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To her husband himself she was 'Tite Laboise, the most aggravating, delicious, unaccountable creature in the Northwest. "She says she will not see you, Charle'," said Mademoiselle Laboise, color like sunset vermilion showing in the delicate aboriginal face. "What have I done?" gasped the voyageur. Mademoiselle lifted French shoulders with her father's gesture. She did not know.
He rested it against his side, his elbow pointing a triangle, and waited aggressively for her to speak. The back of her pretty neck and fine tendrils of curly hair ruffled above it were very moving; but his heart swelled indignantly. "'Tite Laboise, why did you shut the door in my face when I came back to you after a year's absence?" She answered faintly, "Me, I don't know."
Though in those days of the young century a man might become anything; for the West was before him, an empire, and woodcraft was better than learning. Madame Laboise accepted her niece's husband with kindness. Her house was among the most hospitable in Mackinac, and she was chagrined at the reception the young man had met.
Fort Mackinac was glittering white on the heights above them, and half-way up a paved ascent leading to the sally-port sauntered 'Tite Laboise. All the voyageurs saw her; and strict as was the discipline of the yard, they directly expected trouble. The packing, however, went on with vigor.
"Did I expect to be treated this way?" shouted the injured husband. "Who can ever tell what 'Tite will do next?" That was the truth. No one could tell. Yet her flightiest moods were her most alluring moods. If she had not been so pretty and so adroit at dodging whippings when a child, 'Tite Laboise might not have set Mackinac by the ears as often as she did.
Night and day the thump of their drums and the monotonous chant of their dances could be heard above the rush and whisper of blue water breaking on pebbles. Lake Michigan was a deep sapphire color, and from where she stood below the sally-port 'Tite Laboise could see the mainland's rim of beach and slopes of forest near and distinct in transparent light.
Huge and innocent primitive man was Charle' Charette. He could sleep under snow-drifts like a baby, carry double packs of furs, pull oars all day without tiring, and dance all night after hardships which caused some men to desire to lie down and die. The summer before, at nineteen years of age, this light-haired, light-hearted voyageur had been married to 'Tite Laboise.
And all the spell of that island, which since it rose from the water it has held, lay around them. Étienne St. Martin picked up a beaver-skin, and in the sight of 'Tite Laboise her husband laid hold of it. "Release that, Mange'-du-lard," he said. "Eh bien!" responded Étienne, knowing that he was challenged and the eyes of the whole yard were on him.
And he loved her. Madame knew what tears he had shed, what serenades he had played on his fiddle under 'Tite's window, and how he had outdanced her other partners. He dropped his head on his breast and picked at the crow's feather. The widow Laboise pitied him. But who could account for 'Tite's whims? "When she heard the boats were in sight she was frantic with joy.
There was much confusion in his mind and in the yard, but he knew 'Tite Laboise flew through the gate and past him, and he tried to propitiate her by a look. "Pig!" she projected at him like a missile, and he sat down on the ground between the guards who were trying to hold him up and wept copiously.
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