? Did you not beat down the greatest of Moncrossen's fighting men? And has not Wabishke told in the woods, to the wonder of all, how you drink no whisky, but pour it upon your feet?" The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flushing. "Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the lips speak the truth." She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A delicious thrill passed through his body at the touch. As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous, like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him. She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting out the face--and he slept. CHAPTER XXIX A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.