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And Nataline–well, there is no way of describing what Nataline did, except to say that she played the fife.

She felt the contest just as her father did, not as deeply, perhaps, but in the same spirit. She went into the fight with darkness like a little soldier. And she played the fife.

When she came up from the kitchen with the smoking pail of tea, she rapped on the
door and called out to know whether the Windigo was at home to-night.

She ran in and out of the place like a squirrel. She looked up at the light and laughed. Then she ran in and reported. “He winks,” she said, “old one-eye winks beautifully. Keep him going. My turn now!”

She refused to be put off with a shorter spell than the other girls. “No,” she cried, “I can do it as well as you. You think you are so much older. Well, what of that? The light is part mine; father said so. Let me turn. va-t-en.”

When the first glimmer of the little day came shivering along the eastern horizon, Nataline was at the crank. The mother and the two older girls were half asleep. Baptiste stepped out to look at the sky. “Come,” he cried, returning. “We can stop now, it is growing gray in the east, almost morning.”

“But not yet,” said Nataline; “we must wait for the first red. A few more turns. Let’s finish it up with a song.”

She shook her head and piped up the refrain of the old Canadian chanson:

“En roulant ma boule-le roulant
En roulant ma bou-le.”

And to that cheerful music the first night’s battle was carried through to victory.

The next day Fortin spent two hours in trying to repair the clockwork. It was of no use. The broken part was indispensable and could not be replaced.

At noon he went over to the mainland to tell of the disaster, and perhaps to find out if any hostile hand was responsible for it. He found out nothing. Every one denied all knowledge of the accident. Perhaps there was a flaw in the wheel; perhaps it had broken itself. That was possible. Fortin could not deny it; but the thing that hurt him most was that he got so little sympathy. Nobody seemed to care whether the light was kept burning or not. When he told them how the machine had been turned all night by hand, they were astonished. “CRE-IE!” they cried, “you must have had a great misery to do that.” But that he proposed to go on doing it for a month longer, until December tenth, and to begin again on April first, and go on turning the light by hand for three or four weeks more until the supply-boat came down and brought the necessary tools to repair the machine–such an idea as this went beyond their horizon.

“But you are crazy, Baptiste,” they said, “you can never do it; you are not capable.”

“I would be crazy,” he answered, “if I did not see what I must do. That light is my charge. In all the world there is nothing else so great as that for me and for my family–you understand? For us it is the chief thing. It is my Ten Commandments. I shall keep it or be damned.”

There was a silence after this remark. They were not very particular about the use of language at Dead Men’s Point, but this shocked them a little. They thought that Fortin was swearing a shade too hard. In reality he was never more reverent, never more soberly in earnest.

After a while he continued, “I want some one to help me with the work on the island. We must be up all the nights now. By day we must get some sleep. I want another man or a strong boy. Is there any who will come? The Government will pay. Or if not, I will pay, moi-meme.”

There was no response. All the men hung back. The lighthouse was still unpopular, or at least it was on trial. Fortin’s pluck and resolution had undoubtedly impressed them a little. But they still hesitated to commit themselves to his side.