Cadillac's bugler sounded the call and we started. The late sun was unclouded and warm, and the smell of paint and breath and unwashed bodies filled my lungs. The stench was hot and brutish in my nostrils, and it was the smell of war.

So long as daylight lasted we moved with some regularity in spite of the rough ground. Then, knowing we were drawing nearer the Senecas, we began to slip from tree to tree. The Indians did this like phantoms, and the French troops imitated. Three hundred men went through the forest, and sometimes a twig cracked. There was no other sound. We went for some time. We heard owls hoot around us, and knew they might be watch cries. Still we went on. We went till I felt the ground rise steadily under my groping feet. The Seneca stronghold was on an eminence. I gave the signal to drop where we were and wait for day.

We melted into the shadows, and lay rigid while the stars looked down. The savage next me slept. His war club lay by his side and I felt of it in the dark. It was made of a deer's horn, shaped like a cutlass; it had a large ball at the end. The ball was heavy and jagged, and would crush a skull.

There were hundreds of such clubs. In a few hours they would be in use. And the woman was in camp.

My right arm was free from the sling and I dug my hands together. I could feel the blood running in my palms, and I checked myself. If I injured my hands how could I save the woman?

But nothing could save the woman.

I had given commands to spare all whites and to torture no one. But Pierre was right. I was a fool to have pretended, even to myself, that I thought the savages listened.

A fool can do harm enough, but a cowardly, soft-hearted man is the most dangerous of knaves. I might have killed Pemaou when I threw the spear at him; I might have killed him the night before my wedding in the Pottawatamie camp. I had withheld my hand because it was disagreeable to me to kill. And now the woman's life was to pay the forfeit of my lax softness. I rolled in my agony, and bit the ground till my mouth was full of leaf mould.

A planet swung from one tree-top to the next. What lay behind it? She would know soon. But I could not follow her where she was going. I should live. I knew that. When Death is courted he will not strike. I had seen that in battle.

That first morning when she had come to me with the sunrise,—when she had drifted to me, bound and singing,—I had called to her to have no fear, that no harm should come to her. And she had trusted me.

She had a little hollow in her brown throat where I had watched the breath flutter. I had never touched it.

I could thank God for her, for one thing. She had refused my kiss.

I saw the planet again, tipping another tree-top. I understood its remoteness; in my agony I was part of it. What were men, countries, empires! I felt the insignificance of life, of suffering. What did it matter if these Indians died! Why should we not all die? I crawled to my knees. I would give the signal to retreat. I would give it now. Let the massacre come.

But I fell back. I could not. I could not. Three hundred lives for one life. I could spill my own blood for her, but not theirs.

But as for empire, I had forgotten its meaning.

All of these men lying in the shadows had women who were dear. Many of the wives would kill themselves if their husbands died. I had seen an Indian wife do it; she had smiled while she was dying.

Would the woman think of me—at the last? She would not know that I had failed her. She would not know that I was worse than Starling.

She was the highest-couraged, the most finely wrought woman that the world knew. Yet two men had failed her.

"Monsieur," she had said, "life has not been so pleasant that I should wish to live."

It was only a week ago that she—she, alive, untouched, my own—had walked away from me in the sunshine, leaning on Cadillac's arm. And I had let her go. And I had let her go.

And I had let her go. I said that over and over, with my mouth dry, and I forgot time. I did not know that minutes were passing, but I looked up, and the stars were dim, and branches and twigs were taking form. Day would be on us soon.

I raised myself on my elbow and peered. I could see very little, but I could hear the strange rhythmic rustle that I call the breathing of the forest. And with it mingled the breathing of three hundred warriors. They carried clubs, arrows, muskets. I was to give them the signal for war.

I tried to rise. I was up on my knees. I fell back. I tried again. My muscles did not obey. I saw the war club of the Indian beside me. My hands stole out to it. A blow on my own head would end matters. My hands closed on the handle of the club.

Then the savage next me stirred. That roused me. The insanity was over, and sweat rained from me at realization of my weakness,—the weakness that always traps a man unsure of his values, his judgment. When men say that a man's life is not his own to take, I am not sure. But that had nothing to do with me now. I was not a man in the sense of having a man's free volition. When I had given up human claims for myself, I had ceased to exist as an independent agent. It was only by knowing that I was a tool that I could keep myself alive.

And so I sat upon my knees and whispered to the Indians about me. They whispered in turn, and soon three hundred men were waked and ready.

Yet the forest scarcely rustled.

I motioned, and the line started. We crept some twenty paces from tree to tree. Then ahead of us I saw an opening. I could distinguish the outlines of a rough redoubt.

I stepped in front and stopped a moment. It had grown light enough for me to see the faces of the Sac warriors. Dirt-crusted, red-eyed, wolfish, they awaited my signal.

I raised my sword. "Ready!" I called. An inferno of yells arose. We ran at the top of our speed. We charged the stake-built redoubt with knives in hands. Mingled with our war cry I heard the screams of the awakening camp.

I reached the palings. They were of bass wood, roughly split and tough. I could not scale them with my lame shoulder. I seized a hatchet from an Indian, struck the stakes, wrenched one free, and climbed through the hole.

The camp was in an uproar. A few Sacs had scaled the redoubt ahead of me, and one of them was grappling with a Seneca just in my path. I dodged them and ran on. Behind me I heard the terrible roar of the blood-hungry army.

I fought my way on. Warriors and slaves rose before me and screamed at my knife, and at something that was in my face. I did not touch them. I had to find the woman. She might be hiding in one of the huts. But there were many bark huts, and all alike. I ran on.

The air was thickening with powder smoke, and the taste of blood was in my throat. A hatchet whistled by me and cut the cloth from my shoulder. I saw the Seneca who threw the hatchet, but I would not stop. Corpses were in my way. Twice I slipped in blood and went to my knees.

I must search each lodge, each group. I had seen nothing that looked like a woman.

An Indian grappled with me, and I slashed at him till he was helpless. I was covered with blood that was not my own. I let him drop and stumbled on.

I could not find the woman. I had not seen Starling nor Pierre nor Labarthe nor Leclerc.

And over all the noise of tearing flesh and the screams of dying men came the sound of singing, of constant, exultant singing,—the singing of victors binding their captives; the death songs of wounded preparing to die.

I saw two bodies lying together as if the same arrow had cleft them. Their hands sprawled toward me, red and beckoning. They were mutilated, but I knew their clothes. They were Leclerc and Labarthe. Leclerc was hanging on Labarthe as he had leaned in life.

I had brought these men to the wilderness. And Simon was dead, too. I went on.

I saw a Seneca, stripped and running blood, crouch to a white man on the ground and lift his knife to take the scalp. I sprang upon him, but he dashed my knife away, found his feet, and pressed at me. I dodged his hatchet, and catching up a skin shield from the ground turned on him. I was taller than he, and I smashed the shield down on his head so that he dropped. I pounded him till he was beyond doing harm to any one, then I took his knife and hatchet, tossed him aside, and turned to the white man.

It was Starling, and there was life in him, for he opened his eyes.

I took my flask and forced brandy between his teeth. He recognized me but could not speak. A great spear had torn through his chest. I started to pull it out, but when I looked farther and saw what a hatchet had done I checked myself.

His eyes were on mine and he tried to speak. It was more than I could look at,—his effort to hold life in his torn body and tell me something. I eased his head and gave him more brandy.

And then he found strength to try to push me away. "Go! Go! The woman!" I made the words out of the writhing of his lips.

I leaned over him. "Where? Where is she? Where?"

He tried many times before he made a sound that I could catch, and his strength ebbed. I tried more brandy, but he was past reviving. I strained to hear, till my agony matched his. I thought I caught a word. "Woods!" I cried. "Is she in the woods?"

"Yes." He suddenly spoke clearly. "Go." And he fell back in my arms.

I thought that he died with that word, but I held him a moment longer to make sure. It did not matter now that I hated him. As to what he had brought on me,—I could not visit my despair on him for that. As well rage at the forces that made him. Life had given him a little soul in a compelling body. The world believed the body, and expected of the man what he could not reach. I looked at his dead face and trembled before the mystery of inheritance.

But he was not dead. He opened his eyes to mine, quivered, and spoke, and his voice was clear.

"I would have followed her into the woods but they bound me. I was not a coward that time. I would have followed her."

And then the end came to him in a way that I could not mistake, for with the last struggle he cried to the woman.

I laid him down. While I had held him I had known that Frenchmen were fighting around me, and my neck was slimy with warm blood, for an arrow had nicked my ear. But the battle had swayed on to the north of the camp, and only dead and dying were left in sight. I looked at Starling. I could not carry him. I took off my coat, covered the body, and went on.

The woman had gone to the woods. She had gone to the woods.

But woods lay on every side.

As I ran through the camp toward the north I saw a woman ahead of me. She had a broad, fat figure, and I knew she was an Indian. But she was a woman and the first that I had seen. I caught her and jerked her around to face me.

"The woman? The white woman? Where is she?" I used the Illinois speech.

The woman was a Miami slave and apparently unhurt. But as I stood over her a line of foam bubbled out of her blue lips. Her eyes were meaningless. I had frightened her into catalepsy, and I ground my teeth at my ill luck, for she could have told me something of the woman. I took my brandy flask and tried to pry her teeth apart.

Both of my hands were busy with her when Pierre's bellow rose from behind me. "Master! Jump! Jump!" In the same instant I heard breathing close upon me.

I jumped. As I did it I heard the crash of a hatchet through bone, and the pounding of a great body heaving down upon its knees. I turned.

Pemaou's hatchet was in Pierre's brain, and my giant, my man who had lived with me, was crumpled down on hands and knees, looking at me and dying.

I called out like a mad thing, and insanity gave me power. I tore the red hatchet from Pemaou's hands and pinioned him. My fingers dug into his throat, and I threw him to the ground. He bared his wolf's teeth and began his death song. But I raved at him, and choked him to silence. "You are not to die now!" I shouted at his glazing eyes. "You shall live. I shall torture you. You shall live to be tortured."

I carried rope around my waist, and I took it and bound him. How I did it is not clear, for I had a weak shoulder and he was muscular. But now he seemed palsied and I a giant. It was done. I bound him till he was rigid and helpless.

And then I fell to my knees beside Pierre. He was dead. I had lost even the parting from him. My giant was dead. He had taken the blow meant for me.

Pierre was dead, and Simon and Labarthe and Leclerc. I had brought them to the wilderness because I believed in a western empire for France. I left Pierre and went on.

But I had not gone far when a cry rose behind me. It was louder than the calls of the dying. It was the wail of an Indian woman for her dead. I ran back. Singing Arrow lay stretched on Pierre's body.

I looked at her. I did not ask myself how she came there, though I had thought her safe in the Malhominis village. So she had loved the man enough to follow secretly. I left her with him and went on.

I stepped over men who were mangled and scalped. Some of them were not dead, and they clutched at me. But I went on my way.

Indians and troops were gathered at the north of the camp. The warfare was over. Corpses were stacked like logs, and the savages were binding their captives and chanting of their victories. The French stood together, leaning on their muskets. I saw Cadillac unhurt, and went to him.

"Is the bugler alive? Have him sound the call."

The commandant turned at sound of my voice. He was elated and would have embraced me, but seeing my face his mood altered. He gave the order.

The bugle restored quiet, and I raised my sword for attention. I asked each tribe in turn if they had seen a white woman. Then I asked the French. I gained only a storm of negatives.

I went on with the orders to the tribes. All captives were to be treated kindly and their wounds dressed. This was because they were to be adopted, and it was prudent to keep them in good condition. The argument might restrain the savages. I was not sure.

And all the time that I was speaking I wondered if I looked and talked as other men did. Would the savages obey me as they had done when I was a live, breathing force, full of ardor and belief? They seemed to see no difference. I finished my talk to them and turned to Cadillac.

"You do not need me now. You will be occupied caring for the wounded and burying the dead. The Indians will not attempt torture to-day. I am going to the woods."

"To the woods?"

"The woman is in the woods. She must have gone at the first alarm. I cannot find her here."

"Ask the captives. They will know."

"It is useless to ask them. They will not speak now. It is a code. I am going to the woods. Send what soldiers you can to search with me."

"Shall I send Indians with you, too?"

"Not now. They are useless now. They could trail nothing. Let me go."

He followed like a father. "You will come back?"

"Yes, I will come back."

But I had three things to do before I was free to go to the woods. To go to the woods where I would find the woman.

I searched for the Miami slave woman. She was dead. That cut my last hope of news.

I saw that Pemaou was still well bound, and I had him carried into a hut to await my orders.

I went to Pierre's body. Singing Arrow still wailed beside it, and cried out that it should not be moved. I told her the soldiers would obey her orders, and carry it where she wished.

But there was a fourth matter. I spoke to Dubisson, and my tongue was furry and cold.

"See that watch is kept on the bags of scalps for European hair."

Then I went to the woods.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE UNDESERVED

There were birds in the woods, and soft breezes. Squirrels chattered at me, and I saw flowers. And sometimes I saw blood on trampled moss where fugitives had been before.

I called, and fired my arquebus. I whistled, for that sound carried far. Since that day the sound of a whistle is terrible to me. It means despair.

Soldiers, grave-faced, respectful, followed me.

They were faint for food, and sore and sick from warfare, but they came with me without protest. They gave me the deference we show a mourner in a house of death. I turned to them in a rage.

"Make more noise. Laugh. Talk. Be natural. I command you."

We divided the woods among us, like game-beaters in a thicket, and went over the ground foot by foot. We found nothing. The birds sang and the sun went higher. Though the woods were pure and clean I could smell blood everywhere. In time a man dropped from exhaustion. At that I gave the word to go back to camp.

The camp itself was less terrible than the memories that had been with me as I walked through the unsullied woods. The wounded were cared for and the dead buried. The Indians were gathered around their separate fires, chanting, feeding, bragging, and sleeping. The French had made a camp at one side, and they, too, were seeking comfort through food and sleep. Life was progressing as if the mutilated dead had never been.

We had succeeded, Cadillac assured me. All the Senecas were dead or captured and our total loss, French and savage, was only seventy-five men. We had but few wounded, and the surgeon said they would recover.

I nodded, took food, and went alone to eat. I sat there a long time. Cadillac came toward me once as if to speak, but looked at me and turned away.

At last I had made up my mind, and I went to the hut where I had left Pemaou. It had taken time to fight down my longing for even combat with him, but I knew that I must not risk that, for I needed to keep my life for a time. So I would try for speech with him first, and then he should die. And since he must die helpless, he must die as painlessly as possible. Physical revenge had become abominable to me. It was inadequate.

I entered the hut. Pemaou's figure lay, face downward, on the floor. It had a rigidity that did not come from the thongs that bound it. I turned it over. The Indian's throat was cut. Life had flowed out of the red, horrible opening.

I think that I cursed at the dead man. Corpse that he was, he had tricked me again, for I had hoped, against reason, to force information from him. Death had not dignified his wolfish face. He had died, as he had lived, a snarling animal, whose sagacity was that of the brute. And I had lost with him this time, as I had lost before, by taking thought, and so losing time. An animal does not hesitate, and he is a fool who deliberates in dealing with him. I tasted desolation as I stood there.

A moccasin stepped behind me. "I killed him," said Singing Arrow's voice.

I turned. She was terrible to look at. Life had given this savage woman strength of will and soul without training to balance it. She was Nemesis incarnate. Yet blood-stained and tragic as was her face, her words were calm.

"He killed my man."

What was there to say? It was only her look that showed she had been through tempests; in mind she seemed as numbed as I. I took her by the arm and led her outside. I turned away from the blood-soaked camp, and took her to the beach where the water was yellow-white and rippled on the sand. I motioned her to wash away the blood stains on her face and arms. Then I spoke.

"Singing Arrow, do you intend to kill yourself and follow Pierre?"

She drew her blanket high and folded her arms. "Yes, if he calls me. When I dream of him twice I shall know that he is crying for me and cannot rest, so I shall go after him. I have dreamed once already,—after I killed the Huron. When I dream once more I can go."

I touched her arm. "Look at me. Singing Arrow, Pierre is not calling you to follow him. He is calling you to pick up his work where he had to drop it. He died trying to save me. He wants you to help me now. My wife is in the woods. You are to help me find her. Will you help me, Singing Arrow?"

She shook her head. As she looked at me, scornful and sorrowful and absolutely unmoved, she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I knew this remotely, as an unblest ghost might know a warmth he could not feel.

"You do not need me. If your whisper cannot reach the white woman she would not hear my shouts. I must go with my man."

"Singing Arrow, the Great Spirit is not ready for you. When he is ready he will send. You must wait for him to send."

She did not shift her look from me. "Your Great Spirit is strange. He tells you that you are brave men and good when you take other lives, but he will not let you take your own. Why should you have power over other men's bodies if your own does not belong to you? Your Great Spirit may be right for you white men, but for me he speaks like a child. When my man calls me I shall go." She dropped her eyes, wrapped her blanket closer, and went away. I did not follow her. She had as sound a right to her belief as I to mine.

And what was my belief?

The sun was at the horizon, and I went to Cadillac. "You hold council to-morrow?"

"Yes, to-morrow morning."

"I shall be here."

"But where are you going now?"

"To the woods."

Cadillac took me by the arm. "Montlivet, be sane!"

But I think that as he looked at me he saw that I was sane. "I shall be with you in the morning," I promised. And I would have no further words.

All that night in the woods, both waking and dreaming, the thought of the woman was like a presence near me. I slept some, dropping against trees, then roused and stumbled on. I do not know that I consciously searched for her, but I went on and on to meet her. It seemed that I should always do that while I lived,—should always push my way forward, feeling that beyond the next turn she stood beckoning.

The stars rose and set. There were multitudes of them and very bright. If man could only have his orbit fixed and follow it as they did; be compelled to follow it by a governing power! The terrible cruelty of a God who throws volition into a man's hands without giving him understanding to handle it came to me for the first time.

When day arrived I ate a portion of meal and meat, and made my way back. It was a long trip, for I had wandered far, and when I reached the camp the sun was three hours high. A large tent had been made of skins and tarpaulins, and French and savages were gathered there and waiting. I was late. The calumet was already passing as I went in.

I halted a moment at the entrance. There was no cheer of welcome at sight of me. Instead there was a hush,—the hush of suspended breathing. In two days these savages had come to draw aside from me for what was in my look. "His face is the face of one dead," Outchipouac had said. I knew that I had grown to seem abnormal, alien. I tried to form my expression to better lines, but it was out of my power. I took my place as interpreter, and the long conclave opened.

The hours of droning speeches went on and on. Each tribe presented its claims, and metaphor shouldered metaphor. It sounded trivial as the bragging of blue-jays, but I interpreted carefully and kept the different headings in mind. Then I asked Cadillac's permission, and took it on myself to answer.

Sometimes the Power that rules us, and that shoves us here and there to play our parts in the game, seems to me nothing but a cold-eyed justice, remote, indifferent, impartially judicial. So I felt now. In looking at the issue I saw that meaning and vitality had gone from my spirit, but I had kept equity. I parceled the spoil among the tribes, and did it without doubt of my judgment or care for its acceptance. I remembered Outchipouac's plea for his people, and found it just. The Malhominis had sent the largest force in proportion to the strength of their tribe, and their position on the bay was strategical. So I gave them their choice of a third of the captives. To the remaining tribes I gave the rest of the captives and the confiscated weapons. Then I passed the calumet among them.

I had spoken coldly, as an onlooker. Perhaps my air of detachment gave me authority. The chiefs smoked the calumet and ratified my words. That part of the council was over.

And then to the future. Cadillac rose. His eloquence painted the prospect till it shimmered like a dream landscape, rose-tinted, iridescent, with sparkling vistas full of music and bugle calls and the tramp of marching men with the sun in their faces. We, French and Indians, were a united people. Our young men were brave and full of vigor. We should sweep all before us. We should crush the Iroquois and drive the English far away over seas. We should go now to Michillimackinac and march from there to conquest and empire. All the bubble dreams of sovereignty, from Nineveh on, glittered in his words. I translated faithfully.

Outchipouac answered. I had somehow won his spirit, which was brave and vigorous. Perhaps he repented his distrust of me. My silver chain was on his neck, and he fingered it. He said that where I led the Malhominis would follow. His wild imagery swept like the torrent of an epic. The man was warrior, dreamer, fatalist. He called on the chiefs of the tribes to witness what I was, what I had done. Water could not drown me, arrows could not harm me. I wore the French garb and my face was white, but I was something more universal than any race. I spoke all tongues. I was like the air which belonged to French and Indian alike. I was a manitou; I had been sent to lead the Indians back to the supremacy that they had almost lost.

I could believe him as I listened. I did not remember that he spoke of me. He was talking of some great principle, some crystallization of the forces of the woods in man's shape. The woods that had nurtured the Indian should protect him. At last, out from the woods had come this spirit,—this spirit that was their voice. He did not talk to me, he talked to the skies and the clouds and the forces that dwelt in them. It was the call of a savage king to the soul of the wild earth that had cradled him.

So swept away was I that I could not have translated. But it was not necessary. He had spoken in Algonquin, which all but the French and Hurons understood. The war chiefs rose. It is strange. An Indian may scalp and torture, yet have at heart much of the seer and poet. The chiefs came forward and laid their bows and quivers full of arrows at my feet.

For a moment Outchipouac's speech had warmed me as I thought I might not be warm again. But when I saw the chiefs advancing I became stone.

"I cannot lead you," I said in Algonquin, and I knew my voice was blank. "Outchipouac is wrong. I am no manitou, but a man so weak he does not know the truth even for himself. How can he lead others? When I brought you here the sun shone brightly, and I thought I saw the way ahead. Now I am in darkness and mist. Go. Leave me. Find a leader whose sight is not clouded." I turned my back and stood with my head down.

A murmur rose. I had broken the illusion. We had all been riding the clouds of fancy, and I had dashed us to earth again. The chiefs had come to me with their hands out, and I had thrown water in their faces. They had reason for their anger. Cadillac saw the pantomime and lumbered from his seat. He seized my arm.

"Montlivet, you are insane! You are insane!"

I pointed him to the woods. "Monsieur, I have dropped my sword. I shall go into the forest for a time."

He shook me as if I were in a torpor. "Your wife"——

"I shall search for her. I am going out now with Indian trailers. I shall not leave this country till all hope is past,—then I shall go west."

For a moment suspicion clutched him. "Oh, you would form your union without me! You are planning a dictatorship."

I took him by the arm and begged him to understand. "I have dropped my sword," I reiterated. "I am going on alone. I have skins and provisions cached at Sturgeon Cove—enough for barter. I am not insane. I shall go prudently. There are lands and peoples to be explored in the west."

The clamor grew. Dubisson and others of the French came nearer.

"Speak to the chiefs now. Speak to them now," they begged. "You can save the situation yet."

I watched the Indians. "They are departing peacefully."

"But they are departing!"

I looked at Cadillac. "And why not?"

He drew his sword. "Montlivet, have you turned priest—or coward? Do you dare to try and tell me that war is wrong?"

I looked at him, and left my own sword untouched. "I do not know what I believe. I am going back in the woods. Perhaps I shall learn. But now we have done all that we set out to do. We have destroyed the Seneca war party. We shall be safe from the Iroquois for some time."

"But we are just ready to go on. Our men are ready."

His words seemed meaningless. "Ready! Are intoxicated men ready? We have drunk blood. Now we are drunk with words. I will not"——

A roar outside cut my words short. "The woman! The woman!" I heard the cry in several languages at once, but I could not comprehend it. I saw the crowd rise and surge toward me, making for the entrance of the tent. I turned and ran with them. Yet my mind was numb.

We reached the outside. I was in advance. A great canoe was at the shore and Onanguisse was directing his oarsmen. In the bow of the canoe sat the woman.

I reached her first; I caught her from the canoe. Yes, she was alive; she was unhurt. Her hands were warm. I heard her breathe. I dropped on my knees at her feet.

And then she bent over me and whispered, "Monsieur, monsieur, you are unhurt!" Her voice had all its old inflections, and I rose and looked at her in wonder. Yes, she was alive. She was grave-eyed and haggard, but she was alive. The hands that I held were warm and trembling, though my own were cold and leaden as my palsied tongue. She was dressed in skins, and I could see the brown hollow in her throat. I could not speak. I laid my lips upon her hand and trembled.

French and savages pressed around us in a gaping, silent ring. Cadillac had given us the moment together, but he edged nearer, bewildered by my silence.

"Madame, we welcome you," he cried. "Your husband has not been like himself since he heard of your danger. Give him time to recover. We have been a camp of mourning for you. Tell us of your escape."

And then I spoke. I drew her hand through my arm and turned her to face the crowd. "They are your friends, madame," I said, as if it were the conclusion of a long talk between us. "Thank them, and tell them of your escape."

But she halted and turned again to me. She looked up with her face close to mine, and for the first time she met my eyes fully. We stood so a moment, and as she stood she flushed under what was in my look; a wave of deepening pink crept slowly up through her brown pallor, but she did not look away. I felt my face harden to iron. It was I who turned from her, and the faces before me swam in red. Up to that time I had grasped only the fact that she was alive, that she stood there, warm, beautiful, unscathed, that I could see her, touch her, hear the strange rise and fall of her voice. But with the clinging of her glance to mine I remembered more, and sweat poured out on my forehead. She was my wife. I had forfeited the right to touch her hand.

The French began to murmur questions and she turned back toward them. She stood close by my side with her hand in mine, and looked into the faces, French and savage, that hemmed her round. I think she saw tears in some eyes, for her voice suddenly faltered. She made a gesture of courtesy and greeting.

"I escaped days ago when we were traveling," she said in her slow-moving French, that all around might hear. "I made my way to the Pottawatamie Islands. Onanguisse had called me daughter, and I knew that if I could find his people I was safe."

The crowd breathed together in one exclamation. "You have not been in this camp at all?"

I felt her draw closer to me. "No, I have not been in this camp. You thought that I was here?" Her grasp on my hand tightened. "Then this is the Seneca camp. The battle is over," she said under her breath, and she turned to me. Her eyes were brave, but I knew from her trembling lips that she understood. "Where is my cousin?"

I took both her hands in mine. "He died in my arms. He died trying to send me to you. He forgot self. It was the death of a brave man, madame."

She stood and looked at me. She had forgotten the men around her. "Monsieur," she said, and this time her eyes were soft with tears, "my cousin was not so bad as he seemed. He could not help being what he was."

"I understand."

"Monsieur, you conquered the Senecas?"

"Yes. We will forget it, madame."

She looked over the heads of the lines of soldiers and grew white to the lips. I knew that she saw rows of scalps, and I could not save her from it. Yet I implored.

"Do not think of it. It is all over, madame."

Her eyes came back to me. "And Pierre? Is Pierre safe?"

"Madame, he—— He died saving me."

Her hands grasped me harder. "And Labarthe?"

"I am all that is left, madame."

Still she held to me. "Where is Singing Arrow?"

I looked at Cadillac. He shook his head. "They found the Indian woman this morning," he said. "She was dead beside her husband. Do not grieve for her. Her face is more than happy; it is triumphant. My men called me to look. Will you see her now, madame?"

But she could not answer. The hands that held mine began to chill, and I saw the brown throat quiver. I turned to Cadillac. "I have no tent. May I take madame to yours?"

He placed all that he had at her service. He was moved, for he did it with scant phrase.

"But one moment," he begged. "Montlivet, one word with your wife first. Madame, I beg you to listen. Will you look around you here?"

She stopped. "I have looked, monsieur."

"Madame, you see those Indians. They are war chiefs and picked braves. The brawn and brain of six tribes are collected here before you. Do you know what that means?"

I saw her look at him gravely. "I should understand. I have lived in Indian camps, monsieur."

He looked back at her with sudden admiration that crowded the calculation out of his eyes. "Madame!" he exclaimed. "We know your spirit and knowledge; we wish that you could teach us some new way to show you homage. But do you understand your husband's power? You have never seen him in the field. Look at these war chiefs. They are arrogant and untamed, but they follow your husband like parish-school children. It is marvelous, madame."

She lifted her long deer's throat, and I felt her thrill. "Monsieur, I think that not even you can know half what I do of my husband's strength and power."

Her words were knives. I would have drawn her away, but Cadillac was before me. "Wait, Montlivet, wait! This is my time. I have more to say. Then, madame, to the point. These chiefs that you see are leaving. They would have been gone now if you had not come. They are leaving us because your husband said he would not lead them further. Talk to him. I can hold the tribes here a few hours longer. If he comes back to sanity by night, there will still be time for him to undo his folly. Talk to him, madame."

Again I tried to interrupt, but the pressure of her hand begged me to be silent. "What would you have me say to my husband?" she asked Cadillac, and she stood close to me with her head high.

He drove his fists together. "I would have you bring him to reason," he groaned. "For three days he has lived in a trance. He planned the attack, and led it without a quiver, but since then he has tried to wash his hands of us and of the whole affair. It is a crucial time, and he is acting like a madman. His anxiety about you has unbalanced him. Bring him to reason, madame."

I saw her steal a glance at me as a girl might at her lover, and there was a strange, fierce pride in her look. She bowed to Cadillac. "I am glad you told me this, monsieur." Then she turned to me. "Shall we go?"

But I looked over her head at the commandant. "It will be useless to keep the tribes in waiting," I warned.

I went to Onanguisse, the woman on my arm. "My heart is at your feet," I said to him. "My blood belongs to you, and my sword!'"

He looked at the woman and at me, and he spoke thoughtfully. "When I found her in my lodge we had no speech in common, but I understood. I brought her to you. Now keep what you have. The best fisherman may let a fish slip once from his net by accident, but his wits are fat if he lets it go a second time."

I knew he was troubled. He saw no possession in my face, and he thought me weak.

And then I took the woman to Cadillac's tent.



CHAPTER XXXII

I TELL THE WOMAN

Cadillac's tent held a couch of brush covered with skins, and I led the woman to it and bade her sit. Then I moved away and stood by the rough table.

"Madame," I said, "I have something that I must tell you. I"——

She rose from the couch and came toward me. "Will you wait?" she interrupted. "May I speak first?" She stood beside me, and I saw how thin her hand was as it rested on the table. She had been through danger, starvation. I found myself shaking.

"You went alone through the woods!" I cried, and my voice was hoarse, so that I had to stop and control it. "Did you suffer? You must have suffered, madame?"

She smiled up at me. "Monsieur, do not grieve. It is all over. And the greatest suffering was in my mind. I feared that you would think I disobeyed you."

I clenched my hands. "Madame, you must not say such things to me."

But she touched her fingers to mine. "Monsieur, I beg you. Hear me out before you speak. As to my coming here, I promised you that I would not turn westward,—but I could not help it."

"I know, madame."

"My cousin—he was—he was a spy, after all. He deceived us both. He was carrying peace belts. But—but I am sure that he had moments of saying to himself that he would refuse to act the spy. When he lied to me, and told me that he had no purpose but my safety, I think that he thought he spoke the truth."

"I know, madame."

"But when—when I saw what he had done, when I saw that we were going west, I warned him that I would leave him. I told him, too, that he was going to his death. He did not believe me. No watch was kept on me. He had a small canoe; I took it one night. I had provision—a little—— I—I—I am here, monsieur."

I stood with my eyes down. "Your cousin wished to follow you. The Indians restrained him. It was as I told you. He was not a coward at the last, madame."'

I heard her quick breath. "My cousin,—he was very weak. But he would have liked not to be. I think that he would have liked to be such a man as you, monsieur."

If I had been a live man I should have cried out at the irony of having to hear her say that to me. But I could not feel even shame.

"Hush, hush!" I said slowly. "It is my turn now. Madame, I knew that you were in the Seneca camp."

"But I was not."

"It is the same as if you were. We had news from Indian runners that Starling had turned west and joined Pemaou. I knew that he would take you to the Senecas." I stopped and forced myself to look at her. But I found no horror in her face. There was still that strange glow of pride that had not faded since she talked to Cadillac. I saw that she did not understand. My voice was thick, but I tried to speak again. She interrupted.

"This is not a surprise to me. This wilderness that seems so lonely is full of eyes and ears. I feared that you would hear that we had turned west."

Her face was unsteady with tenderness. I had never seen her look like that. I warded her away though she was several feet distant. "You do not understand," I said. "I knew that you were in the camp, yet I gave the signal to attack it. I gave the signal to attack it with Indians, and you were inside."

"But I was not inside, monsieur."

"I believed you to be, and I gave the signal."

"But, monsieur, I"——

"Madame, I believed you to be in the camp, and I gave the signal to attack it."

She was silent at that, and I knew that at last she understood. We stood side by side. I looked at the litter in Cadillac's tent, and counted it piece by piece. There were clothes, papers, a handmill for grinding maize. I felt her touch my hand.

"Will you sit beside me on the couch?"

I followed her. She sat facing me, just out of reach of my hand. The light in the tent was blue and dim, but I could see the breath flutter in her throat. I looked at her. I should never be alone with her again. I should never again look at her in this way. I tried to hold the moment, and not blur it. I looked at the lips that I had never kissed. I watched the rise and fall of the bosom where my head had never lain. She was speaking, but I could hardly understand.

"I was three days in the woods before I found the Pottawatamies," she said. "I was alone all night with the stars and the trees. I thought of everything. I thought of this, monsieur. I was sure you would do—what you did."

I stared at her stupidly.

She reached out and touched my hand. "Monsieur, listen. I have lived beside you. I know you to be a man of fixed purpose and fanatic honor. When such a man as you lays out a path for himself, he will follow it even if he has to trample on what is in his way,—even if he has to trample on his heart, monsieur."

I could not follow her argument. "You should not touch my hand." I drew it away. "You do not understand, after all. Madame, I gave the signal knowing it meant your murder." I rose, and stood like stone. My arms hung like weights by my side, but I would not look away from her.

She rose, too. I saw a strange, wild brightness flame into her eyes.

"Monsieur," she whispered. "I understand so much more than you realize. Listen. You will listen? Monsieur, until now you have always laughed. You have been gay,—gay at all times. Yet, through it all I have seen—I have always seen—your terrible power of self-crucifixion. Oh, I have seen it; I have feared it; I have loved it! I have tried to get away from it. But always I have been conscious of it. It is you. It has ruled all your dealings with me. Else why did you take me with you? Why did you marry me? So in this matter. You knew that the safety of the west, and of the Indians who trusted you, lay in attacking this camp. I knew that you would attack it. Monsieur, monsieur, now will you touch my hand?"

I stepped back. "You cannot want to touch my hand. Madame, you do not know what you are saying."

But she did not move. "Monsieur, will you never believe that I understand?"

I could not answer. I turned from her. The air was black. I seized her fur cloak which lay on the couch and pressed it in my hands. I knew that my breath rattled in groans like a dying man's. If I had tried to speak I should have snatched her to me. I held fast to the table. I had no thought of what she was thinking. I knew only that I must stand there silent if I was to get away from her in safety. If I touched her, if I looked at her, I should lose control, and take what she would give in pity. I fought to save her as well as myself from my madness.

At last she spoke, and her voice was tired and quiet. "You wish me to go, monsieur?"

That brought me to my manhood. I went to her and looked down at her brown head; the brave brown head that she had carried so high through all the terror and unkindness that had come to her. I touched her hair with my lips, and I grew as quiet as she.

"Mary," I said, "it is I who must go away at once before I make trouble for both of us. You are trying to forgive me, but you cannot do it. You may think you have done it, but the time would come when you would look at me in horror, as you looked at Starling. I could stand death better. I know that you cannot forgive me. I knew it at the moment when I gave the signal to attack the camp. You can never forgive me."

She lifted her eyes to mine. "I have not forgiven you, monsieur. There is nothing to forgive."

I let myself look at her, and all my calmness left me. I shut my teeth and tried to hold myself in bounds.

"Mary!" I groaned, "be careful! Be careful! It is not your pity I want. If you forgive me for pity"——

I could not finish, for she gave a little sob. She turned to me. "It is you who marry for pity," she cried, with her eyes brimming. "I could not. I would not. And I have nothing to forgive; nothing, nothing. I would not have had you do anything else. I was proud of you. Oh, so proud, so proud! If you had done anything else I could never have—— Monsieur, do you love me—a little?"

I took her in my arms. I held her close to me and looked into her eyes. I looked deep into them and into the soul of her. I saw understanding of me, acceptance of me as I was. I saw belief, heart hunger, love.

And then I laid my lips on hers. She was my wife. She was the woman God had made for me, the woman who had trusted me through more than death, and who had come to me through blood and agony and tears. She was my own, and I had her there alive. I took her to myself.



CHAPTER XXXIII

TO US AND TO OUR CHILDREN

Hours passed and the flap of Cadillac's tent was not lifted. Outside in the camp the drum beat for sunset. The woman heard it. She pushed back her soft waves of hair, and a shadow fell across the light that had been in her eyes.

"I had forgotten," she cried, with a soft tremble of wonder in her voice. "We have both forgotten. We promised the commandant that we would talk about your duty to the tribes."

I kissed her for her forgetfulness. "Talk is unnecessary," I whispered. "I have made up my mind."

But the drum's note had recalled her to what lay outside the tent walls. She sighed a little and bent to me as I sat at her feet.

"Do not make up your mind yet," she begged with a curious, tender reluctance. "Let me tell you something first."

I pressed her hand between my own. "I cannot listen. I can only feel. Tell me, when did you love me first?"

She raised her hand to hide a tide of color. "Monsieur, it is my shame," she cried, with a little half sob of exultance. "It is my shame, but I will tell you. The night—the night that we were married, I lay awake for hours beset by jealousy of the woman of the miniature. Oh, I am indeed shamed! But how could I help it? Your walk, your laugh, your way of carrying your head! How could I keep from loving you? But I fought it. I fought it. I knew we had to part. I went to sleep every night with that thought uppermost."

I took the hand I held, and quieted its trembling against my lips. "You are my wife," I said. "We shall never part. We shall live together till we are very old." The marvel of my own words awed me.

But she begged me to hear her out. "I must speak of the past," she went on. "It leads to what I would have you say to the commandant. Will you listen?"

"I will try."

"Then—then let me speak of the day we parted. I saw that I had to leave you. I knew—I thought I knew—that country was more sacred than individual happiness. But I was weaker than I thought. When I saw Michillimackinac fade, when I knew that I should never see you again, my life seemed to stop. I begged my cousin to take me back. I—I begged till I fainted."

I could not keep my hands from clenching. "And he refused you?" I asked with my lips dry, and I knew that my voice showed hate of a man who was dead.

She did not answer my question, and when she did not defend him I knew that he had been hard to her. "I must have remained unconscious a long time," she hurried on, "for when I came to myself again the country was different and the sun was low. I was exhausted, and I could not think as I had done. You had said that patriotism was a man-made feeling, and I repeated your words over and over. It was all I could seem to remember. I could not see why our parting had been necessary. I wonder if you can understand. It was as if I had been reborn into a new set of beliefs. All that had seemed inevitable and great had grown trivial. I could not see distinctions as I had. God made us—English, French, Indians. I could not understand what patriotism stood for, after all. I did not know what had come upon my mind, but I saw that words that I had thought worth sacrificing life for had lost their meaning. And so—and so—— You see what I would say. I have changed. If you wish to lead the tribes you are not to think of me."

I rose and drew her to me. "But, Mary, I no longer wish to lead the tribes."

She could not understand me, as indeed I could not wholly understand myself. She looked at me gravely and long, and she tried to find the truth in me,—the truth that was out of sight; the truth about myself that even I did not know.

"Was the commandant right?" she queried. "Is it anxiety about me that has changed your plans?"

I could only shake my head at her. "I am not sure." Then I sat beside her and tried to explain. "Simon is dead, Pierre died saving me. Leclerc and Labarthe died under torture. I sacrificed them to enforce a belief. And now the belief is a phantom. It is very strange. Mary, we have traveled by different roads, but we have reached the same goal. My ambition for conquest is put away."

She drew a long breath, and I saw splendid understanding of me in the look she gave. Yet she was unconvinced.

"Perhaps this feeling may pass," she argued. "It may be temporary. Then you will regret your lost hold with the tribes."

I smiled at her. "I love you," I murmured. "I love you. I love you. I am tired of talk of blood and war. Mary, you accepted me as I was, accept me, if you can, as I am now. I cannot analyze myself. I cannot promise what I will believe as time goes on. But this I know. I was born with a sword in my hand, but now I cannot use it—for aggression. I do not mean that I think it is wrong. I do not know what I believe. Time will tell."

The strange light that made her seem all spirit flamed in the glance that thanked me.

"Yet think well," she cautioned. "I—I am proud of you." Her voice sank to a whisper. "Sometimes even my love seems swallowed in my pride in you. I live on my pride in your power. Think of your unfinished work. No, no, you must go on."

I took her by the shoulders. "You strange, double woman!" I cried, with my voice unsteady. "You command me to do something, the while you are trembling from head to foot for fear I will obey. Will you always play the martyr to your spirit? Mary, I shall not lead the tribes."

"But your unfinished work!"

"What was worth doing has been done. This crisis is past. The west will be safe from the Iroquois for some time. There is other work for me. We will go to France. I have business there. Then I would show the world my wife."

Yet she held me away a moment longer. "You can do this without regret?"

I folded her to me. "It is the only path I see before me," I answered her.

And then, for the first time, she sobbed as she lay in my arms.

A little later we stood together in the tent door. The sunset was lost in the woods behind and the shadows were long and cool. The camp was gay. All memory of death and conquest was put aside, and the men were living in the moment. French and Indians were feasting, and there were song and talk and the movement of lithe bodies, gayly clad. The water babbled strange songs upon the shore, and the forest was full of quiet and mystery. The wilderness, the calm, unfathomed wilderness, had forgotten sorrow and carnage. We forgot, too.

I suddenly laughed as of old, and the sound did not jar. The woman on my arm laughed with me. A thrush was singing. Life was before me, and the woman of my love loved me. My blood tingled and I breathed deep. The wood smoke—the smoke of the pathfinder's fire—pricked keen in my nostrils.

I pointed the woman to the forest. "We shall come back to it," I cried. "We leave it now, but we shall come back to it, some time, somehow. Perhaps we shall be settlers, explorers. I do not know. But we shall come back. This land belongs to us; to us and to our children and our children's children. French or English, what will it matter then? It will be a new race."

The woman turned. I heard her quick breath and saw the red flood her from chin to brow. "A new race!" she repeated, and her eyes grew dark with the splendor of the thought. She clasped her hands, and looked to the west over the unmapped forest, and I knew that for the moment her blood was pulsing, not for me, but for that unborn race which was to hold this land. I had married a woman, yes, but also I had married a poet and a dreamer and a will incarnate. It was such spirit as hers that would shape the destinies of nations yet to come.

I laughed again, and the joy of life ran through me like delirium.

"Come!" I cried to her. "Come, we will tell Cadillac that to-morrow we start for Montreal. The sooner we leave, the sooner we return,—return to smell the wood smoke, and try the wilderness together. Come, Mary, come."

And wrapping my wife in the cloak that the savage king had given her, I led her out and stood beside her while I sent the tribes upon their way.

THE END