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Title: Montlivet


Author: Alice Prescott Smith



Release Date: September 23, 2005  [eBook #16733]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTLIVET***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



MONTLIVET

by

ALICE PRESCOTT SMITH

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Houghton, Mifflin and Co.

1907







TO

M. C. H. AND A. E. H.




CONTENTS

      I.  THE KEY
     II.  THE CAPTIVE
    III.  BEHIND THE COMMANDANT'S DOOR
     IV.  IN THE OTTAWA CAMP
      V.  A DECISION
     VI.  DAME OPPORTUNITY
    VII.  THE BEGINNING
   VIII.  PARTNERS
     IX.  WESTWARD
      X.  I WAKE A SLEEPER
     XI.  MARY STARLING
    XII.  A COMPACT
   XIII.  WE REACH THE ISLANDS
    XIV.  A PROVISIONAL BARGAIN
     XV.  I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER
    XVI.  THE STORM
   XVII.  AFTER THE STORM
  XVIII.  IN WHICH I USE OPPORTUNITY
    XIX.  IN THE MIST
     XX.  WHAT I FOUND
    XXI.  THE PIVOT
   XXII.  THE PRICE OF SLEEP
  XXIII.  I ENCOUNTER MIXED MOTIVES
   XXIV.  I MEET VARIOUS WELCOMES
    XXV.  OVER CADILLAC'S TABLE
   XXVI.  FROM HOUR TO HOUR
  XXVII.  IN COUNCIL
 XXVIII.  CHILDREN OF OPPORTUNITY
   XXIX.  I FOLLOW MY PATH
    XXX.  THE MEANING OF CONQUEST
   XXXI.  THE UNDESERVED
  XXXII.  I TELL THE WOMAN
 XXXIII.  TO US AND TO OUR CHILDREN




MONTLIVET

CHAPTER I

THE KEY

The May sun was shining on Michillimackinac, and I, Armand de
Montlivet, was walking the strip of beach in front of the French
garrison.

I did not belong to Michillimackinac.  I had come in only the day
before with two canoes and four men, and I was bound for the beaver
lands further west.  A halt was necessary, for the trip had been
severe, and remembering that it was necessity, and not idleness, that
held me, I was enjoying the respite.  My heart was light, and since the
heart is mistress of the heels, I walked somewhat trippingly.  I was on
good terms with myself at the moment.  My venture was going well, and I
was glad to be alone, and breathe deep of the sweet spring air, and let
my soul grow big with the consciousness of what it would like to do.
So content was I, that I was annoyed to see La Mothe-Cadillac approach.

Yet Cadillac was important to me then.  He was commandant at
Michillimackinac,--the year was 1695,--and so was in control of the
strategic point of western New France.  The significance of all that he
stood for, and all that he might accomplish, filled my thought as he
swaggered toward me now, and I said to myself, somewhat complacently,
that, with all his air of importance, I had a fuller conception than he
of what lay in his palm.

He hailed me without preface.  "Where do you find food for your
laughter in this forsaken country, Montlivet?  I have watched you
swagger up and down with a smile on your face for the last hour.  What
is the jest?"

In truth, there was no jest in me by the time he finished.  My own
thought had just called him a swaggerer, and now he clapped the same
phrase back at me.

"There are more swaggerers upon this beach than I," I cried hotly, and
I felt my blood rise.

My tone was more insulting than my words, and Cadillac, too, grew red.
I saw the veins upon his neck begin to swell, and all my childish
irritation vanished.

"Come, monsieur," I hastened; "I was wrong.  But I meant no harm, and
surely here is a jest fit for your laughter, that two grown men should
stand and swell at each other like turkeycocks, all because they are
drunk with the air of a May day.  Come, here is my hand."

"But you said that I"--

"And what if I did?" I interrupted.  I had fallen into step, and was
pacing by his side.  "What is there in the term that we should hold it
in slight esteem?  I swagger.  What does that mean, after all, but my
acknowledgment of the presence of Dame Opportunity, and my admission
that I would like to impress her; to draw her eye in my direction.
Surely that is laudable, monsieur."

Cadillac laughed.  His tempers were the ruffle of a passing breeze upon
deep water.  "So you think that I swagger to meet opportunity?  Well,
if I do, I get but little out of it.  Sometimes I push myself near
enough to pluck at the sleeve of the dame; oftener she passes me by."

"Yet she gave you this key to an empire," I suggested.  I had been
rude, and I repented it, and more than that, there was something in the
man that tempted me to offer him flattery even as I desire to give
sweets to an engaging child.

But this cajolery he swept away with a fling of his heavy arm.  "The
key to an empire!" he echoed contemptuously.  "They are fine words, and
the mischief is that they are true.  Yet food in my stomach, and money
in my pocket, would mean more to me just now.  I must speak to this
Indian.  Will you wait for me, monsieur?  I have business with you."

I bowed, and resumed my walk.  "The key to an empire!" I said my own
words over, and could have blushed for their tone of bombast.  They
were true, but they sounded false, I looked at my surroundings, and
marveled that a situation that was of real dignity could wear so mean a
garb.  The sandy cove where I stood was on the mainland, and sheltered
four settlements.  Behind lay the forest; in front stretched Lake
Huron, a waterway that was our only link with the men and nations we
had left behind.  The settlements were contiguous in body, but even my
twenty-four hours' acquaintance had shown me that they were leagues
apart in mind.  There were a French fort, a Jesuit convent, a village
of Ottawas, and, barred by the aristocracy of a palisade, a village of
Hurons.  The scale of precedence was plain to read.  The huts of the
savages were wattled, interlaced of poles and bark; the French
buildings were of wood, but roofed with rough cedar; the only houses
with board roofs were those of the Jesuits.  In later times when I
found Father Carheil hard to understand, I used to say to myself that
he was not to be held too strictly to account for his contradictions,
for though one learns to think great thoughts in the wilderness, it is
not done easily when there is sawed lumber to shut away the sky.

Cadillac came back to me in a few moments.  He had lost his swelling
port, and was frowning with thought.  "I saw you in the Huron camp,
Montlivet," he said.  "Do you understand their speech?"

Now this was a question that I thought it as well to put by.  "Would
you call it speech?" I demurred.  "It sounded more like snarling."

"Then you do understand it?"

I kicked at the dogs at my feet.  "Frowns are a common language.  I
could understand them, at least.  The camp is restless.  Are they
hungry?"

Cadillac shrugged his shoulders.  "Possibly.  But it is not hunger that
sagamité or maize cakes can reach.  Would a taste of Iroquois broth put
them in better condition, do you think?"

I turned away somewhat sickened.  "It is a savage remedy," I broke out.
"And a good cook will catch his hare before he talks of putting it in
the pot.  Where is your Iroquois hare, Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac?"

The commandant shook his head.  "My hare is still at large," he
confessed.  "Though just now----  Come, Monsieur de Montlivet, let us
to plain speech.  We are talking as slantingly as savages.  I have a
Huron messenger at my quarters.  Come with me, and interpret."

"A messenger from your own camp?"

"Is it my own camp?" he queried soberly.  "I do not know.  I have
reason to think that many of my Hurons are ripe for English bribes,--or
even for the Iroquois.  It is a strange menagerie that I rule over
here, and the Hurons are the foxes,--when they are not trying to be
lions.  You say that their camp is restless.  I do not speak their
language, but I can tell you more.  They are in two factions.  Those
who follow old Kondiaronk, the Rat, are fairly loyal, but the faction
under the Baron would sell us to the English for the price of a cask of
rum.  Truly our scalps sit lightly on our heads here in this garrison."

I hesitated.  I did not like this situation, and prudence whispered
that I had best cut the conversation here, and make my way as swiftly
as possible to the west.  But curiosity urged me to one more question.
I asked it with my lips pursing to a whistle, that I might seem
indifferent.  "Is the messenger from the Baron?"

Cadillac nodded contentedly.  "So you have decided to help me," he
said, with a smile that read my indecision perfectly, and I felt, with
a rush of blood to my face, much less sure of myself, and more respect
for him.  "I wish that I had inducements to keep you here," he went on,
"for I hear from Montreal that you have wonderful command of Indian
dialects.  But I will take what you are willing to give, and be
thankful.  As to this messenger,--this is the tale.  Some months ago a
small band of Hurons left here for the south.  Hunting, or war, or
diplomacy, how shall I say what was their errand?  But I mistrust them,
for they are followers of the Baron.  They returned this morning, and
are in camp on the island.  Their sending a messenger in advance looks
as if they had a prisoner, and so desired to be welcomed in state.  If
the prisoner should be an Iroquois"----

Now certain tales were fresh in my ears, and so I did not like the
implication of the unfinished sentence, and hastened to cover it.  "It
is a favorable sign, monsieur, that the messenger came to you first."

"How do I know that he came to me first?  He came to me--yes.  But
because a snake slips out of one hole, can you swear that he has not
been in another?  Will you go to him now?"

There was no door open for escape, and the matter was not important
enough for me to be willing to force one.  "If you wish," I agreed.

Cadillac looked relieved.  "Good!  You will find the messenger at my
quarters.  I shall let you go alone, for I can make nothing of the
man's speech, and he smells somewhat rancid for a close acquaintance.
When you are through, you will find me here."

I bowed, and made my way to his quarters.  I knew as I opened his door
that I might be entering more than appeared upon the surface, but the
excitement of the game was worth the hazard,--even the hazard of a
possible delay,--and I pushed the door wide, and went in.

The Huron was sitting in the middle of the floor, handling his calumet
with some ostentation.  The Hurons were but the remnant of a race, for
Iroquois butchery had reduced them in numbers and in spirit, but even
in their exile they preserved a splendor of carriage that made the
Ottawas, who camped beside them here, seem but a poor and shuffling
people.  This man was a comely specimen, and he was decked to do honor
to the moment.  His blanket was clean, and his head freshly shaved
except for a bristling ridge that ran, like a cock's comb, across his
crown, and that dripped sunflower oil over his shoulders.

He handed me his calumet, and we smoked for the time required by
ceremony, then he rose, and drew two beaver skins from the folds of his
blanket.

"The sun has smiled upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity
which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself,
but seemed fitting enough in him.  "I speak for my people who are in
camp upon the island.  We have been upon strange rivers, and over
mountains where the very name of Frenchman is unknown.  Yet we have
returned, and we come to you at once, as the partridge to her young.
We are glad to see a Frenchman's face again.  We confirm what we have
said by giving these beavers."

I smoked for a moment, then leaned over and kicked the skins into the
corner.  "Why these words?" I asked, with a slow shrug.  "Does the leg
thank the arm for its service?  Does the mouth give flatteries and
presents to the tongue?  We of Michillimackinac are all of one body.
My brother must be drunk with the bad rum of the English traders, that
he should come to me in this way.  No, if my brother has anything to
say, let him think it aloud without ceremony, as if speaking to his own
heart.  Let him save his beavers till he goes to treat with strangers."

There was a long silence.  The Huron wrapped his blanket closer, and
looked at me, while I stared back as unwinkingly.  His face was a mask,
but I thought--as I have thought before and since when at the council
fire--that there was amusement in the very blankness of his gaze, and
that my effort to outdo him at his own mummery somewhat taxed his
gravity.  When he spoke at last he told his story concisely.

A half hour later, I went in search of Cadillac.  He heard my step on
the crunching gravel, and when I was still rods away, he laid his
finger on his lips for silence.  I went to him rather resentfully, for
I had had no mind to shout my news in the street of the settlement, and
I thought that he was acting like a child.  But he took no notice of my
pique, and clapped me on the shoulder as if we were pot-companions.

"Hush, man," he whispered fretfully.  "Your look is fairly shouting the
news abroad.  No need to keep your tongue sealed, when you carry such a
tell-tale face.  So they have an Iroquois?"

I dropped my shoulder away from under his hand.  "If that is the news
that you say I shouted, no harm is done,--save to my honor.  No, they
have no Iroquois."

Cadillac stopped.  "No Iroquois!" he echoed heavily.

"No, monsieur.  They have an Englishman."

It was as if I had struck him.  He stepped back, and his face grew dull
red.

"A spy?"

I shook my head.  I could feel my blood pumping hard, but I answered by
rote.  "Not by the Huron's story."

The commandant snapped his fingers.  "That for his story!  As idle as
wind in the grass!" he snorted.  "But what did he say?"

I grew as laconic as the Huron.  "That they left here as a hunting
party," I said categorically.

"That they soon joined a war party of Algonquins, and went with them to
the English frontier.  I could make little of his geography, but I
infer that they went in the direction of Boston,--though not so far.
There the Algonquins fell upon a village, where they scalped and burned
to their fill.  He says that the Hurons remained neutral, and this
prisoner, he maintains, is theirs by purchase.  They bought him from
the Algonquins for two white dressed deerskins, and they have treated
him well.  They have found him a man of spirit and importance, and they
ask that you make a suitable feast in honor of what they have done.
The Huron is waiting for your answer."

Cadillac had listened nodding, and his reply was ready.  "Tell him that
they must bring the prisoner to-morrow early,--soon after daybreak.
Tell him that Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac knows his part, and that
the kettles shall be full of dog-meat, and the young men painted and
ready for the dancing."  He spoke rapidly, his hand on his sword, and
his great shoulders lifted as if eager to meet their new burden.  He
turned to me with a smile that would have conquered enmity in a wolf.
"This is great news, Montlivet.  I could almost ask you to drink the
health of the Baron, and all his scurvy, seditious crew.  For, look
you, even if the Englishman is a spy, and the Hurons have brought him
here to make a secret treaty, why, he is in our hands, and Boston is a
continent away.  He will have opportunity to learn some French before
he goes back to his codfish friends.  What say you, monsieur?"

I laughed rather ruefully.  I saw that the game was to be exciting, and
I had never been backward at a sport.  Yet I knew that I must turn my
face from it.

"What do I say?" I repeated.  "Nothing, monsieur, but that I am a
trader, not a diplomat, and that to-morrow I must be on my way to the
west.  I will take your answer to the Huron.  Monsieur, I hope you will
sleep long and sweetly to-night.  You will need a clear head to-morrow."

Cadillac looked at me, and wagged his head.  "Good-day to you, trader,"
he said, with one of his noiseless laughs.  "How well you must sleep
who have no thought beyond your beaver skins,--even though you do carry
brandy and muskets hidden in your cargo.  Never mind, never mind.  Keep
your secrets.  Only see that Father Carheil does not smell your brandy,
or I may be forced to send you back to Montreal."




CHAPTER II

THE CAPTIVE

I woke the next morning, saying, "I must keep out of this," and I knew
that I had said it in my slumber.  It is pitiful that a man should be
so infirm of will that he need cosset his resolution in this fashion,
and I kicked the dogs from the door of my cabin, and went out to meet
the world in a bad humor.

It was a still world in the great sky and water spaces, but a noisy one
upon the shore.  Early as it was--the night dusk was still
lingering--the kettles were simmering, and the Indians decked for a
holiday.  The sense of approaching action was powder to my nostrils,
and added to my spleen; so though I went down upon the beach, and
joined Cadillac and his officers, I was but surly company, and soon
turned my back upon them, to stare off at the lake.

It was a breezeless morning, and the lake was without ripple.  It lay
like one of the metal mirrors that we sell the Indians, a lustreless
gray sheet that threw back twisted pictures.  I looked off at the east,
and thought of the dull leagues that lay behind me, and the uncounted
ones before, and I realized that the morning air was cold, and that I
hated the dark, secret water that led through this strange land.  Yet,
even as I scowled at it, the disk of the sun climbed over the island's
rim, and laid a shining pathway through the gray,--a pathway that ended
at my feet.

I felt my pulse quicken.  After all, it was a fair world, and the air,
though keen, was a cordial.  I let my gaze travel up that shining,
glimmering track, and while I looked it was suddenly flecked with
canoes.  Long and brown, they swung down toward me like strong-winged
birds upheld by the path of the sunrise.

I looked back at the Indians.  They, too, had seen the canoes, but they
made no sound of welcome.  Bedizened and wolf-eyed, they stood in
formal ranks as attentive as children at a pantomime.  In a moment the
canoes took clearer shape, and the shine of the paddles could be seen
as the flat of the blades slanted toward the light.  The men at the
paddles were indistinguishable, crouching shapes, but their prisoner
was standing.  He stood in the foremost canoe, and as his figure was
outlined against the sun I saw that he was rigid as a mummy.  I turned
to Cadillac.  To see a white man bound!  I could feel the thongs eating
into my own flesh.

"They have bound the Englishman!" I protested.  "Let us hope that they
are not daring enough--or crazed enough--to make him sing to grace
their triumph."

But he laughed at my tone.  "What does it matter?" he shrugged.  "These
wards of mine--my happy family--must have their fête in their own
fashion, or they will ask that I pay the piper.  Well, whatever they
do, the prisoner is in our hands, and it will be long before he escapes
them.  Yes, listen,--oh, the play-acting dogs!--they are making him
sing now."

He had a keen ear, for, even to my forest-trained sense, the sound came
but faintly.  The crowd hushed its breathing, and the air was
unwholesomely still.  A dog yelped, and an Indian silenced it with a
kick.  Each paddle-stroke threw the canoes into sharper relief, and we
could distinguish lank arms, and streaming hair.  The prisoner's voice
echoed as clear as if he were in some great playhouse, and were singing
to gain the plaudits of a friendly throng.

I felt my blood tingling in my fingers' ends.  It was a brave song,
bravely sung.  I could not understand the English words, but the sound
was rollicking with defiance.  It was a glove thrown in our faces; the
challenge of a brave man to a cowardly foe.

"The plucky beggar!" I said half aloud, and I set my teeth hard.

But Cadillac was nudging my elbow.  "You said that the prisoner was a
man of importance," he accused, with a perplexed frown.  "But, listen!
He has the voice of a boy."

I was greedy to hear, so, with a wave of the hand, I shook Cadillac
away.  But, in truth, I was disturbed.  The tones were certainly boyish.

The canoes came within bowshot, and the hush that held the camp
suddenly broke like the release of pent waters.  There were yells and
stamping, the smash of tom-toms, and a scattering salvo of musketry.
It was a united roar that shut out from our consciousness the thought
of the calm sky and the silent water.

The canoes had come as unswervingly as arrows, and the one that held
the prisoner landed at my feet.  I looked up, and met his eyes, and I
swept my hat from my head.

"You are among friends," I called, not knowing that I did so.

It was a foolish speech, since the prisoner could not understand; but I
suppose that my tone was kind, for it apparently gave him courage.  At
least, a flush that might have been the color of returning hope rose in
his cheeks.  I was relieved at his appearance, for he was not the
little lad that his song had made me fear.  He was slim and beardless,
but there were sorrow and understanding in his look that could not come
with childhood.  For the rest, he was dark and gaunt from exposure and
privation.  His rough woolen suit, leather-lined, hung loosely on him,
but he wore it with a jauntiness that matched the bravado of his song.

Cadillac came forward in welcome.  He was always an orator that the
Indians themselves envied, and now his rhetoric was as unhampered as
though he thought that the prisoner was following each flowing
syllable.  As he unbound the stiffened arms--they were pitifully thin
and small, I thought--he called all mythology to witness his deep
regret that this indignity should have been offered to his brother of
the white race.  I followed him and listened, storing away metaphors
even as I carried beads in my cargo.  I should need all the eloquence
at my command before the close of the summer, and my own tongue was
always too direct of speech.

Cadillac felt me at his elbow, and when he saw my listening face he
stopped to give me a slow wink.  "Will monsieur turn pupil to learn
swaggering?" he asked, with an upward cock of the eye.  "I had thought
him too old for a school."

I bowed, and hated myself for my lagging wits that would not furnish a
retort.  "Never too old to sit at your feet," I assured him, and I went
away knowing that I had been slow, and that the honors were with him,
but knowing, also, that somehow I liked the man, and that I should
drink his health when I opened my next tierce of canary.

I went to find my men, and it was time that I bestirred myself.
License was in order, and the revel assaulted eyes, ears, and nose,
till a white man was wise if he forsook his dignity, and ran like a fox
to cover.  The air was surfeiting with the steam of food.  Dog-meat
bubbled in great caldrons, and maize cakes crackled on hot stones.  A
bear had been brought in, and was being hacked in pieces to add to the
broth.  The women did this, and as I passed them they stopped, with
their hands dripping red, and shook their wampum necklaces at me, and
pointed meaningly toward a neighboring hut, where I had been told that
rum could be bought if you were discreet in choosing your occasion.  I
tossed them a handful of small coins, and warned them in Huron that if
they molested my men I should report them to the commandant.  I felt
yet more haste to see my canoes under way.

I was plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my
sleeve.  "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled,
and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine.  It was an
old face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and
gray, but never have I met a look that showed more fire and
unconquerable will.  "The commandant wishes you," he went on.  "He
asked me to fetch you.  I should not have complied--it is I who should
ask services of him--but I wished to speak to you on my own account.
Monsieur, do you know these men that you have in your employ?"

I nodded.  "As well as I know my own heart.  They are my habitants."

"Your habitants!  Then you have a seigniory?  Why do you not stay there
as the king wishes?"

I shook my head at him.  "We use large words in this new land, father.
Yes, I have a seigniory.  That is, I own some barren acres near
Montreal that I can occupy only at risk of my scalp.  As to the king, I
think he wishes me to trade,--at least I carry his license to that
effect.  But what are my men doing?"

The Jesuit's thin old hands clutched each other.  "They are turning
this place into a Sodom," he said passionately.  "They are drinking and
carousing with the Indian women.  You traders are our ruin.  But we
will shut you out of the country yet.  Mark my words.  Those
twenty-five licenses will be revoked before the season ends, and you
will have to find other excuses to bring your rabble here to debauch
our missions."

In view of what I had just seen, I felt impatient.  "You do my handful
of stolid peasants too much honor," I said dryly.  "They would need
more wit and ingenuity than I have ever seen in them to be able to
teach outlawry to anything that they find here.  But I am looking for
them now.  You will pardon me if I hasten."

But his hand pulled at me.  "Is one of your men lipped like a
bull-moose and red as Rufus?"

"Pierre Boudin to the life," I chuckled.  "What deviltry is he at now?"

The priest's face lost its flame.  He looked suddenly the old man worn
out in the service of a savage people.  "He is with an Ottawa girl," he
said sadly; "a girl the Indians call Singing Arrow for her wit and her
laughter.  She is not a convert, but she is a good girl.  I wish you
would get your man away."

I felt shame for my man and myself.  "I will go at once," I promised
soberly.  "I will be westward bound by afternoon."

The old priest looked at me with friendly eyes.  "There will be trouble
before sundown," he said gravely.  "If you wish to get away, go
quickly, or you may not go at all.  Now you must report to the
commandant."

But I had turned my face the other way.  "Not till I have found
Pierre," I returned.

I had no summer stroll before me.  Pierre, Anak that he was, was as
lost as a leaf in a whirlpool, and though I had quick eyes, and
shoulders that could force a passage for me in a crowd, I could see no
sign of his oriole crest of red head in all the bobbing multitude of
blackbirds.  Instead I stumbled upon Cadillac.

He linked his arm in mine.  "Do you know," he said abruptly, "the
prisoner has spirit and to spare.  He may be a man of importance after
all."

I answered like a fool.  "I think not.  He is dressed like a yeoman."

Cadillac put me at arm's length, and puffed his cheeks with silent
laughter.  "Plumage, eh?  Are you willing to be judged by your own?" He
stopped to let his glance rest on my shabby gear.  "Truly it must be a
long year since you fronted a mirror, or you would not be so
complacent.  No, monsieur, the prisoner is a gentleman.  No yeoman ever
carried his head with such a poise.  But who is he?  I would give all
the pistoles in my pocket--though, in faith, they're few enough--if I
could understand English.  But you may be able to help me.  Go speak to
the prisoner in Huron.  He must have picked up something of the Indian
speech in his trip here."

This was my opportunity.  "Monsieur," I said, "I should like an
understanding.  Remember how little all this can mean to me,--a
trader,--and do not think me churlish if I try to keep myself free from
this intrigue.  I will go to the prisoner now, if you wish; but, that
done, I beg you to hold me excused of any further service in this
matter."

Cadillac looked me over, and now his glance went, not to my doublet,
but to the man within.  "A trader!" he said curtly.  "A trader carrying
contraband brandy.  A good commandant would send you back where you
belong.  No, no, monsieur, wait!  I am not threatening you.  Though you
know as well as I that the thumb-screws are rather convenient to my
hand should I care to use them.  But there should be no necessity for
that.  Montlivet, I hardly understand your reluctance in the matter of
this Englishman.  We should be one in this affair, whatever our private
concerns.  Even Black Gown and I--and the world says we are not
lovers--are working together.  Why do you draw back?"

I could not meet him with less than the truth.  "You have stated the
reason, monsieur.  My private concerns,--they seem large to me, and I
fear to jeopard them by becoming entangled here.  I regret this.  You
have shown me great clemency in the matter of the brandy,--though if
you had confiscated it I should still have pushed on,--and for that,
and for your own sake, monsieur, I should be glad to serve you."

He looked at my outstretched palm, and laid his own upon it.  "'T is
fairly spoken," he said slowly, "and I think you mean it."  Then he
grew peevish.  "A pest on this country!" he cried.  "We are all kings
in disguise, and have a monarchy hidden in our hats.  And what does it
amount to?  No bread, no wine, no thanks; a dog's life and a jackal's
death,--and all to hold some leagues of barren land for his
petticoat-ridden majesty at Versailles.  Oh, why not say it?  We can
tell the truth here without losing our heads."

"The king's arm"--I began.

"Is long," he interrupted.  "Yet, in truth, your face is longer.  Are
you so eager to be gone?  Well, get you to the prisoner, and, my hand
on it, I shall ask for nothing more."




CHAPTER III

BEHIND THE COMMANDANT'S DOOR

The commandant's door had come to be the portal through which I stepped
from safety into meddling.  Yet I opened it now with laughter peeping
from my sleeve.  To bait the Englishman in Huron seemed a good-natured
enough jest, and full of possibilities.

But one look at the prisoner drained my laughter.  He was lying on a
bench, his face hidden in his out-flung arms, and his slenderness and
helplessness pulled at me hard.  I knew that despair, and even tears,
must have conquered now that he was alone, and I wished that I might
save his pride, and slip away until he had fought back his bravery, and
had himself in hand.

But he had heard my step, and drew himself up to face me.  He turned
with composure, and fronted me with so much dignity that I stood like a
blundering oaf trapped by my own emotion.  There was no emotion in his
look.  He had been thinking, not despairing, and his face was sharpened
and lighted with such concentration that I felt slapped with cold
steel.  He looked all intellect and determination,--a thing of
will-power rather than flesh and brawn.

My Huron speech seemed out of place, but there was no choice left me,
so I used it.  There was refuge for my dignity in the sonorous
syllables, and I spoke as to a fellow sachem.  Then I asked the
prisoner his name, and waited for response.

None came.  I knew that I had spoken rapidly, so I tried again.  I
chose short words, and framed my sentences like a schoolmaster.  The
prisoner listened negligently.  Then he put out his hand.  "Pardon,
monsieur.  But I speak French,--though indifferently," he said, with a
slight shrug.

My anger made my ears buzz; I would not bandy words with a man of so
small and sly a spirit.  I turned to leave.

But the prisoner stepped between me and the door.  "You were sent here
with a message," he said; "I am listening."

His sunken brown eyes were so deep in melancholy that I could not hold
my wrath.  "Was it a gentleman's part to lead me on to play the clown?"
I asked.  "I came in kindness."

He smiled a little,--a bitter smile that did not reach his eyes.  "I am
not, like you, a gentleman by birth, monsieur," he said slowly, "and so
often trip in my behavior.  Granted that you were amusing,--and you
were, monsieur,--can you blame me for using you for a diversion?  I
infer that you have come to tell me that the time left me, either for
amusement or penitence, is short."

It was bravely said, but I knew from the careful repression of his tone
that his hardness was a brittle veneer.  He was young to carry so bold
a front when his heart must be hammering, and I would willingly have
talked any doggerel to have afforded him another smile.

"I know nothing of your future," I hastened, "save that, arguing from
your youth, it will probably be a long one.  It was your past that I
was sent to ask concerning.  The commandant sent me.  Since you speak
French, my mission is over.  The commandant will come himself."

The prisoner laid his hand upon a chair.  "Will you sit?  I would
rather it be you than the commandant, if it must be any one.  What were
you sent to ask?"

I waved away the chair, for I thought of the passing moments and of
what I had promised Father Carheil.  "I must hasten," I said irritably.
"What was I to ask?  Why, your name, the account of your capture,--the
story of your being here, in brief."

He saw that I glanced at the door, and he walked over to it.  "Wait!"
he interposed.  "I can answer you in a line.  But one question first.
Monsieur, I--I"--

"Yes, monsieur."

"Monsieur, I--I must think a moment.  Be patient, if you will."

His voice was calm, but there was something in his look that forced my
pity.  "Tell me nothing that I must not tell the commandant," I warned.
"But be assured of my good will."

I think he did not hear.  He sat with his forehead on his hand, and I
knew that he was thinking.  He looked up with a new decision in his
glance.

"Monsieur, you lead a strange life in this place.  I see nothing but
men.  Have you no families?"

I swore under my breath.  I had expected some meat from his remark, and
he gave me trivialities.  I had no time for social preliminaries, and I
felt sudden distaste for him.  I pointed him to the window.

"We are not all men.  There are Indian women in plenty.  Shall I draw
the shade that you may see?  There are many of my countrymen to tell
you that they find them fair."

"But are there no white families in the settlement?"  He was leaning
forward, and he ignored the insult of my air.

I shook my head.  "None, monsieur.  None short of Montreal."

He tapped the floor, and frowned.  His look went beyond me, and he was
absorbed.  "None short of Montreal.  Indeed you live a strange life.
Monsieur, is it far to Montreal?"

I shrugged.  "Yes, it is a long journey.  Come, monsieur, we waste
time.  I wish you good-day."

He glanced up quickly.  His was a misleading face, for while his words
were meaningless, and showed him of a small and trifling mind, his look
was yet keen.  He saw that I had wearied of him, and he put out his
hand to beg my attention.

"Wait, monsieur!" he cried.

"Monsieur, you waste my time."

"I shall waste no more.  I have made up my mind.  Listen.  I promised
you my story."  He had regained all his quiet arrogance.  "It is soon
told.  I am an Englishman,--or a colonist, if you like the term better.
I was in a village on the Connecticut frontier, when your savages came
down upon us.  No, I am wrong.  They did nothing so manly as to come
down upon us boldly.  They slid among us like foul vermin afraid of the
light.  They achieved a notable victory, monsieur.  I see that you
recognize their prowess, and that the feast you have prepared for them
is lavish.  It was a noble battle.  I regret you could not have seen
it.  There were some hundreds of the Indians, and a scattering handful
of us.  A quiet farming community, monsieur, that worked hard, supped
early, and slept the deep sleep of quiet living and sober minds.  We
waked to find the scalping knives at our throats, and the death scream
of children in our ears.  Look over the bags of scalps, and see the
number of women and old men that your braves had to overcome.  You will
be proud of them, monsieur."

I clenched my hand, and wished myself elsewhere.  "But our Hurons say
they were neutral," I defended.

He lifted his brows.  "You prefer to give all the praise to the
Algonquins?" he asked smoothly.  "I understand.  Yes, I have heard that
the Algonquins stand even closer to you than your Hurons here.  They
are more than brothers.  Indeed, it is said that your Count Frontenac
calls them his children.  Well, they did you credit.  It took ten of
them to silence Goodman Ellwood's musket, but they butchered him in the
end.  If you find a scalp with long silky white hair, monsieur, it
belongs to John Ellwood.  Value it, and nail it among your trophies,
for it cost you the lives of a full half-dozen Algonquin braves."

I kept my eyes down.  I had come here to unearth a certain fact, and I
would pursue it.  "But were the Hurons neutral?" I persisted.

I could not even guess at what raw nerve I touched, but he suddenly
threw his arms wide as men do when a shot is mortal.  His cool
insolence dropped from him, and he was all fire and helpless defiance.
He stamped his foot, till, slender as he was, the boards rang.  "Were
the Hurons neutral?" he mocked, in a voice so like my own I could have
sworn it was an echo.  "What manner of man are you?  Are you made of
chalk?  If you had seen a child's brains dashed out against a tree,
would you stop to ask the Indian who held the dripping corpse what
dialect he spoke?  Oh, a man should be ashamed to live who has seen
such things, and who keeps his sword sheathed while one of your Indian
family--brothers or children--remains alive!  If you had blood in your
veins, you would be man enough not to put even an enemy upon the rack,
in this way, and force him to live that time over to glut your
curiosity.  Here is my answer, which you may take to your commandant.
I am an Englishman, I am your prisoner, and you are to remember that I
am, first, last, and at all times, your foe.  Now go to your
commandant, and tell him to keep himself and his schoolboy orations out
of my way."

He was shaking, and his face was dead white.  I did not answer, but I
took him by the arm, and led him to a chair.  He tried to resist, but I
am strong.  Then I brought him a cup of water from a pail that stood
near by.

"Drink it," I said, "and when food is sent you, eat what you can.  Your
race is not over, and if you wish to trick and outwit us,--as you were
planning when I found you lying here,--you will need more strength than
you are showing now.  I have but one more question.  You must tell me
your name."

For a moment he did not reply.  He was still shaking painfully, and
water from the cup in his hand splashed over him.  "My name," he said
slowly, "my name is--is Benjamin Starling."

I took the cup away.  "I am waiting," I said after a pause.

"Waiting for what, monsieur?"  When he willed, he could speak
winningly, and he did it now.

I took paper from my pocket.  "For your real name," I answered.  "I
shall write it here, and you must swear that it is true.  Don't
squander lies.  Plain dealing will be best for us both."

He was as changeable as June weather.  Now it was his cue to look
pleading.  "The Indians called me by a name that meant bitter waters,"
he said hesitatingly.  "But my baptismal records say Starling.  I am
telling you the truth, monsieur."

I wrote the name so that he could see.  "You give me your word as a
gentleman," I said, "that your name is Benjamin Starling."

He stopped a moment.  "Can a yeoman swear himself a gentleman?" he
asked.  "I think not.  I will be more explicit.  I give you my oath as
a truth-loving person that my name is Starling."

I put up the paper.  "Thank you," I said.  "And now.  Monsieur
Starling, we will say good-by.  I am only a chance wayfarer here, and
leave in an hour.  I cannot wish you success, since you are my foe, but
I can wish you a safe return to your own kind.  I hope that we shall
meet again.  When I am dealing with a foe that I respect, I prefer him
with his hands unbound.  Good-day, monsieur."

But he was before me at the door.  I saw that my news troubled him.

"You mean," he asked, "that you are leaving here for several days?"

I laid my hand on the latch.  "No," I answered.  "I leave for several
months, monsieur."

"For months!  Oh no!" he cried, and he drew back and looked at me.
"Then I am like never to see you again," he said thoughtfully.  "You
have been kind to me."  He suddenly thrust out his hand.  "Monsieur, I
will be more generous than you.  I wish you success."

But I would not take his hand on those terms.

"Don't!" I said roughly.  "You cannot wish me success.  It will mean
failure to you--to your people.  No, we are foes, and let us wear our
colors honestly.  Again, I wish you good-day," and, bowing, I raised
the latch, and made my way out of the commandant's door.




CHAPTER IV

IN THE OTTAWA CAMP

Chance was disposed to be in a good humor.  I had scarcely stepped into
the crowd when I saw Pierre.

I went to him knowing that I should find opportunity for reproof, but
should probably lack the will.  For Pierre was my harlequin, and what
man can easily censure his own amusements even when he sees their harm?
Then there was more to make me lenient.  The man's family had served my
own for as many generations as the rooks had builded in our yews, and
so, on one side at least, he inherited blind loyalty to my name.  I say
on one side, for his blood was mixed; his father had married a vagrant,
a half-gypsy Irish girl who begged among the villages.  It was the
union of a stolid ox and a wildcat, and I had much amusement watching
the two breeds fight for the mastery in the huge Pierre.  The cat was
quicker of wit, but the ox was of more use to me in the long run, so I
tried to keep an excess of stimulants--whether of brandy or
adventure--out of Pierre's way.

He was a figure for Bacchus when I found him, and I pricked at him with
my sword, and drove him to the water, where I saw him well immersed.

"Now for quick work," I admonished.  "I must see the commandant, but
only for a moment.  You gather the men, and have the canoes in waiting.
There will be no tobacco for you to-night, if you are not ready when I
come."

He shook the water from his red locks, and wagged his head in much more
docile fashion than I had expected.  "My master cannot go too fast for
me," he said, with a twist of his great protruding lip.  "I have no
liking for white meat broth myself."

He drew back like one who has hit a bull's-eye and waited for me to ask
questions, but I thought that I knew my man, and laughed at his
childishness.

"No more of that!" I said with perfunctory sternness.  "What pot-house
rabble of Indians have you been with that you should prattle of making
broth of white men, and dare bring such speech to me as a jest!  That
is not talk for civilized men, and if you repeat it I shall send you
back to France.  You are more familiar with the savages than I like a
man of mine to be.  Remember that, Pierre.  Now go."

But he lingered.  "It is no pot-house story," he defended sulkily.
"The Ottawas say they will go to war if the prisoner is not put in the
pot before to-morrow morning.  And what can the commandant do?  The
Ottawas are two thousand strong."

I knew, without comment, that he was telling me the truth, and I stood
still.  The din of the dancing and feasting was growing more and more
uproarious, and the Indians were ripe for any insanity.  I saw that the
sun was already casting long shadows, and that the night would be on us
before many hours.  I looked at the garrison.  Two hundred Frenchmen
all told, and most of them half-hearted when it came to defending an
Englishman and a foe!  I turned to my man.

"You have been with an Ottawa girl, called Singing Arrow," I said.
"Are you bringing me some woman's tale you learned from her?"

He squirmed like a clumsy puppy, but I could see his pride in my
omniscience.  "She is smarter than a man," he said vaguely.

And Pierre were the man, I thought that likely.  "Take me to her," I
commanded.

I expected to follow him among the revelers, but he turned his back on
them, and led the way through a labyrinth of huts, a maze so winding
that I judged him more sober than I had thought.  When we found the
girl, she was alone, and I saw from her look that this was not the
first visit Pierre had made.

He summoned her importantly, while I withdrew to a distance, that I
might have her brought to me in form.  I was intent and uneasy, but I
had room in my heart for vain self-satisfaction that I knew something
of the Ottawa speech.  My proficiency in Indian dialects, for which the
world praised me lightly, as it might commend the cut of my doublet,
had cost me much drudgery and denial, and my moments of reward were
rare.

Singing Arrow came forward, and curtsied as the priests had taught her.
I was forced to approve my man's taste.  Not that she was beautiful to
my eyes, for brown women were never to my liking; but she had youth and
neatness, and when she raised her eyes I saw that I might look for
intelligence and daring.  I motioned her to come nearer.

"Singing Arrow," I said, in somewhat halting Ottawa, "my man here tells
me that your people are talking as if they were asleep, and were
dreaming that they were all kings.  Now when a dog barks at the moon,
we do not stop to tremble for the safety of the moon, but we ask what
is the matter with the dog.  That is what I would ask of you.  What do
the Ottawas care what Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac, the commandant,
does with the English prisoner?"

She thought a moment, and plaited the folds of her beaver-skin skirt as
I have seen many a white girl do.  "I know of no dog," she said, with a
slow upward glance that tried to gauge my temper.  "And as for the
moon, it shines alike on the grass and the tall trees, and I have seen
no Frenchman yet who could reach up and pluck it from its place.  But I
have seen a chain that was once bright like silver grow dull and eaten
with rust.  A wise man will throw such a chain away, and ask for a new
one."

I shrugged.  "You have sharp eyes," I said, shrugging yet more, "if you
can see rust on the covenant chain that binds the French to the
Ottawas.  Is that what you mean?"

She looked up with a flash of fun and diablerie such as I never thought
to see in a savage face.  "Then monsieur has seen it himself?"

Now this would not do; I would leave all gallantries to my subordinate.
"This is idle talk," I said, as I lit my pipe, and prepared as if to
go.  "It is the clatter of water among stones that makes a great noise,
but goes nowhere.  I have seen many strange things in my life, but
never a cat that could fight fair, nor a woman that could answer a
direct question.  Look at this now.  I ask you about the English
prisoner, and you talk to me of covenant chains."

She looked at me with impassive good humor, her hands busy with her
wampum necklaces, and I saw, not only that I had failed to entrap her
into losing her temper, but that I was dealing with a quick-witted
woman of a race whose women were trained politicians.  But, for reasons
of her own, she chose to answer me fairly.

"The Frenchman is right," she said, with a second swift upward look to
test the ice where she was venturing.  "I was wrong to talk of the
covenant between the French and my people, for the chain is too weak to
bear even the weight of words.  It is rusted till it is as useless as a
band of grasses to bind a wild bull.  But blood will cleanse rust.
What can the French want with their enemy, the Englishman?  Why should
not the prisoner's blood be used to brighten the chain between the
Ottawas and the French?"

Now this was plain language.  I listened to the girl's speech, which
was as gently cadenced as if she talked of flowers or summer pleasures,
and thought that here was indeed snake's venom offered as a sweetmeat.
But why did she warn me?  I had a flash of sense.  I went to her, and
compelled her to stop playing with her necklaces, and raise her eyes to
mine.

"Answer me, Singing Arrow," I commanded.  "You are repeating what was
said in council, but you do not agree with it.  You would like to save
the prisoner.  Look at me again.  Am I right?"

I could as well have held an eel.  She slipped from my hands, and ran
back to her lodge.  "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her
door.  "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it
will eat.  Why stay here?  I have given you what you came to find.
Take it."  And with a look at Pierre she disappeared.

Pierre gave a great bellow of laughter.  "I will catch her," he
volunteered, and made a plunge in the direction of the lodge; but I
caught him by the hood of his blanket coat, and let his own impetus
choke him.

"Now look you, Pierre Boudin," I said, "if you cross the door of that
lodge on any errand,--on any errand, mind you,--you are no longer man
of mine.  I mean that; you are no longer man of mine.  Now begone.
Gather the men, go to the canoes, and wait there till I come.  I may
come soon; I may not come till morning."

Pierre was still swelling.  "As the master wishes," he said, with his
eyes down; but I thought that he hesitated, and I called him to me.

"Pierre," I said, "do you want to be sent back to Montreal, and have
François Labarthe put in your place?"

The giant looked up to see how much I was in earnest, and, as I
returned his look, all his bravado oozed away.  It does not seem quite
the part of a man to cow a subordinate till he looks at you with the
eyes of a whipped hound; but it was the only method to use with Pierre,
and I went away satisfied.

I turned my steps toward the main camp of Ottawas, and there I idled
for an hour.  The braves were good-humored with me, for I was a trader,
not an officer, and their noses were keen for the brandy that I might
have for barter.  So that I was free to watch them at their gambling,
or dip my ladle in their kettles if I willed.  All this was good, but
it went no further.  With all my artifices, I could not make my way
into the great circle around the camp fire, and I grew sore with my
incapacity, for I saw that Longuant, the most powerful chief of the
Ottawas, was speaking.  I picked up a bone and threw it among the dogs
with an oath for my own slowness.

The bone was greasy, and I took out my handkerchief, but before I could
use it to wipe my hands, a young squaw pushed her way up to me, and
offered her long black hair as a napkin.  She threw the oily length
across my arm, and flattered me in fluent Ottawa.

Then I forgot myself.  The body frequently plays traitor in
emergencies, and my repugnance conquered me so that I pushed her away
before I had time to think.  Then I knew that I must make amends.

"The beauty of your hair is like the black ice with the moon on it," I
said in Ottawa.  "You must not soil it."

She giggled with pleasure to hear me use her own tongue, and would have
come close to me again, but I motioned her away.

"Stay there, and catch this," I called, and I tossed her a small coin.

For all her squat figure and her broad, dull face, she was quick of
action as a weasel.  She put her hands behind her, and, thrusting her
head forward, caught the coin in her teeth.  It was well done; so well
that I said "Brava," and the braves around me gave approving grunts.

"Look at the stupid Frenchman!" I heard a brave say.  "For all his red
coat, and his manners, he cannot catch as well as a squaw."

I pointed my finger at him, and twirled my mustaches as if I were
playing villain in a comedy.  "A Frenchman does not stoop to catch
money," I vaunted, with my arm akimbo.  "Money is for slaves and women.
Give the Frenchman a spear, a man's weapon, and then see if he can be
beaten at throwing by a squaw."

There was a laugh at this, and the squaw to whom I had thrown the coin
seized a sturgeon spear that leaned against a kettle, and hurled it at
me.  I turned my back, and caught it over my shoulder.  There was a
hush among the braves for a moment, then a low growl of applause.  "Let
him do it again," several voices cried.

I did it again, and yet again, in varying ways.  The squaw threw well,
and caught better, but she was no match for my longer reach and better
training.  Still we kept the spear hurtling.  With each throw I backed
a pace or two toward the council fire, and the crowd made way for me.

"This is enough," I cried at length.  "Have you no men among you who
can throw better than your women?"

A dozen braves, each clamoring, leaped forward, but before I could
select one of them, a young Huron elbowed his way into the midst of
them and placed himself before me.

"Try your skill with me," he cried, striking his breast, and though he
spoke a broken mixture of Huron and Ottawa, his air was so rhetorical
that the Ottawas, always keen for a dramatic moment, stopped to listen.

I balanced the spear in my hand.  "I am trying my skill with the
Ottawas," I said.  "Since when has Pemaou, the Huron, forsaken his own
camp?"

The Huron drew back.  He was a son of that adroit traitor, the Baron,
and what his presence in this camp meant, I could only surmise.  But
that he was of the Baron's blood was enough for me, and I was prepared
to dislike him without searching for excuse.  He, on his part, looked
equally unfriendly.  He resented my recognition, and taking his war
spear from his belt he sent it at me with a vicious fling.

This heated my blood.  I caught the spear, and tested it across my
knee.  It was pliant but tough, and wickedly barbed,--a weapon for a
man to respect.  "So you wanted the color of my blood," I called
angrily.  "You have a good spear; all that was lacking was a man to aim
it;" and with a contemptuous laugh I tossed the spear back to his hand.

Now this was mere childishness, and I knew it, and hoped, with shame
for my own lack of sense, that Pemaou would not accept my covert
challenge, and that the matter would end there.  But Pemaou had
purposes of his own.  He looked at the spear for a moment, then sent it
spinning toward my head.  "On guard!" he cried in my own tongue, and I
remembered that he had spent some time among the French at Montreal.

I caught the spear, and cursed myself for a fool.  The Indians again
gave tongue to their approval, and gathered in a ring, leaving the
space between Pemaou and myself clear.  All was ready for the game to
proceed.  I hesitated a moment, and the Ottawas laughed, while Pemaou
looked disdainful.

All animals are braggarts, from the cock in the barnyard to the moose
when he hears his rival, and man is not much better.  I pricked the
spear point against my hand, and looked at it critically.

"It is as dull as the Huron's wits," I scoffed, "but we will do the
best that we can with it;" and stepping back several feet nearer the
council fire, I put the weapon into play.

I have been in weightier occasions than the one that followed, but
never in one that I can remember in more detail.  In all lives there
are moments that memory paints in bright, crude colors, like pictures
in a child's book, and so this scene looks to me now.  I can see the
crowding Ottawas, their bodies painted red and black, their nose
pendants--a pebble hung on a deer-sinew--swinging against their greasy
lips as they shouted plaudits or derision.  But best I can see Pemaou,
dancing between me and the sun like some grotesque dream fantasy.  He
was in full war bravery, his body painted red, barred with white
stripes to imitate the lacing on our uniforms, and his hair
feather-decked till he towered in height like a fir tree.  I say that
he was grotesque, but at the time I did not think of his appearance; I
thought only that here was a man who was my mate in cunning, and who
wished me ill.

This was no squaw's game, for each cast was made with force and method.
We both threw warily, and the spear whistled to and fro as regularly as
a weaver's shuttle.  I backed my way toward the council fire until I
could hear Longuant distinctly, then I prayed my faculties to serve me
well, and stood my ground.  My mind was on the rack.  I could not, for
the briefest instant, release the tension of my thought as to the game
before me, yet I missed no sound from the group around the fire.  The
low, red sun dazzled my eyes, and I waited, with each throw from the
Huron, for one that should be aimed with deadlier intent.

For I realized that Pemaou was not doing his best, and, since I had
seen hate in his eyes, this clemency troubled me.  I wondered if he
were a decoy, and if some one were coming upon me from the rear, and I
stopped and stared at him with defiance, only to see that he was
looking, not at me, nor at the attentive audience around us, but over
my head at the council fire.

Then, indeed, the truth clapped me in the face, and I could have
laughed aloud to think what a puppet I had been, just when I was
comforting my vanity with my own shrewdness.  Of course, Pemaou would
spare me, and so prolong the game.  As the son of the leader of the
Hurons, he had more to learn from Longuant's speech than I.  We were
playing with the same cards, but his stakes were the larger.  I
suddenly realized that I was enjoying myself more than in a long time.

But the test was to come.  When Pemaou had heard all he wished, he
would aim the spear at my throat, and so, though I threw negligently, I
watched like a starved cat.  I heard the council agree upon a decisive
measure, and I knew that the Huron's moment had arrived.  He seized it.
His spear whistled at me like a bullet, but my muscles were braced and
waiting.  I caught the weapon, and held it, though the wood ate into my
palms.  The savages told the Huron in a derisive roar that the
Frenchman was the better man.

And now it was my turn.  So far I had thrown fair, without twist or
trickery, but I knew one turn of the wrist that could do cruel work.
Should I use it?  Pemaou had tried to murder me.  I looked at his
red-and-white body, and reptile eyes, and hate rushed to my brain like
liquor.  I took the spear and snapped it.

"Take your plaything!" I cried, and I tossed the fragments in his face.
"Learn to use it if you care for a whole skin, for I promise you that
we shall meet again."  And turning my back on him, I strode out of the
Ottawa camp the richer by some information, and one foe.




CHAPTER V

A DECISION

I found Cadillac in his private room at the fort, and said to myself that
he looked like a man stripped for running.  Not that his apparel had
altered since I had met him swaggering upon the beach the day before, but
his bearing had changed.  He had dropped superfluities, and was hardened
and sinewed for action.

I expected him to rate me for my tardiness in reporting my interview with
the Englishman, but, instead, he greeted me with so much eagerness that I
saw that some of my news must have run before.

"What do you know?" I cried.

He looked at the crowd swarming outside the window.  "That we are in a
hornets' nest," he said, with a wry smile.  "But never mind that now.  We
must talk rapidly.  I have been waiting for you.  I could not act till I
learned what you had done."

I bowed my regrets.  "I was delayed.  I saw the Englishman, and"----

He cut me short.  "Never mind the Englishman," he cried, with a wave of
his impatient hand.  "Tell me of the Ottawa camp.  You have been there an
hour.  I hear that you danced where they danced, and shared dog-meat and
jest alike.  In faith, Montlivet, I have a good will to keep you here in
irons if I can do it in no gentler way.  But what did Longuant say at the
council fire?"

I made sure that we were alone, and dropped into a chair.  My muscles
were complaining, yet I knew that I had but begun my day's work.  "It was
a long council," I said, "and all the old men were there.  Longuant was
leader, but he was but one of many.  The Ottawas are much stirred."

"About the prisoner?"

I shook my head.  "The prisoner is the excuse,--the touchstone.  The real
matter goes deep.  You have not blinded these people.  They know that
England and France are at war, but they know, too, that peace may be
declared any day.  They know that the Baron has made an underground
treaty with the English and the Iroquois, and they realize that the
Iroquois may attack this place at any time with half the band of Hurons
at their back.  They have no illusions as to what such an attack would
mean.  They know that the French would make terms and be spared, but that
the Ottawas and the loyal Hurons would be butchered.  They are
far-sighted."

Cadillac nodded heavily.  "So they think that we would desert them, and
hand them over to the Iroquois?  We must reassure them."

I rapped on the table.  "We did desert them once," I reminded him.  "They
know how we abandoned the refugee Hurons at Quebec, and they hold our
word lightly.  It shames us to say this, but we must see matters as they
are.  No, the Ottawas do not trust us, but they trust the English less.
It is a choice of evils.  But they are shrewd enough to see that their
greatest peril lies in a truce between ourselves and the English.  Then
they would indeed be between two stools.  Now, they see that there are
two paths open."

Cadillac was breathing heavily.  "You mean"--he asked.

I spoke slowly.  "I mean," I said, "that they must either go over to the
English themselves, or succeed in embroiling us with the English."

"And they chose?"

"They did not choose.  They temporized.  They see the advantages of a
union with the English.  A better beaver market, and plenty of brandy.
It goes hard with them that we are frugal with our muskets, while the
English keep the Iroquois well armed.  Longuant says, and justly, that it
is difficult to kill men with clubs.  On the other hand they like us, and
find the English abhorrent.  So they have virtually agreed to leave the
casting vote with you.  They will come after sundown and demand that the
prisoner be given them for torture.  If you agree, they will feel that
you have declared your position against the English; if you refuse"----
I broke off, and leaned back in the chair.  I had not realized, till my
own voice stated it, how black a case we had in hand.

We sat in silence for a time.  Cadillac scowled and beat his palm upon
his knee as a flail beats grain, and I knew he needed no words of mine.
I thought that he was going over his defenses in his mind, and I began to
calculate how many rounds of shot I had in my canoes, and to hope that my
men would not prove cravens.  I knew, without argument with myself, that
the beaver lands did not need me half as much as I was needed here.

At length Cadillac looked up.  "Do you think the prisoner is a spy?" he
asked.

I had dreaded this question.  "I am afraid so, but judge of him yourself.
He speaks French."

Cadillac half rose.  "He speaks French?  Yet he is an Englishman?"

I nodded.  "Undoubtedly an Englishman."

"And you made nothing of him?"

I could only shake my head.  "Nothing.  He tells the story that I should
tell if I were lying,--yet he may be telling the truth.  He is a bundle
of inconsistencies; that may be nature or art.  He may be a hot-headed
youth, who knows nothing beyond his own bitterness over his capture, or
he may be a clever actor.  I do not know."

Cadillac gave a long breath that was near a sigh.  "Poor soul!" he said
unexpectedly.  "Well, spy or otherwise, it matters little for the few
hours remaining."

I caught his arm across the table.  "Cadillac!" I cried, with an oath.
"You would not do that!"

He shook off my hand, and looked at me with more regret than anger.  "I
am the rat in the trap," he said simply.  "What did you expect me to do?"

I rose.  "Do you mean," I cried, my voice rasping, "that you will not
attempt a defense? that you will hand a man, a white man, over to those
fiends of hell?  Good God, man, you are worse than the Iroquois!"

He came over, and seized my arm.  "I could run you through for that
speech," he said, his teeth grating.  "Are you a child, that you cannot
look beyond the moment?  Suppose I defy the Ottawas.  Then I must call on
the Baron to help me, since it was his men who brought the prisoner to
camp.  Why, man, are you crazed?  Look at the situation.  Kondiaronk, the
Huron, will reason as the Ottawas have done, and throw his forces on
their side.  I should be left with only the Baron to back me,--the Baron,
who has been whetting his knife for my throat for the last year.  Why,
this is what he wants; this is why he brought the prisoner here!  Would
you have me walk into his trap?  Would you have me sacrifice my men, this
garrison, why, this country even, to save the life of one puny
Englishman, who is probably himself a spy?"  He stopped a moment.  "Why,
man, you sicken me!" he cried, and he slashed at me with his sword as if
I were a reptile.

I took my own sword, and laid it on the table.  "I am a fool," I said,
not for the first time that day.  "But how will Frontenac look at your
handing a white man over to torture?"

Cadillac put up his sword.  "My orders are plain," he said, tapping a
sheaf of papers on his desk.  "They came in the last packet.  I am to
treat all prisoners in the Indian manner.  As you say, the Indians have
come to think us chicken-hearted.  We must give them more than words if
we are to hold them as allies."

I seized sword and hat.  "You are a good servant," I said.  "I wish you
joy of your obedience," and I plunged toward the door.

But an orderly stopped me on the threshold.  "Is Monsieur de la
Mothe-Cadillac within?" he asked.  "The Baron desires an audience with
him."

Cadillac pushed up behind me.  "I am here," he called to the orderly.
"Tell the Baron that I will see him when the sun touches the water-line."
Then he pulled me back into the room.  "How much do you think the Baron
knows?" he demanded.

I felt shame for my forgetfulness.  "Pemaou was in the Ottawa camp," I
said, and I told him what had happened.

Cadillac's face hardened.  "Then they have sent to demand the prisoner,"
he pondered moodily.  "I had hoped for a few hours' respite.  There might
have been some way for the prisoner to escape."

I had been walking the floor, grinding my mailed heels into the pine
wood.  "Escape!" I cried at him.  "Escape!  To starve or be eaten by
wolves!  The torture of the Ottawas were kinder.  Now it is your turn to
play the child.  Escape?  Yes, but not alone.  Go, go, monsieur!  Go and
meet the Baron.  Go before I change my mind.  Tell the Baron he can have
the prisoner.  Then go to Longuant, and make what terms you will with
him.  Make any concessions.  Feather your nest while you can.  I want
some one to win at this, since I must lose.  I will take the prisoner
west with me."

Cadillac seized me.  "Montlivet, you mean this?" he demanded.  His grip
ate into my arm.

I reached up, and unclasped his fingers.  "Unhand me!" I grumbled.  "I
must be on my way."

But he paid no heed.  "You mean this?" he reiterated, taking a fresh
grip.  "The prisoner will hamper you."

I tore my arm away.  "Hamper me!" I jerked out.  "He will clog me,
manacle me!  But it is the only thing to do.  Now go, while this mood
holds with me.  Five minutes hence I may not see things in this way.  Go!
I will arrange the escape.  You, as commandant, must not connive with me
at that.  Go to the Indians, and make your terms.  If you can hold them
off till moonrise, I promise you the prisoner shall be gone."

But Cadillac would not hasten.  He gave me the long estimating glance
that I had seen him use once before.  "Montlivet," he said, with his arm
across my shoulder, "you are doing a great thing; a great thing for
France.  No man could serve his country more fully than you are doing at
this moment.  It is an obscure deed, but a momentous one.  No one can
tell what you may be doing for the empire by helping us through this
crisis."

But I was in no mood for heroics.  "I am not doing this for France," I
cried irritably.  "I live to serve France, yes; but I want to serve her
in my own way.  Not to have this millstone tied around my neck, whether I
will or no.  Don't think for a moment that I do this because I wish."

Cadillac removed his arm and looked at me.  "Then you do it from liking
for the Englishman?"

I should have had the grace to laugh at this, but now it was the torch to
the magazine.  "Like him!  No!" I shouted, with an oath.  "He is bitter
of tongue, and, I think, a spy.  He is obnoxious to me.  No, I am doing
this because I am, what the Ottawas call us all,--chicken-hearted!" and
sick with myself and what I had undertaken, I flung out of the door.




CHAPTER VI

DAME OPPORTUNITY

The first thing to do was to see the Englishman.  For the third time in
twenty-four hours I went to the commandant's quarters.

The prisoner was at the window when I entered, and again I caught his
look of keen intelligence; a look which he apparently tried to veil as
his eyes met mine.  That bred suspicion in me.  Yet I could not mistake
the welcome with which he greeted me.

"I am gratified to see you again, monsieur."  Now it was a civil
phrase, and well spoken, but it annoyed me.  I could not understand his
change of look, and I dislike complexities.  What was the man
concealing that he should drop his eyes before me.  In spite of the
seriousness of our joint state, I felt much inclination to take time,
then and there, to box his ears, and tell him to be more forthright.
My annoyance made it easier for me to come without phrases to the meat
of the matter.  I pressed him to a chair, and stood over him.

"You looked out of the window, Monsieur Starling.  What did you learn?"

He glanced upward.  "The Indians are excited.  Am I the cause?"

"Yes, monsieur."

His glance fell.  "They want me--for torture," he said, with steadiness
I could not but commend.  Then he turned suddenly.  "Can your
commandant protect me?"

Now this was unexpected.  I had intended to lead up to this situation
gradually, and the question caught me unguarded.  The prisoner was
looking me full in the face, and he read there what I had hoped to hide.

"I understand," he said.

I have been with many men when they heard their death sentence, and
those who take it as this man did, with spirit and knowledge, rob me of
my hold on myself, so that I show emotion of which I am ashamed.  I
turned away.  "Wait, wait, monsieur, I have not said all!" I cried.
"There is still one chance for you."

He shook his head.  "Small chance for me with that swarm outside.
Well, what must come, will come."  He was white, and his eyes grew even
more sombre; but, though his blood might play him traitor, his will was
unshaken.  I saw that.  I saw, too, that his manner had lost all
bravado.  He suddenly came to me, and laid his hand on my arm.  "I am
glad, monsieur, that it was you who came to tell me.  It is much easier
to hear it from you.  All day you have been thoughtful for me; for me,
a stranger and an enemy.  I wish that my blessing might bring you
happiness, monsieur."  And before I could check him, he raised my hand
to his lips.

I was greatly disturbed.  "Stop!  Stop!  Stop!" I expostulated, too
much stirred to think what I was saying.  "This is not the end.  You
are to go west with me."

He drew away.  "With you?  Who are you?  What is the west?  You
said--you said that I had to die."

I felt unsteady, and ill at ease.  "Let us discuss this like sane men!"
I exclaimed, angry at myself.  "You jump at conclusions.  That is a
woman's foible.  Who am I?  A trader, Armand de Montlivet, from
Montreal.  I am going west for peltries.  It will be a hard trip, and
you will suffer; but it is your only chance.  I will get you to the
canoe in some fashion soon after dusk.  I have not made my plans.  I
must reconnoitre.  Hold yourself ready to do what I ask."

Still he drew away.  "I shall be a burden.  Tell me the truth, shall I
be a burden?"

"Yes."

He did not look angered.  Indeed, his eyes softened till I thought him
near tears.  "And you will do this for me!  Run all this risk!  And yet
you never saw me before to-day!"  He touched his hand to mine.

Somehow this again annoyed me.  The man was concealing something from
me, yet affected to be moved to open emotion by his gratitude.  I was
not at the bottom of him yet.  I removed his hand.

"Monsieur, you forget," I corrected.  "You said we were foes, and we
are.  I never embraced an Englishman, and I shall not begin now--now
that our nations are at war.  You may be a spy."

"You think me a spy!"

I sighed from exasperation, and pointed to the window.  "Monsieur
Starling, wake up to this situation.  What does it matter what you are,
or what I think?  We waste time.  Say that you will follow me, and I
shall go and make my plans."

But still he looked at me.  "Then you encumber yourself with me from
abstract duty.  Personally you distrust me."

The truth seemed best.  I bowed.

He thought this over.  "Then I refuse to go," he decided quietly.  "I
refuse."  And he bowed toward the door to put a period to our interview.

But here my patience broke.  I took him by the arm, and held him
ungently.  "Words!  Words!  Words!" I mocked at him.  "What would you
have me say?  That I love you?  In faith, I don't.  You irritate me;
annoy me.  But save you I will, if only for my peace of mind.  Look at
me.  Look at me, I say."

He obeyed.  All his hard nonchalance had returned.

"Do you trust me?" I demanded.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Then you will come with me?"

"No, monsieur."

This was madness--and it took time.  "Indeed you will come," I said
between my teeth.  "And that without more words.  Good-by."

But he caught my sleeve.  "Then you take me against my will."

I brushed him away.  "And against mine, too, if you balk my wishes at
every turn.  But I will take you.  It is the only chance you have, and
if you are mad enough to refuse it, I must force it on you.  Remember,
I shall use force.  Now stay by the window, and await my signal.  I
shall come when I can."

He followed to the door.  "You will not need to use force with me,
monsieur," he said soberly.  "If you insist on taking me, I shall
follow your directions, and use what wit I can.  But I cannot thank
you, for I cannot feel grateful.  You give under protest, and I accept
in the same way.  It is a forced companionship.  I do not wish to die;
but, after all, it will soon be over, and life has not been sweet.  I
would rather risk what meets me here than take help from you, now that
I see you give it grudgingly."

This chilled me, and excuses pressed hot on my tongue.  Yet it was
unwise to protest.  Why should I wish his gratitude?  It would hamper
us both.  I had no desire to bind him to me with obligations.  I felt
shame for my coldness; but, for once, my head ruled, and I let the
situation stand.

"You are a brave man, monsieur," I said inconsequently.  "I know that
you will bear your share to-night."

He laid his hand on the door, and searched me with his sad eyes.  "One
last word," he said, "and then I shall bury this for aye.  Monsieur, if
I bring you misfortune, I ask you to remember--to remember from now
on--that you took me against my will."

For all my impatience, I had some effort not to smile.  He would be a
burden, he might be a nuisance, but he could hardly be a misfortune.
He had a weighty sense of his importance, to use so large a term.  But
I would not ridicule him.  "I promise," I said.

He held out his hand.  "Say that again with your hand in mine.  Promise
me that, whatever disaster I bring you, you will remember that I came
against my will."

Somehow that sobered me.  "I promise," I repeated, and touching his
hand, and again bidding him be on the watch, I went away.

I had no plans.  My mind was cloudy as muddy water, and I sauntered
around the camp looking important and weighty with calculation, but
feeling resourceless and slow.  Then I bethought me of Singing Arrow.

I shouldered my way to her lodge with speed that made me a target for
scantily hidden laughter.  But I could not find her.  Lodge and fire
were alike deserted.  I asked questions, but was met by shrugs.  My
eagerness had been unwise.  I had sought too openly and brusquely, and
the Ottawas suspected my zeal of being official rather than personal.
I saw myself in their eyes as an officer of the law, and knew that I
had closed one door in my own face.  I told myself contemptuously that
I had made so many blunders in that one day that I must, by this time,
have exhausted the list, and that I would soon stumble on the right
road as the only one left.

And so it proved.  For I went to my canoes, and there, perched
bird-wise on my cargo, and flinging jests and laughter at Pierre and
the men, sat Singing Arrow.

It was what I most wanted, and so relieved was I at finding it, that I
could not forbear a word of reproof.

"I told you to keep away from Singing Arrow!" I stormed at Pierre, like
the mother who stops to shake her recovered child before she cries over
it.

Pierre grinned shamefacedly, but Singing Arrow smiled like May sunlight.

"Has monsieur been looking for me?" she asked.  "He carries the wet red
clay that lies in front of my wigwam," and she pointed a curving finger
at my boots.

I could have embraced her.  If I had no wit, she had it and to spare.
I made up my mind, then and there, to trust her.  It was a mad chance,
but a good gamester likes a dangerous throw.

"Come here, Singing Arrow," I commanded, and I would have led her down
the beach out of earshot.

She followed but a step or two, then halted, balancing herself on one
foot like a meditative crane.  "I want sunset-head to go too," she
insisted, darting her covert bird-glance at Pierre, and when I would
have objected, I saw her mouth pinch together, and I remembered that no
Indian will submit to force.  So I let her have her will.

We held short council: Pierre the peasant, Singing Arrow the squaw, and
I, the Seignior de Montlivet.  We mingled suggestions and advice, and
struck a balance.  The sunset flamed in the woods behind us, and I knew
that the moon rose early.  I could have used a knife upon Pierre for
the time it took me to convince him that our canoes could carry one man
more.  Heretofore my nod had been enough to bring him to my heels, but
now he thought his head in danger, so he fought with me like an animal
or an equal.  The equal I would not tolerate, and the animal I cowed in
brute fashion.  Then I sent Singing Arrow to do her work, and I went to
the Englishman.

The Englishman saw me from the window, and was at the door before I
could lift the latch.  Yet his eagerness did not trip him into
carelessness, and so long as the guards could see, he greeted me with a
hostile stare.

I pushed him within, and closed the door.  "Have you seen any one?" I
asked.

"Only the guard with my supper."

I drew a freer breath.  "Good tidings.  Then Cadillac has succeeded in
holding off the Indians until moonrise."

He glanced out at the dusk.  "That is not long," he said
dispassionately.

I put out my hand.  Somehow this youth could move me curiously by his
calmness, although I was no stranger to brave men.

"The time is terribly short," I agreed, "but we will make it suffice.
And we need not haste.  We can do nothing till it is a little darker,
then we shall move swiftly.  A young squaw, Singing Arrow, will be here
in a few minutes.  You are to escape in her dress."

He wasted no time in comment.  "Am I dark enough?" he demurred.  "My
neck, where I am not sunburned, is very white."

I had thought of this, and had warned Singing Arrow.  "There is no
opportunity to stain your skin," I said, "so we must trust to the dark,
and a blanket wrapping.  The Indian will wear leggings, skirt and
blouse of skin, so you will be fairly covered.  The hands and hair are
the weak points.  You will have to keep them in the blanket."

He hesitated.  "You can trust this girl?" he asked slowly.

Now why should he ask what he knew I could not answer?  "Can you trust
me--or I you, for the matter of that?" I jerked out with a frown.
"This is an outlaw's land, and the wise man trusts no one except under
compulsion.  I would not trust Singing Arrow for a moment if I could
help myself, but she is our only hope, so I trust her implicitly.  I
advise you to do the same.  Half measures are folly.  If you try to be
cautious in your dealings with her, you will tie her hands so that the
whole thing will fall through.  If she betrays us--well, you are in no
worse estate than now, and we will still have my sword and my men to
depend on.  But that is a slender hope, and we will save it for a last
resort.  Now we will hazard everything on this plan."

I had made my long speech nervously, knowing, in my heart, that what I
asked the man to do would take more courage of soul than one would
expect to find in his slender frame.  For I might be throwing him over
to fiendish torment.  The Indian women were cruel as weasels, and more
ingenious in their trap-setting than the men.  It cooled my blood to
think what Singing Arrow's friendliness might really mean.

The prisoner heard me without flinching.  "But what is Singing Arrow's
motive?" he asked, with his mournful eyes full on my own.  "We cannot
read men's hearts, but, after all, there are but few springs that rule
their action.  You know that I will be loyal to you to save my head, to
which, though it has served me badly, I yet cling.  I know that you
will be loyal to me because I see that God gave you a softness of heart
which your brain tells you is unwise.  But what string pulls this
Indian that she should be a traitor to her people?  If you will give me
a hint, I will play upon it as best I can."

I could only shrug.  "It may be my man, Pierre," I hazarded.  "He is
red as a flamingo, and a fool into the bargain; but he has shoulders
like an ox, so the women want him.  I can see no other motive.  Will
you trust to that, monsieur?"

He looked back at me with the flicker of a smile.  "It is sufficient."

I do not like smiles that I cannot understand, so I changed the
subject.  "The plan is simple, monsieur," I said briskly.  "Singing
Arrow will come to the window, and you are to make love to her.  After
a time--not too long--you are to beguile her inside.  I think the
guards will be complaisant, if you play your part well.  Be as debonair
as possible.  A soldier is always tempted to be lenient to a jaunty
foe."

The prisoner nodded.  "And you will meet me?"

"Outside in the camp.  I shall stand near a fire, so that you can find
me at once.  Remember, monsieur, that you are Singing Arrow, and that
it will be your cue to follow me, and mine to shrug you away."

The Englishman drew a long breath.  "I am ready, monsieur," he said,
with a little squaring of the shoulders, and I saw that, mortal danger
that he was in, his spirit yet responded to the touch of comedy in the
game.

I saluted him with a laugh of my own.  "Then I will go, monsieur.  Go
into the next room to change your clothing, or the guard may come in
and find you.  One thing more.  Remember you have overpowered Singing
Arrow, and taken your disguise by force.  It may be well to lock her in
that inside room before you leave; but do as you like.  I leave details
to you."

He made acknowledgment with a sweeping bow.  "I will be a monster of
cruelty," he promised, and he pulled at imaginary mustachios like a
child at play.

Now it may be well to commend nonchalance, but there are bounds that
should not be passed.  Had this man no reverence toward the mystery of
his own life that he jested on the edge of it?  I had rather have seen
him with a rosary in his hand than with defiance on his lips.

"Is life all bitterness and sharp-edged laughter with you, monsieur?" I
asked bluntly.  "This may be our last talk.  It is hardly a seemly one.
If you have messages to send that will not compromise you, I will try
and get them through--in case our plans fail."

The prisoner eyed me oddly.  "And in case you still live, monsieur," he
corrected.  "You show much solicitude that I meet my end decorously,
yet I cannot see that you display any dolor over your own condition.
Why should I have less fortitude?  You are like a man who cares not for
religion for himself, yet insists upon it for children and for his
womenkind,--for his inferiors in general.  Why should you feel that I
need so much prompting?"  His voice suddenly hardened.  "Tell me.  Is
it my youth that makes you feel yourself my mentor, or have I failed
you in any way?  Answer."  And he gave the stamp of the foot that I had
heard once before.

How could I answer but with laughter?  "You are a leopard, and a lamb,
and a bantam cock all in one," I jeered at him.  "No wonder that I feel
you need a priest to shrive you;" and I laughed again, and would not
notice the hurt shining of his eyes as I went away.




CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNING

I had not vaunted idly when I told the prisoner that our plans were
ready.  I had scarcely dropped the latch of the commandant's door when
I saw Singing Arrow sauntering near.

She was graceful in her finery.  Even a white man might commend.  Her
skin garments looked soft and clean, and draped her cunningly.  In the
dusk and the firelight with the bright blanket falling from her hair,
she looked so winning that I thought the guards could find excuse if
the prisoner loitered at the window.

And loiter he did.  I sauntered and watched while the prisoner and
Singing Arrow threw glances that proved them no tyros in the game of
love and life.  The comedy was pleasing, and I did not wonder that the
guards tilted their heads to one side, and looked on with grins.
Singing Arrow bridled, and drew away and then drew near.  All was going
as we planned, till Pemaou and a band of his Hurons came around the
corner of the house.

I had done Pemaou the justice to hate him when I first saw him.  And
one does not hate an inferior.  He had as keen a mind as I have ever
known, and he was not hampered by any of the scruples and decencies
that interfere with a white man.  So he was my superior in resource.  I
knew, as I saw him look at me now, that my share in the game was over.
He had seen me listening to Longuant.  Where had my wits been lagging
that I had not foreseen that he would have spies watching me, and would
trace some connection between the prisoner and myself?  Well, there was
nothing left me but to stroll away.  I did not dare go in the direction
of the canoes; it would be unwise to seek Cadillac; so I turned boldly
to the Ottawa camp.  Hardly knowing what I planned, I asked for
Longuant.

Somewhat to my surprise, the Ottawas listened with respect.  I had
apparently won some reputation among them, and without demur they took
me to the chief.

Longuant was squatting before his lodge.  A piece of wood was laid
across his lap, and he was chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife.
He smelled of oil, and smoke, and half-cured hides; yet he met me as a
ruler meets an ambassador.  As I stumbled after him into his dark
lodge, I saw that he was preparing to greet me with all the silence and
circumlocution of a state messenger.  I had no time for that,--though
it gratified me.  I tramped my way through all ceremony and plunged at
my point.

"I am no envoy," I began, shaking my head in refusal of the proffered
seat upon the mat beside him.  "I am only a voice.  A bird that calls
'beware' from the branches, and then flits away.  Why watch the old
wolf, and let the cub play free?  Would you make yourself a
laughing-stock among your people, by letting the Englishman escape into
the Baron's hands?  Pemaou, son of the Baron, stands with his followers
outside the Englishman's window.  What does he seek?  I am no Ottawa.
I am a free man, bound to no clan, and to no covenant, and friend to
the Ottawas and Hurons alike.  But I do not like to see a wise man
tricked by a boy.  I have spoken."

Longuant rose.  "My brother's voice speaks the truth," he said,
gathering his robes to leave me.  "My brother sent his words, even as
he flung his spear at Pemaou, straight at the mark.  Only one word goes
astray.  My brother is not the free man he vaunts himself.  He is tied
by hate;" and pushing out his lip till his huge nose pendant stood at a
right angle, he went on his way to be my willing, but entirely
unhoodwinked agent.

I went to my canoes, stumbling a little, for I was tired.  It was dark
now, and the fires glowed brazenly, so that the Indians showed like
dancing silhouettes.  The sky was cloudless, and to the east lay a band
of uncertain light that meant the rising moon.  This was the time that
I had planned to use in action, and the knowledge that I was powerless
to accomplish anything myself made me so irritable that I could not
bear to speak even to Pierre and the men.  I sent them to a distance,
and sat down on the sand so torn and frayed by anxiety that I was like
a sick man.

And here, after long minutes, Singing Arrow found me.  She came running
down the beach, slipping on the rolling pebbles, and careless either of
her grace, or of the noise she made.

"And you sit here doing nothing!" she cried, quite as a white girl
might have done.

I pushed her down on the sand.  "Stop!" I said.  "I knew you would seek
me here.  Now answer briefly.  Pemaou and his men would not let you get
near the window?"

"No."

"They had seen you with me," I explained.  "I feared it.  Did Longuant
and his men come?"

"Like bees," she answered, with a fling of her arms.  "They are
everywhere.  We can do nothing;" and she dropped her head in her arms
and cried.

Now what indeed could be her motive?  "Never mind, Singing Arrow," I
said experimentally.  "What is it to you, after all?"

She wriggled her head to throw me a wrathful look.  "I always win at a
game," she mumbled.

She was as hard to read as a purring cat, but that did not matter.
"We've not lost yet," I said, as slowly and coolly as if I did not see
the disk of the moon looking at me.  "I sent Longuant there.  I was
sure that Pemaou would keep you away, and I am playing for time.  So
long as the Ottawas and Hurons are squabbling with one another,
Cadillac will not deliver the prisoner.  But we must get them farther
away.  Singing Arrow, I have brandy in my cargo.  I have drawn off two
large flasks.  Could you carry them to the other end of the camp, and
send word among the braves?"

Now this was a contemptible thing to suggest; but any one who stoops,
as I was letting myself do, to use a cat's-paw to work out his ends
will surely soil his fingers.  The sword is the clean weapon.  I felt
that even this Indian would look at me with disdain, but she did not.
She thought a moment, then wagged her head in assent.

"But I promised Father Carheil not to drink any brandy myself," she
added defiantly, as if she feared I might protest, and I felt myself as
low as the hound that I had kicked that day because it would have
stolen a child's sagamité.

"Make haste!" I cried, in a fury with myself, and with the speeding
time.  "Tell the prisoner to saunter away from the door, to pass the
largest fire, and then to go straight through the old maize field
toward the timber.  I will be waiting there."

"I can do it," she vaunted, and she gathered the brandy under her
blanket, and ran like a quail, while I went to my red-topped giant.

"Pierre Boudin," I cried, with my hand on his collar, "if we get back
to this place alive, you are to marry that Ottawa girl; to marry her
fairly with priest and book.  Remember that."

My man turned a complacent eye.  "If the master wishes," he said
dutifully.  Then he gave a fat chuckle.  "I promised to marry her when
we came back if she would save the Englishman,--but then I thought that
we should go home the other way."

Why try to teach decency to a barnyard brood!  I dusted my fingers free
from the soil of him.  "I will marry her to you, if only to see her
flout you," I promised vengefully.  "Now to the canoes, and have your
paddles ready."  I had no smile for him, though he sought it, as I
walked away.

The moon had swung free of the horizon, and cabins and trees stood out
as if made of white cardboard.  The night was chilly, and as I crept
along the edge of the maize field, I caught my numbed toes on the
stiffened clods of earth turned up by last year's plowing.  Yet I moved
silently, and by keeping in the shadow of blackened stumps and withered
maize stalks, I reached bow-shot of the commandant's door.

Truly one part of my plan had succeeded.  The house was the centre of
an ant-like swarm skurrying here and there, apparently without method,
but with a jerkiness of movement that suggested attack and recoil.  I
could distinguish the nose pendants of the Ottawas and the bristling
crests of the Hurons.  It was a crew with choice potentialities for
mischief.  Cadillac was justified in feeling that his scalp sat but
unsteadily upon his head.

I had given Singing Arrow fifteen minutes to hide her brandy and send
word to the braves, and I counted off the time to myself, trying to
numb my anxiety.  But among savages news runs underground as well as
over, and I had scarcely covered half the space that I had set for
myself before the crowd began to disappear.  It slipped away like water
between the fingers, and in a moment there remained only the guards,
Pemaou, and a few Ottawas.  The guards, relieved from immediate anxiety
of a riot, leaned listlessly on their muskets, the Ottawas would not
interfere with a girl of their own tribe, and Pemaou could not watch
all quarters at once.  Now was certainly the time to act; but where was
Singing Arrow?  My inaction pressed on me like a hideous weight.  It
seemed days instead of hours that I had sat like a crone by her distaff
and let others do my work--or fail to do it.  Why was Singing Arrow so
slow to come?

I thought that I had not shifted my gaze from the house for more than
an instant; but now, as I watched the door, I learned, and not for the
first time, that a white man should have a score of eyes instead of two
when it comes to watching an Indian.  For the commandant's door
suddenly opened, and out came a blanket-draped, skin-clad figure.  My
muscles stiffened.  It was the Englishman.  Singing Arrow had brought
him the clothing, and I had not seen.

So the moment had come.  I gripped my sword as one turns instinctively
to the friend loved best.  Would the prisoner act his part?  So keen
was my anxiety, that I felt my spirit leap out to stand by his side,
and I shut my teeth upon the cry of encouragement that welled within me.

But he needed no help of mine.  He made his way leisurely past the
great fire, walking with wonderful mimicry of a woman's gait, and he
kept his face well in the shelter of the blanket in a way that
suggested coquetry rather than disguise.

And in this manner he came straight to me.  He came, unerringly as a
sleep-walker, past fires, past Indians, and through the gaunt rows of
maize.  He looked neither to right nor left, and no one molested him.
He came to where I stood silent, and put out his hand to touch mine.

"It is done," he said quietly.

His fingers were warm, and his touch tingled.  I marveled.  "It is a
miracle," I said.

He looked at me in question.  "Your hand is very cold.  Monsieur,
monsieur, did you fear for me so much?"

I bowed.  "Yes.  I did not think it could be done.  You are an able
man, monsieur."

He did not answer for a moment, and he followed me silently along the
edge of the maize field.  Then he touched my shoulder.

"Monsieur, how strange the world looks to-night.  The moon,--have you
ever seen it so remote and chill?  Oh, we are puppets!  No, it was not
my wit that carried me through.  It was Fate.  Life has been hard on
me.  She is saving me now for some further trick she has to play.  I
pray that it may not bring you ill, monsieur."

I knew not how to answer, for I was moved.  As he said, the moon made
the world strange.  Great beauty is disturbing, and the night was like
enchantment.  He had come to me like a dream spirit in his woman's
dress.  I felt the need of a dash of cold water on my spirit.

"You must not put on woman's fancies with your petticoats, monsieur," I
cautioned over my shoulder.  "Now we had best not talk till we are safe
afloat in the canoes."

The men were ebon, the canoes vague gray, and the water like sheet ice
under the moon.  The Englishman and I crept across the pebbles with
panther feet, and the splash of a frightened otter was the only sound.
I laid my finger on my lips, and my men checked their breathing.  We
were silent as figures in a mirror.  I tapped the Englishman on the
shoulder, and motioned where he should sit in the canoe.

And then, from the timber fringe behind us, came a call.  "Singing
Arrow!  Singing Arrow!  Stop!  Stop!"

Sword unsheathed, I dashed across the open space of moonlight toward
the trees.  Who called, or why, I did not question.  But I must smother
the noise.  "Singing Arrow!" the call came again, and the roar of it in
the quiet night made my flesh crawl.

I had not taken two strides into the timber when I saw a man running
toward me.  He was still calling.  I leaped upon him, winding an arm
about his neck, and covering his mouth.  He was a small armful; a
weazened body to have sheltered so great a power of lung.

"Hush!  For the Virgin's sake, hush!" I stormed in noisy whispers.
"Father Carheil, is it you?  Hush!  Hush!"  I dropped my hand from his
mouth.  "Now speak in whispers," I implored.

The father shook his cassock free from my fingers.  My embrace had been
fervid, and his cassock was rumpled, and his scant hair was stringing
wildly from under his skullcap.  But shrunken and tumbled as he was, he
was impressive.  With some men, if you disarrange their outer habit,
you lower their inner dignity as well.  It was not so with Father
Carheil.

He looked at me closely, with a sober gentleness that became him well,
and that he did not often use.  "Why should I go quietly?" he asked.
"My errand is righteous.  It is only black work that needs the cover of
a silent tongue.  My son, you are letting your men abduct Singing
Arrow.  Did your promise to me count for so little in your mind?"

I bowed, and mumbled something meaningless to gain time.  I was not
clear as to my course.  "Why do you think that we have Singing Arrow?"
I blurted out finally.

"Pemaou told me."

Pemaou again!  But we had tricked him.  I grinned with joy to think of
him with his nose still rooted close to the deserted hole.  I could
almost forgive him for the trouble he was causing now.

"Pemaou lied," I said cheerfully.  "Singing Arrow is not with us,
Father Carheil.  Will you go back now?  My mission is urgent and
demands secrecy."

He looked at the ground.  "You swear to this?  You swear that Singing
Arrow is not with you?"

I laid my hand on my sword, and bared my head.  "I swear."

He turned away.  "You seem a gentleman," he said reluctantly.  "I
regret that I troubled you.  I wish you fair winds, monsieur."

Beshrew me, but the man could get close to my heart.  "Thank you,
father," I cried earnestly.  "I wish that I might requite your trust
with greater candor.  But, in the end, I hope to justify my means.  I
would that I might have your blessing on my mission and my cargo."

Blockhead that I was, not to have let well enough alone.  For I was to
blame for what followed.  I may have grown unconsciously rhetorical,
and waved my hand in the direction of the canoes.  I do not know.  I do
know that at the word "cargo" Father Carheil turned and looked toward
the shore.  There, in my canoe, with gaze searching the timber where I
had disappeared, stood a figure,--a woman's figure in Singing Arrow's
dress and blanket.

Father Carheil looked at me.  He did not speak; it was not necessary.
I endured his gaze for a moment, then sold my prudence to save my
honor.  I laid my finger on the priest's arm.

"Come with me to the canoes," I demanded.  "If you find yourself in the
wrong, it may teach you to trust a man's word against your own
eyesight."

He assented.  We walked swiftly across the moon-lighted open, and I had
scant time for fear.  Yet I was afraid.  I could give the Englishman no
helping hand, no word of warning.  Would he rise to the moment?

He did.  He turned his back upon us, Indian-fashion, and squatted in
his blanket.  He lost all suggestion of Singing Arrow's slim
elasticity, and sat in a shapeless huddle.  I laughed with relief.

"Where is Singing Arrow now?" I twitted the priest.  "Is this she?"

The old priest peered.  "No," he meditated.  "No, this is not Singing
Arrow."  He wheeled on me with one of his flashes of temper.  "I cannot
recognize this girl.  Let her take off her blanket."

I motioned my men to take stations in the canoes.  "Father Carheil, I
beg you to let me go at once," I implored.  "You see you were wrong.
As to this Indian, you never saw her; she is a stranger here."

But the father was not pacified.  "Let her take off her blanket," he
repeated, with all the aimless persistency of age.

Did I say that the man had grown close to my heart?  Why, I could have
shaken him.  But the Englishman cut the knot.  He turned with a hunch
of the shoulder, and peered at us over the corner of his blanket.
Gesture, and roll of the head, he was an Indian.  I was so pleased at
the mimicry, that I gave way to witless laughter.

"Now!" I cried triumphantly.  "Now, are you satisfied?"

But the priest did not reply.  He stared, and his eyes grew
ferret-sharp.  Then he shifted his position, and stared again.  It beat
into my brain that he had lived thirty years among the Indians, and
that his eyes were trained.  He could see meanings, where I saw a blank
wall.

"This is no Indian woman," he said slowly, with a wagging forefinger
that beat off his words like the minute hand of Fate.  "This is--this
is--why, this is the English prisoner!"

He brought out the last words in a crescendo, and again my hand clapped
tight against his mouth.

"Be still!  Be still!" I spluttered wildly, and I threw a disordered
glance at the horizon, and at my astonished crew.  I had not meant that
the men, except Pierre, should be taken into the secret until we were
well afloat.  Here was another contretemps.

"Are you mad, Father Carheil!" I began, with a sorry show of dignity,
while my palm stuck like a leech against his lips.  "This is not"----

"Not any one but the prisoner himself," interrupted the Englishman's
voice.  He dropped his blanket, and sprang to the sand.  "Do not lie
for me, monsieur," he went on in his indolent, drawling French that
already had come to have a pleasant quaintness in my ears.  "Monsieur,
let me speak to the father."

If Nature had given me a third hand, I should have used it to throttle
the Englishman.  "Get back in the canoe!" I stormed.

He motioned me away.  Standing slim and tall in Singing Arrow's dress,
he put me--such creatures of outward seeming are we--absurdly in the
wrong, as if I had been rude to a woman.

"Father Carheil," he began, "your ears at least are not fettered.
Listen, if you will.  This man is not to blame.  I was thrown in his
way, and he took me from pity, to save my life.  Now that I am
discovered, I will go back to prison with you.  Let this man go west.
Whatever his business, it is pressing."

With two mad men on my hands, I had to choose between them.  I dropped
the priest, and gripped the Englishman.

"If you go back, I go with you!" I raged in his ear.  Then I turned to
Father Carheil.  "Are you going to report this, father?  It is as the
Englishman says.  I take him as the only way to save him from torture.
May we go?"

The father thought a moment.  "No," he said.

I gripped my sword.  "You have seen torture, Father Carheil.  Would you
hand this man over to it?"

The father looked at me as if I were print for his reading.  "I am
piecing facts together," he said, with unmoved slowness.  "Singing
Arrow is in league with you, for the prisoner is wearing her clothes.
The Indians are wild with brandy, which, it is rumored, Singing Arrow
furnished.  The brandy must have come from you.  Is that so?  Answer
me.  Answer, in the name of the Holy Church.  Is that so?"

I bowed.  "You are a logician," I said bitterly.  "Father, I can hear
the tom-toms.  It is a miracle that we have escaped undetected so long.
Our respite cannot last many minutes longer.  May we go?"

My tone seemed to reach him, and he wavered a moment.  "Perhaps," he
began haltingly; then he backed several paces.  "No!" he cried, all his
small wiry figure suddenly tense.  "No!  You are a dangerous man.  You
carry brandy, and no one knows your errand.  If I let you go, I may
save one man from torture,--which, after all, is but an open door to
the blessed after life,--but I shall be letting you carry brandy and
perdition on to scores of souls.  No."  And he opened his mouth to call
for help.

But I was on him before his shout could frame itself to sound.  I drew
my handkerchief, and tied it, bandage-firm, across his mouth.  Then I
called to Pierre, and bidding him bring me thongs from our store in the
canoe, I proceeded to bind the priest firmly.  He was slight as a woman
in my hands.  I could feel the sharpness and brittleness of his old
bones through his wrinkled skin, and I was sick at myself.  "I am
sorry.  I am sorry.  I am sorry," I heard myself repeating, explaining
to him, and to myself, and, mostly, to the God who judges us.  I looked
at the wonderful mobile old face, with all its weakness, and all its
wonderful white goodness, and hated myself for laying hands of violence
on such a man.  "I am sorry," I cried again.  I looked at the spit of
land that separated us from the camp, and the light from the fires
glowed red above it.  The din of dogs and men swelled high.  Something
was happening.  I glanced down at the priest, but turned away quickly,
for I had no stomach for what I had done.

"They will find you soon," I said, with my throat tightening.  "God
knows I'm sorry."

Then I dashed to the canoes.  "Quickly!" I cried, and I shoved the
Englishman down behind me, that I might not have to see even the glint
of his red blanket to anger me by thought of what I had sacrificed.

In a moment, our paddles were dipping.  I looked back at the
settlement.  "It is done!" I cried under my breath, and I could not
forbid a moment of exultation.  I glanced at the Englishman.

But I met no exultation there.  The man's strange eyes were still
grave.  "No, monsieur, it is just begun," he corrected, and I thought,
as I saw his look at the retreating shore, that he shrunk from the
uncertainties ahead more than from the death behind.  Was there a
coward streak in him, after all?  I turned my back, and did not speak
again.




CHAPTER VIII

PARTNERS

To paddle by day, to work in sun and breeze, is a pastime, but to
paddle by night drains a man's endurance.  For long hours our canoes
nosed their way around headland after headland and along wild shores
peopled by beasts and shadows.  The black water was a threat and a
mystery, and the moonlight was chill, so that our limbs, which should
have bounded with red blood, were aching and leaden with the cold.  I
stretched myself with relief when the red-streaked horizon told me it
was time to land and make camp.

I was prepared for pursuit, but knew that, with Pierre in one canoe and
Labarthe in the other, we must be well in advance of it.  Now I
purposed to stop and hide.  It is more to my taste to be hound than
hare, and I do not like an enemy snapping at my heels.  So I prepared
to land.  Once the pursuing canoes had passed us we could take up the
chase on our own part and follow at leisure.

I called the word to the other canoe, and then as we swung shoreward I
turned to look at the Englishman.  All night I had heard no sound from
him, nor glanced his way.  My thoughts of him had been bitter, for he
was a sore weight on my hands.  Yet this I knew was unjust, and I was
shamed for my own bad temper.  My surliness must have pricked him, as
he sat silent through the long hours of dark and cold; and now that the
approaching sun was putting me in a better humor, I could see that I
had been hard, and I determined to speak to him fairly.

And so I turned, puckering my lips to a smile that did not come easily,
for my face was stiff and my spirit sore.  But I might have spared my
pains.  The prisoner was asleep.  He lay in a chrysalis of red blanket,
his head tipped back on a bundle of sailcloth, his face to the stars.
He was submerged in the deep slumber where the soul deserts the body
and travels unknown ways.  Judged by his look of lax muscles and
surrender, he had lain that way for hours,--the hours when I had been
punishing him with my averted glance.

I woke him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You slept well," I accused.

He shivered under my hand and opened his eyes.  It took him an instant
to recognize me, but when he did he smiled with relief.  I could not
but see that there was something pleasant in his smile.  I saw, too,
that sleep had wiped the lines from his face, and given him a touch of
color.

"Did I sleep?  Did I really sleep?" he marveled.  "Monsieur, you are
very good to me."

But I was in no holiday humor, so only shrugged, and told him to unload
the bales.  He smiled again, nodding, and jumped to the shore with
buoyancy that was an affront to our numbed muscles.  But once at work
he was as useless as a sailor in a hayfield.  He could lift nothing,
and he was hopelessly under foot.  I bade him stand aside, and I prayed
for patience.  After all he was young, and had been through great
hardship.  I would spare him what I could for a time.

It is depressing to work in a cold dawn on an empty stomach.  Our
landing had been made at the mouth of a rivulet, and we followed it
till we found a place, some quarter mile inland, that was open enough
for a camp.  Here bale by bale we brought the cargo, piling it under
trees and covering it with sailcloth.  The canoes we put bottom up in
the open, that the sun might dry them.  I left Pierre hidden at the
shore to watch the horizon for our pursuers, and the rest of us
proceeded to breakfast.

It was cheerless.  When I say we made a camp it is misleading, for we
could not swing our kettles for fear of the betraying smoke.  We sat
down stiffly, for the ground was still wet from the night dew, and we
passed our bags of dried maize and jerked meat from hand to hand.  I
made some ado to eat cheerfully, for I saw that the men were surly from
this unnecessary hardship.  The western Indians were friendly, and if
we had not had this incubus of an Englishman on our hands we should
have had fire and song, a boiling pot, and roasting maize cakes.  There
was no muttering among the men, for I was there, but they looked
glowering, and drew away.

The Englishman ate in silence.  I was too ruffled and crossgrained to
talk to him, but I could not keep myself from watching him.  His eyes
were less sad than I had thought.  I could imagine that they might
easily be merry.  But they were watchful eyes.  He saw the discontent
among the men, and finally he rose and went to them.  I followed him
with some warning in my look, for I thought that he was vexed, and I
knew that his tongue was sharp, but I realized in a moment that his
brain was in control and that he was safe.

"I have brought you all discomfort," he said, with a shake of the head,
and his slow French gave his words more meaning than they perhaps
deserved.  "I regret this.  It is hard for me to bear, for it is new to
me to be a burden.  But what can I do?  I cannot go away.  I am not
enamored of this voyage, for I do not like being thrust upon your
company, but you saved my life, and I have no right to throw away what
you went to such lengths to preserve.  What would you have me do?"

The oafs exchanged glances.  They spoke after a minute in a united,
disjointed grumble.

"You don't work."

The Englishman looked at them and at me.  I realized that he was
curiously slight and young, and that we seemed hostile.  That was
hardly just, and I was ready to go to his rescue.  But he turned from
me to the men.

"It is true that I work very badly," he said.  "I do not know how.  But
men are born of women, and--well, what a man can do I can learn.
Suppose, now, that I go and relieve Pierre at the watch.  If you will
show me what to do I think you will find me teachable.  I shall try to
be as little of a burden as possible.  Here is my hand on it."  And he
held out his slim palm for their grasp.

Again they stared; but the hand won them.  They touched it fumblingly
and were impressed.  They were a slow lot, selected for various
purposes other than wit.  Their minds moved too sluggishly for swift
reactions, and I dismissed anxiety about them from my mind.

The Englishman turned to me.  "Will you conduct me to the shore?  I
will take Pierre's place."

It was my turn to stare.  "Suppose you conduct yourself," was on my
tongue, but I let it escape unsaid.  "Come, then," I answered, with a
shrug.

I led the way over logs and under bushes, and the Englishman followed
silently; silently at least as to his tongue, but his feet were
garrulous.  They stepped on twigs, stumbled on slippery lichen, and
shouted their passage for rods around.

"I would rather lead a buffalo in tether," I fretted, and just as I
said it he completed the sum of his blundering by catching his toe in a
root and plunging head foremost to the ground.  I pulled him up by the
sleeve of his skin blouse and shook him free from loam and twigs.

"Now will you stop that?" I cried.

He looked at me gravely, unabashed, but curious.  "I did not fall
purposely to irritate you.  Gravity, which, I understand, operates
alike on the learned and the foolish, had some share in it.  Why are
you angry?"

"Why are you reckless?  You have crashed through here as careless of
noise as a stag with the hounds hot behind."

He dropped to the ground, and took one slim moccasined foot in his
hand.  He looked at it soberly.  "It seems a small thing, does it not,
to cause so much ill-will between us?  It has neither weight nor mental
force above it, that it should make the earth tremble.  No, monsieur,
you are searching for excuses for your annoyance with me.  You are
annoyed all the time.  I vex you by my silence, still more by my
speech.  We are to be some time together, and I do not want to be a
constant canker.  Is it not possible for you to forget me, to ignore
me?"

I saw he was in earnest.  "And so you really do not know what irritated
me?  Are you so little of a woodsman?"

"I have never traveled through the woods."

I gave him a dubious glance.  "Yet you were weeks with the Hurons after
your capture."

I saw him set his teeth hard as if at a memory.  "We traveled by water
ways.  I was little on the shore except at night."

A sudden picture sickened me.  The nightly camp and this slender lad
with his curious air of daintiness, and the great oily Hurons lounging
in the dirt and smoke.

"Were they cruel to you?" I broke out.

He shook his head.  "No," he said, with the air of justice I had liked
in him heretofore; "no, they were not cruel.  Indeed they were almost
kind, in that they left me a great deal alone.  I feared from the
clemency they showed me that they were reserving me for torture."

I eyed him with some skepticism.  "It was not the Hurons, but their
rivals, the Ottawas, who would have sent you to the stake," I explained
curtly.  "The Hurons--those of the Baron's band--would have held you as
a hostage,--perhaps as a deputy."

He looked up with interested eyes.  "You are playing some political
game, and these tribes are your counters.  I should like to understand."

I examined his look, but could make nothing of it.  "You will pardon
me, monsieur," I said with a shrug, "but these are troublous times, and
I find it hard to believe you as ignorant as you seem."

He still met my look.  "And if I were not ignorant?" he asked.  "Could
I, one Englishman, alone and unarmed, accomplish anything that would
hurt you?  You see that I am harmless.  Why not be friends?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"So you are determined that I am a secret ambassador," he meditated.
"Well, I must act my part with dignity.  And you think we cannot be
comrades?  I dislike to irritate you as I do."

I answered him soberly.  "We will be partners," I agreed; "friends for
the night's bivouac, willing to help and to share."

"But you will not trust me?"

I looked away.  "What would a truce between us mean?  You are English,
I, French.  Be assured that sooner or later the fox eats the hen."

He laughed.  "Who is to be the fox?"  He jumped to his feet.
"Partners, then, it shall be.  A strange creed.  A helping hand to-day
and a knife in the back to-morrow.  But I shall follow you, monsieur."

"You will follow?"

"In this path as in others.  If you refuse to admit even a truce
between us, I agree.  I shall keep out of your way as much as possible.
Only--I would not have you think me ungrateful."

I could never forbear a smile when he was serious.  "We shall probably
think very little about each other," I said comfortably.  "Once settled
into routine we shall have work to fill our thought.  You will learn to
do your share.  I think you willing."

"Indeed I am willing, monsieur."

"Good.  So we shall work hard, sleep early, and the months will pass
before we know.  Let us not talk of trust or friendship, since our ways
are divided."

He bowed.  "You are right, monsieur.  And I meant only this,--I will
try not to be an irritation.  You will try not to think of me as such.
You agree?"

I smiled again.  "Yes.  Partners for the night," I reminded him.  "I am
gratified, Monsieur Starling, that you see the matter so reasonably.
There is a gulf between us, and we cannot change it."  We did not speak
again till we reached Pierre at the shore.




CHAPTER IX

WESTWARD

Where were the pursuing Indians?  For two days we watched, and the
water was unflecked by sign of life.  We listened in the murk of night
and strained our eyes in the sun's dazzle.  But we found nothing but
forest and sky and mystery.  We were alone with our shadows.

The forty-eight hours crawled.  Except at noonday we were chilled, our
stomachs complained of the cold food, and our minds, and therefore our
bodies, were sluggish.  The Englishman had the best of it, for he could
sleep like a bear in winter.  Save for the hours when he was on watch
he knew but little of what was passing.  He lay on the warm side of the
bank and slept with his face to the sun.

At the end of two days I felt that I had paid all reasonable due to
Prudence, and could follow Inclination and be comfortable.

"We shall push on at daybreak to-morrow," I told the men.  "Hang the
kettles.  To-night we shall have a boiling pot."

Truly a fire makes home of a wilderness.  We sat with our heels to the
blaze, and grew jovial.  The Englishman said little, but was alert to
serve us.

"It is salt to the broth to have it given me by a pretty squaw," I told
him as he filled my bowl a second time.

He flushed with anger, and I thought myself that it was a cheap jest
and unworthy.  He had been considerate to wear his disguise without
complaint.

"I shall find something for you to wear when we shift our cargo to
leave," I promised him, and since my mood was still mellow, I looked
him over with a smile.  He had smoothed and rounded in a wonderful
manner in his two days of rest, and I was pleased by the red in his
cheeks.  "You will soon be a second Pierre if you sleep and eat in this
fashion," I laughed at him, "and then there will be no room for you in
the canoe.  If all your countrymen sleep as you do, it is small wonder
that they have left us undisturbed in the beaver lands."

He smiled a little in deference to my small jest, but the next instant
he looked away.  "I had not slept in weeks," he said softly, as if
ashamed of his excuse.

That shamed me, and I came to my feet and let my bowl of broth spill
where it would.

"Sleep well, lad.  You are safe with us," I cried, and I left my meal
unfinished, and went to the hidden cargo.  Then and there I would find
proper clothing for the Englishman.  I had been slothful in the matter.

The clothing was stored deep, and I was bending to the search with some
shortness of breath, when the Englishman touched my shoulder.

"Is it clothing for me?"

I handed him a blanket coat for answer.  "It is large, but warm," I
said, and bent again to my task.

Still he kept a hand on my shoulder.  "Monsieur, I am satisfied with my
dress."

I could be putty in his hands one moment and scorn him the next.
"Nonsense!" I snapped over my shoulder.

But he clung like a gnat.  "It is not nonsense.  Stop a moment and
listen to my reasons."

I drew myself up reluctantly.  "Well?"

He stood with arms akimbo, his head to one side.  "It is as plain as a
pikestaff.  In this dress I can go where you cannot.  I can reconnoitre
for you.  In your man's coat I should be grotesque, for it is twice my
size.  I should be noticeable and draw comment on us.  As it is, I can
go unobserved."

Now this was partly true.  "But the presence of a woman would discredit
our canoes," I objected.

He turned this over.  "A woman would discredit your party?"

"Of course."

"But no one sees you but the Indians."

"They report to the priests."

"And you care what the priests think?"

"I care for the good name of my company.  Monsieur, do you like to wear
a squaw's dress?"

He laughed.  "Why not?  I like women.  Why scorn their garb?  But I see
your reasons, monsieur.  They are better than mine.  So get out the
clothing,--though I shall look like an eel in a bear's skin."

But I had lost my haste.  Mock woman that he was, he was yet somewhat
pleasant to the eye.  I had noticed more than once the picture that he
made as he came and went among the trees.  Yet I thought lightly of
myself for enjoying the deceit of my eyesight.  I rose.

"Wear your skirts, then, for a few days longer," I said coldly.  "It is
too dark to find what I want.  Come now.  We must sleep early, and be
up betimes, for we shall take up our journey in the morning."

We were astir at daybreak.  It was a red morning, and the birds were
singing.  The air was keen, but the fire snapped cheerfully, and the
sky gave promise of a warm day.  We carried the bales to the beach, and
were ready for the canoes.  Then I missed the Englishman.  He had been
aloof and moody during breakfast, and I searched for him with some
alarm.

I found him in the hollow where he slept at night; he would not sleep
near the rest of us, saying that we disturbed him with our snoring.  He
was on his back, his gaze on the tree-tops, and he was frowning heavily.

I broke through the bushes.  "You are ill!"

He jumped to his feet.  "No, no, monsieur!  Ill only in mind.
Monsieur, I have failed you."

I had never seen his aplomb so shaken.  "Why were you lying on the
ground?"

"To find out whether I could see again what I saw last night.  Do you
see that balsam,--the one with the forked top?  Monsieur, I saw an
Indian's face in that tree last night."

I took his hands, which were cold.  "Now tell me."

He drew his hands away.  "I am often awake in the night.  Last night
the moon was clear.  All at once I saw an Indian's face looking out
from that tree."

"And you did not call me!"

"Monsieur, I thought it must be fancy.  I have troubled dreams.  I
often--since my capture--think I see an Indian, and it proves to be
nothing but a bush.  So I distrust my eyes, especially at night.  Then
François was on watch, and several times he walked this way.  If it had
really been an Indian would not François have seen?"

I pointed him to the forest.  "Do you see anything?  We seem alone, yet
there are countless eyes watching us, from the squirrel over your head
to the Indian who may be listening now.  When you lay on your back just
now did you see anything that looked like a face?"

He shook his head.  "No, the space was open.  But, monsieur, I have
been over the ground.  I can find no track."

I went to the balsam and examined it.  Then I called the Englishman and
pointed to a patch of rubbed lichen on the bark above our heads.  "His
foot slipped.  What was he like?  How was his hair dressed?"

He gasped a little.  "Monsieur, it could not have been a real Indian.
The rubbed moss,--why, an animal could have done that.  As to his
appearance, it was strange.  His head was shaved on one side, and he
had long braided hair on the other.  Surely it was a dream."

I laughed.  "Come, Starling, the canoes are waiting."

"Monsieur, did you ever see an Indian shaved in that way?"

I nodded.  "Many times."

"Monsieur, monsieur!  What kind of Indians?"

"It is a Huron mode."

"Then we have been followed?"

I shrugged.  "Evidently.  I do not understand their game, but they will
declare it soon enough.  Come, Starling."

But he lingered.  "Monsieur, I blundered.  I should have waked you."

I stopped to lay a hand on his shoulder.  "And you will blunder again
if you waste strength in regrets.  Come, a hangdog look means a divided
mind, and I need your wits.  Keep what watch you can, and we shall say
nothing of this."

The men had carried the canoes to the beach, and now sat beside them,
drumming their heels in idleness.  This gave me excuse for rating them,
and I did it with force of lung.  Thinking that there were Indians--or,
at least, an Indian--in hiding, I hoped to draw them from cover in this
fashion.  But my brave periods rattled uselessly.  The forest kept its
springtime peace, and all that I got out of my display of spirit was
the excitement of playing my part well to an unseen audience.  We were
allowed to load our canoes in peace.

And more, we were allowed to depart.  I was prepared for a flight of
arrows as a parting courtesy, but none came.  Well, I could make
nothing of the situation.  I stored the incident away as something to
remember, but not to distress myself about.  The men sang as they
dipped their blades.  I sang, too, when I could get the tune.  It was a
fine morning, and my blood was astir.  I saw the Englishman's color
rise under the whip of the quick motion and the keen air.  He did not
speak unless I addressed him, but his look was almost happy.  I could
not help liking it in him that he should enjoy the freedom of our
journeying, and should feel the majesty of the untraveled waters.  I
saw that he was trying, as he promised, not to intrude upon my notice,
and I wondered a little what he would be saying to me now if I had
answered him otherwise, and had said that we could be friends.  Perhaps
I had cut myself off from pleasant intercourse.  He certainly had
gayety of spirit, even if he somewhat lacked in strength of head.

We paddled only till mid-afternoon.  I was as eager to meet the western
Indians as I had been anxious to avoid those we left behind, and now my
object was to invite attention.  It was the season for beaver and otter
trapping, and I hoped to encounter hunting parties, so we landed, made
camp in the open, and piled our fire till the smoke blurred the sky.

The spirit of the afternoon was toward idleness.  We fished some, but
loitered more, and I had no word of reproof for the men for using hours
of good daylight playing the dish game they had learned among the
Ottawas.  I heard them stake their patrimony in this world, and their
hopes of the next, on the throw of the black and yellow balls, but I
smoked my pipe, and let them brag and squabble.  The bees were droning,
the sun lay warm on my back, and the forest was at peace.  Two years
before, I remembered, I had worn lace and periwig on this day, and had
stood in his majesty's antechamber.  Now I was gaunt and rusty as a
bear in spring.  I looked at the secret forest, the uncharted water,
and at my smoke-grimed men squatting like monkeys over a savage game,
and I smote my knee with content.  Truly it was a satisfying thing to
live while the world afforded such contrasts!  And if