"The dog whom we fed and grew has turned against its masters, as the dogs of your own lodges, my brothers, will bite the hand that pats their heads. It has hung about outside of the Great Lodge to kill the hunter who sees no danger ahead. And now, when this dog is caught, and tied at your door, would not my brothers bring him to the end of all evil beasts?" As he finished, he made a gesture of bitter contempt and kicked Menard.

A shout went up, and voices clamoured, protesting, denouncing, exulting. The Captain's eyes flashed fire. It was not for a second that he hesitated. Weakness, to an Indian, is the last, the greatest fault. If he should take this insult, it would end forever not only his own chance of escape, with the maid and the priest, but all hope of safety for the Governor's column. He sprang to his feet before the Indian, whose arm was still stretched out in the gesture, and with two quick blows knocked him clear of his feet, and then kicked him into the fire.

A dozen hands dragged the warrior from the fire and stamped out a blaze that had started in the fringe of one legging. Every man in the house was on his feet, shouting and screaming. Menard stood with his hands at his side, smiling, with the same look of scorn he had worn in the morning when they led him to the torture. Father Claude drew closer to the maid, and the two sat without moving. Then above the uproar rose the voice of the Big Throat; and slowly the noise died away. The chief stepped to the centre of the circle, but before he could speak Menard had reached his side, and motioned to him to be silent.

"My brothers," he said, looking straight at the fallen warrior, who was scrambling to his feet,—"my brothers, the Big Buffalo is sorry that the Onondagas have among them a fool who thinks himself a warrior. The Big Buffalo is not here to fight fools. He is here to talk to chiefs. He is glad that the fool speaks only for himself and not for the brave men of the Long House." He walked deliberately back and resumed his seat by the maid.



"Courage, Mademoiselle," he said close to her ear. "It is all right."

"What will they do, M'sieu?"

"Nothing. I have won. Wait—the Big Throat is speaking."

One by one the warriors fell back to their seats. Some were muttering, some were smiling; but all were subdued. The Big Throat's voice was calm and firm.

"The Big Buffalo has spoken well. The word of a fool is not the word of the Long House. The White Chief comes to give us the voice of Onontio, and we will listen."

He turned toward Menard, and then resumed his seat.

The Captain rose, and looked about the circle. The chiefs were motionless. Even the Long Arrow, now that his outburst was past, closed his lips over the stem of his pipe and gazed at the smoke. Father Claude drew forward the bundle and opened it, the maid helping. Some of the boys behind them crowded closer to see the presents.

Menard spoke slowly and quietly. The rustling and whispering in the outer circle died away, so that every word was distinct.

"When the Five Nations have given their word to another nation, it has not been necessary to sign a paper; it has not been necessary to keep a record. The Long Arrow has said that the Iroquois do not forget. He is right. The words that have gone out from the councils have never been forgotten. I see here, in this council, the faces of warriors who have grown old in serving their people, of chiefs who are bent and wrinkled with the cares of many generations. I see in the eyes of my brothers that they have not forgotten the Onontio, who went away to his greater chief only five seasons ago. They have seen this Onontio in war and peace. They have listened to his silver tongue in the council. They have called themselves his children, and have known that he was a wise and kind father. They remember the promises they made him. But the Senecas did not remember. The Seneca has no ears; he has a hole in his head, and the words of his father have passed through. The Senecas promised Onontio that they would not take the white man's beaver. But when the English came to their lodges and whispered in their ears, the hole was stopped. The English whispered of brandy and guns and powder and hatchets and knives. They told the Senecas that these things should be given to them if they would steal the beaver. The English are cowards—they sent the Senecas to do what they were afraid to do. And then the hole in the Seneca's head was stopped—the Seneca who had forgotten the words of Onontio remembered the words of the English.

"My brothers of the Long House had not forgotten the promises they had given Onontio. When the Seneca chiefs called for aid in stealing the beaver, my brothers were wise and said no. The Onondagas and Cayugas and Oneidas and Mohawks were loyal—they kept their promise, and Onontio has not forgotten; he will not forget.

"This is what the Great Mountain would say to you, my brothers: You have been faithful to your word, and he is pleased. He knows that the Onondagas are his children. And he knows why the Senecas left their villages and fields to plunder his white children. It was for the skins of the beaver, which the white braves had taken from their own forests and would bring in their canoes down the Ottawa to trade at the white man's villages. He knows, my brothers, that the Senecas had tired of their promises, and now would steal the beaver and sell it to the English. What comes to the boy when he climbs the tree to steal the honey which the bees have gathered and taken to their home? Is he not stung and bitten until he cries that he will not disturb the bees again? The Senecas have tried to take that which is to the white man as the honey is to the bee; and they too must be stung and bitten until they have learned that the Great Mountain will always protect those who deserve his aid. He has sent you a comb from the shell of the great sea-tortoise, more precious than a thousand wampum shells, to tell you that as the sea-monster pursues its enemies, so will he pursue those who cannot keep their promises—who lie to him."

Father Claude handed him the comb, and he laid it before the Big Throat. It was evident that he had been closely followed, and he started on his second word with more vigour.

"Your chiefs have spoken to-day of the storm cloud that has swept down from the north; your runners have told you that it is not a cloud, but an army, that has come up the great river and across the lake of Frontenac to the country of the Senecas. Do my brothers know what a great army follows their White Father when he sets out to punish his children? More than twenty score of trained warriors are in this war party, and every warrior carries a musket; to-night they are marching on the Seneca villages. They will destroy those villages as a brave would destroy a nest of hornets in his lodge. Not one lodge will be left standing, not one stalk of corn.

"The Oneidas and Onondagas and Cayugas talk of their cornfields. But even the Cayugas need have no fear. For Onontio is a wise and just father; he punishes only those that offend him. The Senecas have broken their promises, and the Senecas must be punished, but the other nations are still the children of the Great Mountain, and his hand is over them. The Big Buffalo has come from the Great Mountain to tell you that he will not harm the Cayugas; their fields and lodges are safe."

There was a stir at this, and then quiet, as the spectators settled back to hear the rest of Menard's speech. Here was a captive who spoke as boldly as their own chiefs, who commanded their attention as a present bearer from the White Chief. And they knew, all of them, from the way in which he was choosing his words, coolly ignoring the more important subjects until he should be ready to deal with them, that he spoke with authority. He knew his auditors, and he let them see that he knew them.

"The Senecas have listened to the English. What do they expect from them? Do they think that the English wish to help them? Do they look for wealth and support from the English? My brothers of the Long House know better. They have seen the English hide from the anger of the Great Mountain. They have seen the iron hand of New France reach out across the northern country, and along the shores of the great lakes, and down the Father of Waters in the far west, while the English were clinging to their little strip of land on the edge of the sea. My brothers know who is strong and who is weak. Never have the fields of the Five Nations been so rich and so large. No wars have disturbed them. They have grown and prospered. Do the Senecas think it is the English who have made them great? No—the Senecas are not fools. They know that the Great Mountain has driven away their enemies and given them peace and plenty. My brothers of the Long House remembered this when the Senecas came to them and asked for aid in stealing the beaver. They stopped their ears; they knew that Onontio was their father, and that they must be faithful to him if they wished to have plenty in their lodges.

"Onontio is a patient father. Let the Senecas repent, and he will forgive them. Let them bury the hatchet, and he will forgive them. Let them be satisfied with peace and honest trade, and he will buy their furs, and give them fair payment. And then their cornfields shall grow so large that a fleet runner cannot pass around them in half a moon. They shall have no more famine. Their pouches shall be full of powder, their muskets new and bright. Their women shall have warm clothing and many beads. Nowhere shall there be such prosperous nations as here among the Iroquois. If the Senecas have broken their pledges and have not repented, they must be punished. But the Cayugas and Onondagas and Oneidas and Mohawks have not broken their pledges. The Great Mountain has sent the Big Buffalo to tell them that he has seen that they are loyal, and he is pleased. He knows that they are wise. If the Onondagas have a grievance, he will not forget it, and if they ask for vengeance he will hear them. The Great Mountain knows that the Onondagas are his children, that they will not make war upon their father. He sends this coat of seal fur that the hearts of the Cayugas and Onondagas and Oneidas and Mohawks may be kept warm, and to tell them that he loves them and will protect them."

The maid's eyes sparkled with excitement.

"I wish they would speak, or laugh, or do something," she whispered to Father Claude, "Are they not interested? They hardly seem to hear him."

The priest looked at her gravely.

"Yes," he replied, "they are listening."

The time had come to speak of La Grange. The Captain had been steadily leading up to this moment. He had tried to show the Indians that they had no complaint, no cause for war, unless it was the one incident at Fort Frontenac. He knew that the chiefs not only understood his argument, but that they were quietly waiting for him to approach this real cause of trouble, and were probably curious to see how he would meet it. The mind of the Iroquois, when in the council, separated from the heat and emotion of the dance, the hunt, the war-path, was remarkably keen. Menard felt sure that if he could present his case logically and firmly, it would appeal to most of the chief and older warriors. Then the maid came into his thoughts, and he knew, though he did not look down, that she was gazing up at him and waiting. He hesitated for a moment longer. The chiefs, too, were waiting. The Long House was hushed:—three hundred faces were looking at him through the twisting, curling smoke that blurred the scene into an unreal picture. Yes, the time had come to speak of La Grange; and he spoke the first words hurriedly, stepping half-unconsciously farther from the maid.

There was a part of the true story of the capture which he did not tell,—the Governor's part. For the rest, it was all there, every word about La Grange and his treacherous act coming out almost brutally.

"Your speakers have told you of the hunting party that was taken into the stone house, and put into chains, and sent away to be slaves to the Chief-Across-the-Water. There is a chief at the stone house whom you have seen fighting bravely in many a battle. He is a bold warrior; none is so quick or so tireless as Captain la Grange. But he has a devil in his heart. The bad medicine of white man and redman, the fire-water, is always close to him, ready to whisper to him and guide him. It was not the father at Quebec that broke the faith with the Onondagas. It was not the Big Buffalo. If the Big Buffalo could so forget his brothers of the Onondaga lodges, he would not have come back to the Long House to tell them of the sorrow of the Great Mountain. My brothers have seen the Big Buffalo in war and peace—they know that he would not do this.

"The devil was in Captain la Grange's heart. He captured my brothers. He told the Great Mountain that it was a war party, that he had taken them prisoners fairly. He lied to the Great Mountain. When the Great Mountain asked the Big Buffalo to bring the prisoners to his great village on the river, the Big Buffalo could not say, 'No, I am no longer your son!' When the Great Mountain commands, the Big Buffalo obeys. With sorrow in his heart he did as his father told him."

Menard was struggling to put the maid out of his thoughts, to keep in view only the safety of the column and the welfare of New France. And as the words came rapidly to his lips and fell upon the ears of that silent audience, he began to feel that they believed him.

"My brothers," he said, with more feeling than they knew, "it is five seasons since I left your village for the land of the white man. In that time you have had no thought that I was not indeed your brother, the son of your chief. You have known other Frenchmen. Father Claude, who sits by my side; Father Jean de Lamberville, who has given his many years to save you for the great white man's Manitou; Major d'Orvilliers, who has never failed to give food and shelter to the starving hunter at his great stone house,—I could name a hundred others. You know that these are honest, that what they promise will be done. But in every village is a fool, in every family is one who is weak and cannot earn a name on the hunt. You have a warrior in this house who to-day raised his hand against a visitor in the great council. My brothers,—it is with sadness that I say it,—not all the white men are true warriors. You are wise chiefs and brave warriors; you know that because one man is a dog, it is not so with all his nation. The Great Mountain sends me to you, and I speak in his voice. I tell you that Captain la Grange is a dog, that he has broken the faith of the white man and the redman, that the father at Quebec and the Great-Chief-Across-the-Water, who are so quick to punish their red children, will also punish the white. The white men are good. They love the Onondagas. And if any white man breaks the faith, he shall be punished."

His voice had risen, and he was speaking in a glow that seemed to drop a spark into each listening heart. He knew now that they believed. He turned abruptly for the present. Father Claude was so absorbed in following the speech, and in watching the maid, who sat with flushed cheeks and lowered eyes, that he was not ready, and Menard stooped and took the book. He could not avoid seeing the maid, when he looked down; and the priest felt a sudden pain in his own heart to see the look of utter weariness that came into the Captain's eyes.

Menard turned the leaves of the book for a moment, as if to collect himself, and then held it open so that the Indians could see the bright pictures. There was a craning of necks in the outer circles.

"In these picture writings is told the story of the 'Ceremonies of the Mass applied to the Passion of Our Lord,'" he said slowly. "And our Lord is your Great Spirit. It brings you a message; it tells you that the white man is a good man, who punishes his own son as sternly as his red child."

The present pleased the Big Throat. He would not let his curiosity appear in the council, but he dropped the book so that it fell open, seemingly by accident, and his eyes strayed to it now and then during the last word of the speech. Menard did not hesitate again.

"I have told my Onondaga brothers that this white dog shall be punished," he said. "When this word is given in your council in the voice of Onontio, it is a word that cannot be broken. Wind is not strong enough, thunder is not loud enough, waves are not fierce enough, snows are not cold enough, powder is not swift enough to break it." The words came swiftly from his lips. Calm old chiefs leaned forward that they might catch every syllable. Eyes were brighter with interest. The Long Arrow, thinking of his son and fearing lest the man who killed him should slip from his grasp, grew troubled and more stern. At last Menard turned, and taking the portrait from the priest's hands held it up, slowly turning it so that all could see it in the uncertain firelight. At first they were puzzled and surprised; then a murmur of recognition ran from lip to lip.

"You know this maid," Menard was saying, "this maid who to all who love the Iroquois, to all who love the church, the Great Spirit, is a saint. Her spirit has been for many moons in the happy hunting ground. The snow has lain cold and heavy on her grave. The night bird has sung her beauty in the empty forest. Catherine Outasoren has come back from the land where the corn is always growing, where the snows can never fall; she has come back to bear you the word of the Great Mountain. She has come to tell you that the dog who broke the oath of the white man to the Onondagas must suffer. This is the pledge of the Great Mountain."

He stopped abruptly, and stood looking with flashing eyes at the circle of chiefs. There was silence for a moment, then a murmur that rapidly rose and swelled into the loud chatter of many voices. Menard laid the portrait at the feet of the Big Throat, and took his seat at the side of the maid,—but he did not look at her nor she at him. Father Claude sat patiently waiting.

There was low talk among the chiefs. Then a warrior came and led the captives out of doors, through a long passage that opened between two rows of crowding Indians. The night was clear, and the air was sweet to their nostrils. They walked slowly down the path. A group of young braves kept within a few rods.

"It must be late," said Menard, in a weak effort to break the silence.

"Yes," replied Father Claude.

"I suppose we had better go back to our hut?"

"Yes," said the priest again. But the maid was silent.

They sat on the grass plot before the door, none of them having any words that fitted the moment. Menard brought out a blanket and spread it on the ground, that the maid need not touch the dew-laden grass.



CHAPTER XIV.

WHERE THE DEAD SIT.

"They need not starve us," said Menard, trying to speak lightly. "I am hungry."

The others made no reply.

"I will see what chance we have for a supper."

He got up and walked along the path looking for the guards. In a short time he returned.

"They will bring us something. The sentiment is not so strong against us now, I think."

"They change quickly," said Father Claude.

"Yes. It is the Big Throat."

"And yourself, M'sieu," the maid said impulsively. "You have done it, too."

"I cannot tell. We do not know what the council may decide. It may be morning before they will come to an agreement. The Long Arrow will fight to the last."

"And the other, M'sieu,—the one who attacked you,—he too will fight?"

"He is nothing. When an Iroquois shows himself a coward his influence is gone forever. It may be even that they will give him a new name because of this."

"There are times when a small accident or a careless word will change the mind of a nation," said Father Claude. "When we left the council they were not unfriendly to us. But in an hour it may be that they will renew the torture. Until their hearts have been touched by the Faith there are but two motives behind the most of their actions, expediency and revenge. But I think we may hope. Brother de Lamberville has told of many cases of torture where the right appeal has brought a complete change."

So they talked on, none having anything to say, and yet each dreading the silences that came so easily and hung over them so heavily. They could see the council-house some distance up the path. Its outlines were lost in the shadows of the trees, but through the crevices in the bark and logs came thin lines of light, and a glow shone through the long roof opening upon the smoke that hung in the still air above it. Sometimes they could hear indistinctly the voice of a speaker; but the words could not be distinguished. At other times there was a low buzz of voices. The children and women who had not been able to get into the building could be seen moving about outside shutting off a strip of light here and there.

Two braves came with some corn and smoked meat. Menard set it down on a corner of the blanket.

"You will eat, Mademoiselle?"

She shook her head. "I am not hungry. Thank you, M'sieu."

"If I may ask it,—if I may insist,—it is really necessary, Mademoiselle."

She reached out, with a weary little gesture, and took some of the corn.

"And you too, Father."

They ate in silence, and later went together to the spring for a cool drink.

"We ought to make an effort to sleep," Menard said; and added, "if we can. Father, you had better lie down. In a few hours, if there is no word, I will wake you."

"You will not forget, M'sieu? You will not let me sleep too long."

"No." The Captain smiled. "No, Father; you shall take your turn at guard duty."

The priest said good-night, and went to a knoll not far from the door. The maid had settled back against the logs of the hut, and was gazing at the trees. Menard sat in silence for a few moments.

"Mademoiselle," he said at length, "I know that it will be hard for you to rest until we have heard; but—" he hesitated, but she did not help him, and he had to go on,—"I wish you would try."

"It would be of no use, M'sieu."

"I know,—I know. But we have much to keep in mind. It has been very hard. Any one of us is likely to break. And you have not been so used to this life as the Father and I."

"I know it," she said, still looking at the elm branches that bent almost to the ground before them, "but when I lie down, and close my eyes, and let my mind go, it seems as if I could not stand it. It is not bad now; I can be very cool now. You see, M'sieu?" She turned toward him with the trace of a smile. "But when I let go—perhaps you do not know how it is; the thoughts that come, and the dreams,—when I am awake and yet not awake,—and the feeling that it is not worth while, this struggle, even to what it may bring if we succeed. It makes the night a torture, and the dread of another day is even worse. It is better to stay awake; it is better even to break. Anything is better."

Menard looked down between his knees at the ground. He did not understand what it was that lay behind her words. He started to speak, then stopped. After a little he found himself saying words that came to his lips with no effort; in fact, he did not seem able to check them.

"It is not right that I should be here near you. I gave up that right to-night. I gave it up yesterday. I have been proud, during these years of fighting, that I was a soldier. I had thought, too, that I was a man. It was hardly a week ago that I rebuked that poor boy for what I have since done myself. I promised Major Provost that I would take you safely to Frontenac. That I have failed is only a little thing. I have said to you—no, you must not stop me. We have gone already beyond that point. We understand now. I have tried to be to you more than—than I had a right to be while you were in my care. Danton did not know; Father Claude does not know. You know, because I have told you. I have shown you in a hundred ways."

"No," she said, in a choking voice. "It is my fault. I allowed you."

He shook his head.

"That is nothing. It is not what you have done. It is not even what you think. It is what I shall think and know all my life,—that I have done the wrong thing. There are some of us, Mademoiselle, who have no home, no ties of family, no love, except for the work in which we are slowly building up a good name and a firm place. That is what I was. Do you know what it is that makes up the life of such a man? It is the little things, the acts of every day and every week; and they must be honest and loyal, or he will fail. I might have stayed in Paris, I might even have found a place in Quebec where I could wear a bright uniform, and be close in the Governor's favour. I chose the other course. I have given a dozen years to the harder work, only to fall within the week from all that I had hoped,—had thought myself to be. And now, as I speak to you, I know that I have lost; that if you should smile at me, should put your hand in mine, everything that I have been working for would be nothing to me. You would be the only thing in the world."

She sat motionless. He did not go on, and yet each moment seemed to bring them closer in understanding. After a little while she said huskily:—

"You cared—you cared like that?"

She was not looking toward him, and she could not see him slowly bow his head; but there was an answer in his silence.

"You cared—when you made the speech—"

"Yes."

She looked at the stalwart, bowed figure. She was beginning to understand what he had done, that in his pledge to the chiefs he had triumphed over a love greater than she had supposed a man could bear for a woman.

"A soldier cannot always choose his way," he was saying. "I have never chosen mine. It was the orders of my superior that brought us here, that brought this suffering to you. If it were not for these orders, the Onondagas would be my friends, and because of that, your friends. It has always been like this; I have built up that others might tear down. I thought for a few hours that something else was to come to me. I should have known better. It was when you took the daisy—" she raised her hand and touched the withered flower. "I did not reason. I knew I was breaking my trust, and I did not care. After all, perhaps even that was the best thing. It gave me strength and hope to carry on the fight. It was you, then,—not New France. Now the dream is over, and again it is New France. It must be that."

"Yes," she said, "it must be."

"I have had wild thoughts. I have meant to ask you to let me hope, once this is over and you safe at Frontenac. I could not believe that what comes so easily to other men is never to come to me. I cannot ask that now."

She looked at him, and a sudden glow came into her eyes.

"Why not?" she whispered, as if frightened.

"Why not," he repeated, for an instant meeting her gaze. Then he rose and stood before her. "Because I have given an oath to bring Captain la Grange to punishment. You heard me. But you did not hear what I promised to Father Claude. I have sworn that what the Governor may refuse to do, I shall do myself. I have set my hand against your family."

"You could not help it, M'sieu,—you could not help it," she said. But the light was going out of her eyes. It had been a moment of weakness for both of them. She looked up at him, standing erect in the faint light, and the sight of his square, broad shoulders seemed to give her strength. He was the strong one; he had always been the strong one. She rose and leaned back against the logs. She found that she could face him bravely.

"He is your cousin," he had just said in a dry voice.

"Yes, he is my cousin."

Menard was steadily recovering himself.

"We will not give all up. You know that I love you,—I hope that you love me." He hesitated for an instant, but she gave no sign. "We will keep the two flowers. We will always think of this day, and yesterday. I have no duty now but to get you safe to Frontenac; until you are there I must not speak again. As for the rest of it, we can only wait, and trust that some day there may be some light."

She looked at him sadly.

"You do not know? Father Claude has not told you?"

Something in her voice brought him a step nearer.

"You know that Captain la Grange is my cousin?"

"Yes."

"You did not know that I am to be his wife?"

They stood face to face, looking deep into each other's eyes, while a long minute dragged by, and the rustling night sounds and the call of the crickets came to their ears.

"No," he said, "I did not know. May I keep the flower, Mademoiselle?"

She bowed her head. She could not speak.

"Good-night."

"Good-night."

He walked away. She saw him stop at the knoll where the priest lay asleep on a bed of boughs, and stand for a moment gazing down at him. Then he went into the shadows. From the crackling of the twigs she knew that he was walking about among the trees. She sank to the ground and listened to the crickets. A frog bellowed in the valley; perhaps he had been calling before—she did not know.

She fell asleep, with her cheek resting against a mossy log. She did not know when Menard came back and stood for a long time looking at her. He did not awaken Father Claude until long after the time for changing the watch.

When he did, he walked up and down on the path, holding the priest's arm, and trying to speak. They had rounded the large maple three times before he said:—

"You did not tell me, Father."

"What, my son?"

The Captain stopped, and drawing the priest around, pointed toward the maid as she slept.

"You did not tell me—why we are taking her to Frontenac."

"No. She asked it. We spoke of it only once, that night on the river. She was confused, and she asked me not to speak. She does not know him. She has not seen him since she was a child."

Menard said nothing. He was gripping the priest's arm, and gazing at the sleeping maid.

"It was her father," added Father Claude.

Menard's hand relaxed.

"Good-night, Father." He walked slowly toward the bed on the knoll. And Father Claude called softly after him:—

"Good-night, M'sieu. Good-night."

Menard lay awake. He could see the priest sitting by the door. He wondered if the maid were sleeping. A late breeze came across the valley, arousing the leaves and carrying a soft whisper from tree to tree, until all the forest voices were joined. Lying on his side he could see indistinctly the council-house. There were still the lighted cracks; the Long House was still in session. Their decision did not now seem so vital a matter. The thought of the maid—that he was taking her to be the wife of another, and that other La Grange—had taken the place of all other thoughts.

Later still came the buzz of many voices. Dark forms were moving about the council-house. Menard raised himself to his elbow, and waited until he saw a group approaching on the path, then he joined Father Claude.

The Big Throat led the little band of chiefs to the hut. They stood, half a score of them, in a semicircle, their blankets drawn close, their faces, so far as could be seen in the dim light, stern and impassive. Menard and the priest stood erect and waited.

"It has pleased the Great Mountain that his voice should be heard in the Long House of the Iroquois," said the Big Throat, in a low, calm voice. "His voice is gentle as the breeze and yet as strong as the wind. The Great Mountain has before promised many things to the Iroquois. Some of the promises he has broken, some he has kept. But the Onondagas know that there is no man who keeps all his promises. They once thought they knew such a man, but they were mistaken. White men, Indians,—all speak at night with a strong voice, in the morning with a weak voice. Each draws his words sometimes off the top of his mind, where the truth and the strong words do not lie. The Onondagas are not children. They know the friend from the enemy. And they know, though he may sometimes fail them, that the Great Mountain is their friend, their father."

Menard bowed slowly, facing the chief with self-control as firm as his own.

"They know," the Big Throat continued, "that the Indian has not always kept the faith with the white man. And then it is that the Great Mountain has been a kind father. If he thinks it right that our brothers, the Senecas, should meet with punishment for breaking the peace promised to the white man by the Long House, the Onondagas are not the children to say to their father, 'We care not if our brother has done wrong; we will cut off the hand that holds the whip of punishment.' The Onondagas are men. They say to the father, 'We care not who it is that has done wrong. Though he be our next of blood, let him be punished.' This is the word of the council to the Big Buffalo who speaks with his father's voice."

Well as he knew the Iroquois temperament, Menard could not keep an expression of admiration from his eyes. He knew what this speech meant,—that the Big Throat alone saw far into the future, saw that in the conflict between red and white, the redman must inevitably lose unless he crept close under the arm that was raised to strike him. It was no sense of justice that prompted the Big Throat's words; it was the vision of one of the shrewdest statesmen, white or red, who had yet played a part in the struggles for possession of the New World. Greatest of all, only a master could have convinced that hot-blooded council that peace was the safest course. The chief went on:—

"The Big Buffalo has spoken well to the council. He has told the chiefs that he has not been a traitor to the brothers who have for so long believed that his words were true words. The Big Buffalo is a pine tree that took root in the lands of the Onondagas many winters ago. From these lands and these waters, and the sun and winds that give life to the corn and the trees of the Onondagas, he drew his sap and his strength. Can we then believe that this pine tree which we planted and which has grown tall and mighty before our eyes, is not a pine tree at all? When a quick-tongued young brave, who has not known the young tree as we have, comes to the council and says that this Big Buffalo, this pine tree, is not a pine but an elm with slippery bark, are we to believe him? Are we to drop from our minds what our hearts and eyes have long known, to forget what we have believed? My brothers of the Long House say no. They know that the pine tree is a pine tree. It may be that in the haze of the distance pine and elm look alike to young eyes; but what a chief has seen, he has seen; what he has known, he has known. The Big Buffalo speaks the truth to his Onondaga brothers, and with another sun he shall be free to go to his white brothers."

"The Big Throat has a faithful heart," said Menard, quietly. "He knows that the voice of Onontio is the voice of right and strength."

"The chiefs of the Onondagas and Cayugas will sit quietly before their houses with their eyes turned toward the lands beyond the great lake, waiting for the whisper that shall come with the speed of the winds over forests and waters to tell them that the white man has kept his promise. When the dog who robbed our villages of a hundred brave warriors has been slain, then shall they know that the Big Buffalo is what they have believed him to be, their brother."

"And the maid and the holy Father?"

"They are free. The chiefs are sorry that a foolish brave has captured the white man's squaw."

Menard and Father Claude bowed again, and the chiefs turned and strode away. The priest smiled gently after them.

"And now, M'sieu, we may rest quietly."

"Yes. You lie down, Father; it will not be necessary to watch now, and anyway I am not likely to sleep much." He walked back to the bed on the knoll, leaving the priest to stretch out across the doorway.

The elder bushes and briers crowded close to the little clearing behind the hut, and Menard, lying on his side with his face close to the ground, watched the clusters of leaves as they gently rustled. He rolled half over and stared up at the bits of sky that showed through the trees. It seemed as if the great world were a new thing, as if these trees and bushes and reaches of tufted grass were a part of a new life. Before, they had played their part in his rugged life without asking for recognition; but to-night they came into his thoughts with their sympathy, and he wondered that all this great world of summer green and winter white, and of blue and green and lead-coloured water could for so long have influenced him without consciousness on his part. But his life had left little time for such thoughts; to-night he was unstrung.

Over the noise of the leaves and the trickle of the spring sounded a rustle. It was not loud, but it was a new sound, and his eyes sought the bushes. The noise came, and stopped; came, and stopped. Evidently someone was creeping slowly toward the hut; but the sound was on the farther side of him, so that he could reach the maid's side before whoever was approaching could cross the clearing.

For a time the noise died altogether. Then, after a space, his eyes, sweeping back and forth along the edge of the brush, rested on a bright bit of metal that for an instant caught the light of the sky, probably a weapon or a head ornament. Menard was motionless. Finally an Indian stepped softly out and stood beside a tree. When he began to move forward the Captain recognized Tegakwita, and he spoke his name.

The Indian came rapidly over the grass with his finger at his lips.

"Do not speak loud," he whispered. "Do not wake the holy Father."

"Why do you come creeping upon my house at night, like a robber?"

"Tegakwita is sad for his sister. His heart will not let him go among men about the village; it will not let his feet walk on the common path."

"Why do you come?"

"Tegakwita seeks the Big Buffalo."

"It cannot be for an honest reason. You lay behind the bush. You saw me here and thought me asleep, but you did not approach honestly. You crept through the shadows like a Huron."

"Tegakwita's night eyes are not his day eyes. He could not see who the sleeping man was. When he heard the voice, he came quickly."

Menard looked at the musket that rested in the Indian's hand, at the hatchet and knife that hung from his belt.

"You are heavily armed, Tegakwita. Is it for the war-path or the hunt? Do Onondaga warriors carry their weapons from house to house in their own village?"

The Indian made a little gesture of impatience.

"Tegakwita has no house. His house has been dishonoured. He lives under the trees, and carries his house with him. All that he has is in his hand or his belt. The Big Buffalo speaks strangely."

Menard said nothing for a moment. He looked up, with a keen gaze, at the erect figure of the Indian. Finally he said:—

"Sit down, Tegakwita. Tell me why you came."

"No. Tegakwita cannot rest himself until his sister has reached the Happy Hunting-Ground."

"Very well, do as you like. But waste no more time. What is it?"

"The Big Buffalo has been an Onondaga. He knows the city in the valley where the dead sit in their graves. It is there that my sister lies, by an open grave, waiting for the farewell word of him who alone is left to say farewell to her. Tegakwita's Onondaga brothers will not gather at the grave of a girl who has given up her nation for a white dog. But he can ask the Big Buffalo, who brought the white dog to our village, to come to the side of the grave."

"Your memory is bad, Tegakwita. It was not I who brought the white brave. It was you who brought him, his two hands tied with thongs."

The Indian stood, without replying, looking down at him with brilliant, staring eyes.

Menard spoke again.

"You want me to go with you. You slip through the bushes like a snake, with your musket and your knife and your hatchet, to ask me to go with you to the grave of your sister. Do I speak rightly, Tegakwita?"

"The Big Buffalo has understood."

Menard slowly rose and looked into the Indian's eyes.

"I have no weapons, Tegakwita. The chiefs who have set me free have not yet returned the musket which was taken from me. It is dangerous to go at night through the forest without a weapon. Give me your hatchet and I will go with you."

Tegakwita's lip curled almost imperceptibly.

"The White Chief is afraid of the night?"

Menard, too, looked scornful. He coolly waited.

"The Big Buffalo cannot face the dead without a hatchet in his hand?" said Tegakwita.

Menard suddenly sprang forward and snatched the hatchet from the Indian's belt. It was a surprise, and the struggle was brief. Tegakwita was thrown a step backward. He hesitated between struggling for the hatchet and striking with the musket; before he had fully recovered and dropped the musket, Menard had leaped back and stood facing him with the hatchet in his right hand.

"Now I will go with you to the city of the dead, Tegakwita."

The Indian's breath was coming quickly, and he stood with clenched fists, taken aback by the Captain's quickness.

"Come, I am ready. Pick up your musket."

As Tegakwita stooped, Menard glanced toward the hut. The priest lay asleep before the door. It was better to get this madman away than to leave him free to prowl about the hut.



CHAPTER XV.

THE BAD DOCTOR.

At the edge of the thicket they stopped and stood face to face, each waiting for the other to pass ahead. Tegakwita slightly bowed, with an unconscious imitation of the Frenchmen he had seen at Fort Frontenac and Montreal.

"Pass on," said Menard, sternly. "You know the trail, Tegakwita; I do not. It is you who must lead the way."

The Indian was sullen, but he yielded, plunging forward between the bushes, and now and then, in the shadow of some tree, glancing furtively over his shoulder. His manner, the suspicion that showed plainly in the nervous movements of his head, in every motion as he glided through thicket, glade, or strip of forest, told Menard that he had chosen well to take the second place. His fingers closed firmly about the handle of the hatchet. That he could throw at twenty paces to the centre of a sapling, no one knew better than Tegakwita.

The city of the dead lay in a hollow at ten minutes' walk from the village. Generations ago the trees had been cleared, and no bush or sapling had been allowed a foothold on this ground. The elms and oaks and maples threw their shadows across the broad circle, and each breath of wind set them dancing over the mounds where many an hundred skeletons crouched side by side, under the grass-grown heaps of earth, their rusted knives and hatchets and their mouldy blankets by their sides. No man came here, save when a new heap of yellow earth lay fresh-turned in the sun, and a long line of dancing, wailing redmen, led by their howling doctors, followed some body that had come to claim its seat among the skeletons.

Tegakwita paused at the edge of the clearing, and looked around with that furtive quickness. Menard came slowly to his side.

"You will take your weapons to the grave?" asked Menard, very quietly, but with a suggestion that the other understood.

"Yes. Tegakwita has no place for his weapons. He must carry them where he goes."

"We can leave them here. The leaves will hide them. I will put the hatchet under this log." He made a motion of dropping the hatchet, closely watching the Indian; then he straightened, for Tegakwita's right hand held the musket, and his left rested lightly on his belt, not a span from his long knife.

"The White Chief knows the danger of leaving weapons to tempt the young braves. He finds it easy to take the chance with Tegakwita's hatchet."

"Very well," said Menard, sternly. "Lead the way."

They walked slowly between the mounds. Menard looked carefully about, but in the uncertain light he could see no sign of a new opening in any of them. When they had passed the centre he stopped, and said quietly:—

"Tegakwita."

The Indian turned.

"Where is the grave?"

"It is beyond, close to the great oak."

"Ah!"

They went on. The great oak was in a dense, deep-shadowed place, at the edge of the circle. A little to one side, close to the crowding thicket, was a small, new mound. Looking now at Tegakwita, Menard could see that his front was stained with the soil. Probably he had spent the day working on the mound for his sister. While Menard stood at one side, he went to a bush that encroached a yard on the sacred ground and drew out a number of presents, with necessary articles and provisions to stay the soul on its long journey to the Happy Hunting-Ground. It was at the end of Menard's tongue to repeat Tegakwita's remark about hiding the weapons, but he held back and stood silently waiting.

"Come," said the Indian.

He parted the bushes, drew away a heavy covering of boughs, and there, wrapped in Tegakwita's finest blanket, lay the body of the Indian girl. Menard stood over it, looking down with a sense of pity he had never before felt for an Indian. He could not see her face, for it was pressed to the ground, but the clotted scalp showed indistinctly in the shadow. He suddenly raised, his eyes to Tegakwita, who stood opposite.

"What have you done with the white brave?" he said in fierce, low tones. "What have you done with him?"

Tegakwita raised one arm and swept it about in a quarter circle.

"Ask the vultures that come when a man falls, ask the beasts that wait for everyone, ask the dogs of the village. They can tell you, not I."

Menard's hands closed tightly, and a wild desire came to him to step across the body and choke the man who had killed Danton; but in a moment he was himself. He had nothing to gain by violence. And after all, the Indian had done no more than was, in his eyes, right. He bent down; and together they carried the body to the grave, close at hand. Tegakwita placed her sitting upright in the hole he had dug. By her side he placed the pots and dishes and knives which she had used in preparing the food they two had eaten. He set the provisions before her and in her lap; and drawing a twist of tobacco from his bosom, he laid it at her feet to win her the favour and kindness of his own Manitou on her journey. After each gift he stood erect, looking up at the sky with his arms stretched out above his head; and at these moments his simple dignity impressed Menard. But there were other moments, when, in stooping, Tegakwita would glance about with nervous, shifting eyes, as if fearing some interruption. His musket was always in his hand or by his side. Menard took it that he still feared the hatchet.

Then at last the ceremony was done, and the Indian with his bare hands threw the earth over the hole in the mound. Still looking nervously from bush to bush, his hands began to move more slowly; then he paused, and sat by the mound, looking up with a hesitancy that recognized the need of an explanation for the delay.

"Tegakwita's arms are weary."

"Are they?" said Menard, dryly.

"Tegakwita has not slept for many suns."

"Neither have I."

The Indian started as a rustle came from the forest. Menard watched him curiously. The whole proceeding was too unusual to be easily understood. Tegakwita's nervous manner, his request that the Captain accompany him to the mound, the weapons that never left his side,—these might be the signs of a mind driven to madness by his sister's act; but Menard did not recollect, from his own observation of the Iroquois character, that love for a sister was a marked trait among the able-bodied braves. Perhaps it was delay that he sought. At this thought Menard quietly moved farther from the undergrowth. Tegakwita's quick eyes followed the movement.

"Come," said the Captain, "the night is nearly gone. I cannot wait longer."

"Tegakwita has worked hard. His heart is sick, his body lame. Will the Big Buffalo help his Onondaga brother?"

"Yes."

The Indian rose with too prompt relief.

"Your muscles need only the promise of help to give them back their spring, Tegakwita."

"The White Chief speaks with a biting tongue."

"You have been speaking with a lying tongue. You think I do not know why you have brought me here; you think I do not understand the evil thoughts that fill your mind. You are a coward, Tegakwita. But you will not succeed to-night."

The ill-concealed fright that came into the Indian's face and manner told Menard that he was not wide of the mark. He began to understand. Tegakwita wished to get him at work and off his guard,—the rest would be simple. And as Menard well knew, more than one brave of the Onondagas, who had known him both as friend and enemy, would shrink when the moment came to attack the Big Buffalo single-handed, even though taking him at a disadvantage. Now Tegakwita was hesitating, and struggling to keep his eyes from the thicket.

"Yes, I will help you. We will close this matter now, and go back to the village where your cowardly hands will be tied by fear of your chiefs. Drop your musket."

"The Big Buffalo speaks in anger. Does he think to disarm Tegakwita that he may kill him?"

"Lay your musket on the ground before us. Then I will drop the hatchet."

Tegakwita stepped around the grave, and leaning the musket across a stone stood by it. Menard's voice was full of contempt.

"You need not fear. The Big Buffalo keeps his word." He tossed the hatchet over the grave, and stood unarmed. "Drop your knife."

Tegakwita hesitated. Menard took a step forward, and the knife fell to the ground.

"Come. We will work side by side." He was surprised at Tegakwita's slinking manner. He wondered if this Indian could by some strange accident have been given a temperament so fine that sorrow could unman him. To the Iroquois, gifted as they were with reasoning power, life held little sentiment. Curiously enough, as Menard stood in the light of the young moon watching the warrior come slowly around the grave, which still showed above the earth the head and shoulders of the dead girl, he found himself calling up the rare instances he had known of a real affection between Indians.

Tegakwita stood by him, and without a word they stooped and set to work, side by side, scraping the earth with their fingers over the body. Tegakwita found a dozen little ways to delay. Menard steadily lost patience.

"Tegakwita has forgotten," said the Indian, standing up; "he has not offered the present to his sister's Oki."

"Well?" said Menard, roughly.

Tegakwita's voice trembled, as if he knew that he was pressing the white man too far.

"The grave must be opened. It will not take long."

It came to Menard in a flash. The many delays, the anxious glances toward the thicket,—these meant that others were coming. Something delayed them; Tegakwita must hold the Big Buffalo till they arrived. With never a word Menard sprang over the grave; but the Indian was quicker, and his hand was the first on the musket. Then they fought, each struggling to free his hands from the other's grasp, rolling over and over,—now half erect, tramping on the soft mound, now wrestling on the harder ground below. At last Menard, as they whirled and tumbled past the weapons, snatched the knife. Tegakwita caught his wrist, and then it was nigh to stabbing his own thigh as they fought for it. Once he twisted his hand and savagely buried the blade in the Indian's side. Tegakwita caught his breath and rallied, and the blood of the one was on them both. At last a quick wrench bent the Indian's wrist back until it almost snapped,—Menard thought that it had,—and the stained blade went home once, and again, and again, until the arms that had clung madly about the white man slipped off, and lay weakly on the ground.

Menard was exhausted. The dirt and blood were in his hair and eyes and ears. He was rising stiffly to his knees when the rush of Indians came from the bushes. He could not see them clearly,—could hardly hear them,—though he fought until a musket-stock swung against his head and stretched him on the ground.

When he recovered they were standing about him, half a score of them, waiting to see if he still had life. He raised a bruised arm to wipe his eyes, but a rough hand caught it and drew a thong tightly about his wrists. Slowly his senses awakened, and he could see indistinctly the silent forms,—some standing motionless, others walking slowly about. It was strange. His aching head had not the wit to meet with the situation. Then they jerked him to his feet, and with a stout brave at each elbow and others crowding about on every side, he was dragged off through the bushes.

For a long time the silent party pushed forward. They were soon clear of the forest, passing through rich wild meadows that lifted the scent of clover, the fresher for the dew that lay wet underfoot. There were other thickets and other forests, and many a reach of meadow, all rolling up and down over the gentle hills. Menard tried to gather his wits, but his head reeled; and the struggle to keep his feet moving steadily onward was enough to hold his mind. He knew that he should watch the trail closely, to know where they were taking him, but he was not equal to the effort. At last the dawn came, gray and depressing, creeping with deadly slowness on the trail of the retreating night. The sky was dull and heavy, and a mist clung about the party, leaving little beads of moisture on deerskin coats and fringed leggings and long, brown musket barrels. The branches drooped from the trees, blurred by the mist and the half dark into strange shapes along the trail.

The day was broad awake when Menard gave way. His muscles had been tried to the limit of his endurance during these many desperate days and sleepless nights that he had thought to be over. He fell loosely forward. For a space they dragged him, but the burden was heavy, and the chief ordered a rest. The band of warriors scattered about to sleep under the trees, leaving a young brave to watch the Big Buffalo, who slept motionless where they had dropped him in the long grass close at hand. On every side were hills, shielding them from the view of any chance straggler from the Onondaga villages, unless he should clamber down the short slopes and search for them in the mist. A stream tumbled by, not a dozen yards from Menard and his yawning guardian.

When he awoke, the mist had thinned, but the sky showed no blue. Beneath the gray stretch that reached from hill crest to hill crest, light foaming clouds scudded across from east to west, though there was little wind near the ground. The Captain listened for a time to the noise of the stream before looking about. He changed his position, and rheumatic pains shot through his joints. For the second time in his life he realized that he was growing old; and with this thought came another. What sort of a soldier was he if he could not pass through such an experience without paying the old man's penalty. To be sure his head was battered and bruised, and scattered over his shoulders and arms and hips were a dozen small wounds to draw in the damp from the grass, but he did not think of these. In his weak, half-awake state, he was discouraged, with the feeling that the best of his life was past. And the thought that he, a worn old soldier, could have dreamed what he had dreamed of the maid and her love sank down on his heart like a weight. But this thought served another purpose: to think of the maid was to think of her danger; and this was to be the alert soldier again, with a plan for every difficulty as long as he had life in his body. And so, before the mood could drag him down, he was himself again.

Most of the Indians were asleep, sprawling about under the trees near the water. The warrior guarding Menard appeared to be little more than a youth. He sat with his knees drawn up and his head bowed, his blanket pulled close around him, and his oily black hair tangled about his eyes. Menard lay on his back looking at the Indian through half-closed eyes.

"Well," he said in a low, distinct voice, "you have me now, haven't you?"

The Indian gave him a quick glance, but made no reply.

"It is all right, my brother. Do not turn your eyes to me, and nothing will be seen. I can speak quietly. A nod of your head will tell me if anyone comes near. Do you understand?"

Again the little eyes squinted through the hanging locks of hair.

"You do understand? Very well. You know who I am? I am the Big Buffalo. I killed half a score of your bravest warriors in their own village. Do you think these thongs can hold the Big Buffalo, who never has been held by thongs, who is the hardest fighter and the boldest hunter of all the lands from the Mohawk to the Great River of the Illinois? Listen, I will tell you how many canoes of furs the Big Buffalo has in the north country; I will tell you—"

The Indian's head nodded almost imperceptibly. A yawning brave was walking slowly along the bank of the stream, gathering wood for a fire. He passed to a point a few rods below the prisoner, then came back and disappeared among the trees.

"I will tell you," said Menard, keeping his voice at such a low pitch that the guard had to bend his head slightly toward him, "of the great bales of beaver that are held safe in the stores of the Big Buffalo. Does my brother understand? Does he see that these bales are for him, that he will be as rich as the greatest chief among all the chiefs of the Long House? No brave shall have such a musket,—with a long, straight barrel that will send a ball to the shoulder of a buffalo farther than the flight of three arrows. His blanket shall be the brightest in Onondaga; his many clothes, his knives, his hatchets, his collars of wampum shall have no equal. He can buy the prettiest wives in the nation. Does my brother understand?"

The fire had been lighted, and a row of wild hens turned slowly on wooden spits over the flames. One by one the warriors were rousing and stirring about among the trees. There were shouts and calls, and the grumbling talk of the cooks as they held the long spits and turned their faces away from the smoke, which rose but slowly in the damp, heavy air. Menard lay with his eyes closed, as if asleep; even his lips hardly moved as he talked.

"My brother must think quickly, for the time is short. All that I promise he will have, if he will be a friend to the Big Buffalo. And every Onondaga knows that the word of the Big Buffalo is a word that has never been broken. My brother will be a friend. He will watch close, and to-night, when the dark has come, he will let his knife touch the thongs that hold the White Chief captive."

The Indian's face was without expression. Menard watched him closely, but could not tell whether his offer was taking effect. What he had no means of knowing was that since the battle at the hut, and the short fight in the council-house, the younger braves had centred their superstitions on him. It was thought that his body was occupied by some bad spirit that gave him the strength of five men, and that he had been sent to their village by a devil to lure the warriors into the hands of the French. These were not the open views that would have been heard at a council; they were the fears of the untried warriors, who had not the vision to understand the diplomacy of the chiefs, nor the position in the village to give them a public hearing. They had talked together in low tones, feeding the common fear, until a few words from the Long Arrow had aroused them into action. And so this guard was between two emotions: the one a lust for wealth and position in the tribe, common to every Indian and in most cases a stronger motive than any of the nobler sentiments; the other an unreasoning fear of this "bad doctor," the fear that to aid him or to accept furs from him would poison the ears of his own Oki, and destroy his chance of a name and wealth during his life, and of a long, glorious hunt after death.

"My brother shall come with me to the land of the white men, where there is no trouble,—where he shall have a great lodge like the white chiefs, with coloured pictures in gold frames, and slaves to prepare his food. He shall be a great chief among white men and redmen, and his stores shall be filled to the doors with furs of beaver and seal."

Menard's voice was so low and deliberate that the Indian did not question his statements. He was tempted more strongly than he had ever been tempted before, but with the desire grew the fear of the consequences. As for the Captain, he was clutching desperately at this slender chance that lay to his hand.

"I have given my brother his choice of greater power than was ever before offered to a youth who has yet to win his name. The stroke of a knife will do it. No one shall know, for the Big Buffalo can be trusted. My brother has it before him to be a red chief or a white chief, as he may wish. The warriors are near,—the day grows bright; he must speak quickly."

There was a call from the group by the fire, and the young Indian gave a little start, and slowly rising, walked away, yielding his place as guard to an older man. Menard rolled over and pressed his face to the ground as if weary; he could then watch the youth through the grass as he moved to the fire, but in a moment he lost sight of him. The new guard was a stern-faced brave, and his appearance promised no help; so the Captain, having done all that could be done at the moment, tried to get another sleep, struggling to put thoughts of the maid from his mind. Perhaps, after all, she was safe at the village.

Meantime the youth, after a long struggle with the temptings of the bad doctor, yielded to his superstition, and sought the Long Arrow, who lay on the green bank of the stream. In a few moments the story was told, and the chief, with a calm face but with twinkling eyes, came to the prisoner and stood looking down at him.

"The White Chief is glad to be with his Onondaga brothers?" he said in his quiet voice.

Menard slowly raised his eyes, and looked coolly at the chief without replying.

"The tongue of the Big Buffalo is weary perhaps? It has moved so many times to tell the Onondaga what is not true, that now it asks for rest. The Long Arrow is kind. He will not seek to move it again. For another sleep it shall lie at rest; then it may be that our braves shall find a way to stir it."

Menard rolled over, with an expression of contempt, and closed his eyes.

"The Long Arrow was sorry that his white brother was disappointed at the torture. Perhaps he will have better fortune after he has slept again. Already have the fires been lighted that shall warm the heart of the White Chief. And he shall have friends to brighten him. His squaw, too, shall feel the glow of the roaring fire, and the gentle hands of the Onondaga warriors, who do not forget the deaths of their own blood."

Menard lay still.

"Another sleep, my brother, and the great White Chief who speaks with the voice of Onontio shall be with his friends. He shall hear the sweet voice of his young squaw through the smoke that shall be her garment. He shall hear the prayers of his holy Father by his side, and shall know that his spirit is safe with the Great Spirit who is not strong enough to give him his life when the Long Arrow takes it away."

There was still a mad hope that the chief spoke lies, that the maid and Father Claude were safe. True or false, the Long Arrow would surely talk thus; for the Iroquois were as skilled in the torments of the mind as of the body. He was conscious that the keen voice was going on, but he did not follow what it said. Again he was going over and over in his mind all the chances of escape. It might be that the youth had been moved by his offer. But at that moment he heard the Long Arrow saying:—

" ... Even before his death the Big Buffalo must lie as he has always lied. His tongue knows not the truth. He thinks to deceive our young braves with talk of his furs and his lodges and his power in the land of the white men. But our warriors know the truth. They know that the Big Buffalo has no store of furs, no great lodges,—that he lives in the woods with only a stolen musket, where he can by his lies capture the peaceful hunters of the Onondagas to make them the slaves of his Chief-Across-the-Water."



CHAPTER XVI.

AT THE LONG LAKE.

Menard again dropped to sleep. When the day had nearly reached its middle, he was aroused by two warriors, who pulled him roughly to his feet. The band had evidently been astir for some moments. A few braves were extinguishing the fire with clumps of sod, while the others packed in their blankets what had been left from the morning meal, or looked to the spots of rust which the damp had brought to knives and muskets. The Long Arrow came over to inspect the thongs that held Menard's wrists; he had not forgotten his attack on his guards on the morning of the torture. And with a precaution that brought a half smile to the prisoner's face, he posted a stout warrior on each side, in addition to those before and behind. Then they set out over the hills, wading through a great tumbling meadow where their feet sank deep into the green and yellow and white that June had spread over the open lands of the Iroquois. Overhead the sky, though still clouded, was breaking, giving little glimpses of clear blue.

As they neared the crest of the first hill, the Captain looked back over his shoulder. The sun had at last broken through to the earth, and a great band of yellow light was moving swiftly across the valley. Before it, all the ground was sombre in its dark green and its heavy moisture; behind lay a stretch of golden sunshine, rounding over the farther hills in great billows of grass and flowers and clustering trees, glistening with dew and glowing with the young health of the summer. Up the hillside came the sunlight; and then in a moment it had passed them, and the air was warm and sweet.

Menard looked at the sun and then back across the valley to get his direction. He saw that the party was moving a little to the south of west. This line of march should take them through the Cayuga country,—a natural move on the part of the Long Arrow, for the Cayugas were closer to the scene of the fighting than the Onondagas, and therefore would be less likely to interfere with the persecution of a Frenchman, particularly before their chiefs should return from the council.

Late in the afternoon they came to a slow-moving stream, the outlet of an inland lake. By the basin-shape of the end of the lake, he recognized it as one that lay directly between Onondaga and the Long Lake of the Cayugas. On the bank of the little river, under the matted foliage, the chief signalled a halt, and the warriors threw themselves on the ground. Menard lay at the foot of a beech whose roots dipped in the water, and for the hundredth time since the sun had risen he cast about for some chance at escape. The thongs about his wrists were tied by skilful hands. He tried to reach the knot with his fingers, but could not. His guards were alert to every motion; they lay on either side, and he could not lift his eyes without meeting the sullen glance of one or the other. He was about ready to submit, trusting to his wits to seize the first opportunity that should come; for after all, to worry would strain his nerves, and now, if at any time, his nerves and his strength were needed. When at last he reached this point of view, he lay back on the weed-grown earth and went to sleep.

An hour later he was aroused for another start. Night came while they were on the way, but they pushed steadily forward, and within a few hours they reached the Long Lake. Instead of stopping, however, the Long Arrow headed to the south along the bank of the lake. For a space it was hard going through the interwoven bushes and briers that tore even Menard's tough skin. The moon was in the sky, and here and there he caught glimpses of the lake lying still and bright. They saw no signs of life save for the flitting bats, and the owls that called weirdly through the reaches of the forest. After another hour they found a trail which led them down close to the water, and at last to a half-cleared space, rank and wild with weed and thistle, and with rotting heaps where lay the trunks of trees, felled a generation earlier. Scattered about the outer edge of the clearing, close to the circle of trees, were a few bark huts, with roofs sagging and doors agape. One or two were rivalled in height by the weeds that choked their windows. As Menard stood between his guards under the last tree on the trail, looking at the deserted village where the frightened bats rose and wheeled, and the moonlight streamed on broken roofs, he began to understand. The Long Arrow had found a place where he could carry out his vengeance undisturbed.

Other forms had risen from the weeds to greet the party. Looking more closely, Menard saw that a group of Indians were dragging logs for a fire. Evidently this was a rendezvous for two or more bands. He tried to count the dim forms, and found them somewhat less than a score in all. Perhaps the Long Arrow had found it not easy to raise a large party to defy the will of the council concerning the White Chief; but he had enough, and already the brandy was beginning to flow,—the first stage of the orgie which should take up the rest of the night, and perhaps the day to follow. The Long Arrow and his party at once joined in the drinking. Confident that they would not this time be interrupted, they would probably use all deliberation in preparing for the torture.

A rough meal was soon ready, and all fell to. Nothing was set apart for the prisoner; though had he been weak they would have fed him to stay him for the torture. One of his guardians, in mock pity, threw him a bone to which a little meat clung. He asked that his hands be loosed, or at least tied in front of his body, but his request brought jeers from the little group about him. Seeing that there was no hope of aid, he rolled over and gnawed the bone where it lay on the ground. The warriors laughed again, and one kicked it away; but Menard crawled after it, and this time was not disturbed. A little later, two other Indians came from the fire, and after a talk with his guards, ordered him to his feet and led him to one of the huts. The door was of rude boards, hung on wooden hinges, and now held in place by a short log. One brave kicked away the log, and Menard was thrown inside with such force that he fell headlong.

Through an opening in the roof came a wide beam of moonlight. He looked up, and at first thought he was alone; then he saw two figures crouching against the rear wall. His own face and head were so covered with dust and blood that he could not have been recognized for a white man.

"Who are you?" he said in Iroquois.

"Captain!" came in a startled voice that he knew for Father Claude's; and a little gasp of relief from the other figure brought a thrill of joy. He tried to raise himself, but in an instant they had come to him and were laughing and sobbing and speaking his name. While Father Claude seized his shoulders to lift him, the maid fell on her knees, and with her teeth tried to cut the thongs.

"Wait, Father," she said in a mumbled voice, without pausing in her work; "wait a moment."

Menard could feel her warm tears dropping on his hands.

"You must not, Mademoiselle," said the priest. "You must let me."

She shook her head, and worked faster, until the thongs fell away and she could rub with her own torn hands the Captain's wrists.

"Now he may arise, Father. See—see what they have done to him."

Menard laughed. All the weight that had pressed on his heart had lifted at the sound of her voice and the touch of her hands. The laugh lingered until he was on his feet, and the three stood close together in the patch of moonlight and looked each into the other's eyes—not speaking, because there was no word so complete as the relief that had come to them all; a relief so great, and a bond so strong that during all the time they should live thereafter, through other days and other times, even across the seas in lands where much should be about them to draw a mist over the past, the moment would always be close in their memories,—it would stand out above all other deeds and other moments. Then the Captain held out his hands, and they each took one in a long clasp that told them all to hope, that stirred a new, daring thought in each heart. Father Claude at last turned away with shining eyes. The maid stood looking up at this soldier whom she trusted, and a little sigh passed her lips. Then she too turned, and to cover her thoughts she hummed a gay air that Menard had heard the trumpeters play at Quebec.

"Tell us, M'sieu," she said abruptly, "what is it? How did it happen?"

"It is the Long Arrow."

"So we thought," said Father Claude; "but he was not with the party that brought us here, and we could not know. They came while we were sleeping, and bound our mouths so that we could not scream. I was at fault, I—"

"No, Father. You cannot say that. I left you. I should have been at your side."

"Will you tell us about it, M'sieu?" asked the maid. She was leaning against the bark wall, looking at the two men.

Menard dropped to the ground, and in a quiet voice gave them the story of his capture. The priest rested near him on the broken-down bench that slanted against one wall. As the story grew, the maid came over and sat at the Captain's feet where she could watch his face as he talked. When he reached the account of the fight at the grave, he paused and looked at her upturned face. Then he went on, but he did not take up the tale where he had dropped it. He could not tell her of Tegakwita's end. As he went on to the fight with the Long Arrow's band and the flight through the hill country, he thought that she had missed nothing; but when he had finished she said:—

"And Tegakwita, M'sieu? Did he come with them?"

"No," Menard replied; "he did not come. I killed him."

He had not meant to let the words come out so brutally. And now, as he saw the frightened look, almost of horror, come into her eyes, he suffered in a way that would not have been possible before he had known this maid. He read her thoughts,—that she herself was the cause of a double tragedy,—and it for the moment unmanned him. When he could look at her again, she was more nearly herself.

"Go on, M'sieu. There is more?"

"No. There is no more, except that I am here with you. But of yourselves? You have told me nothing."

"We have told you all there is to tell," said Father Claude. "We were taken while we slept. They have come rapidly, but otherwise they have not been unkind."

"You have had food?"

"Yes."

"We must think now," Menard said abruptly; "we must put our wits together. It is late in the night, and we should be free before dawn. Have you thought of any way?"

"Yes," replied the priest, slowly, "we have thought of one. Teganouan is with our party. At the first he tried to keep out of sight, but of course he could not, once we were on the way. He was a long time at the Mission of St. Francis, and I at one time hoped that he would prove a true believer. It was drink that led him away from us,—an old weakness with him. This morning, when he passed me, I knew that he was ashamed. I dared not speak to him; but since then, whenever my eyes have met his, I have seen that look of understanding."

"I fear you will not see it to-night," said the Captain. "They are drinking."

"Ah, but he is not. He is guarding the hut. Come, M'sieu, it may be that we can see him now."

Menard rose, and with the priest peered through the cracks at the rear of the hut. After a moment they saw him, standing in the shadow of a tree.

"You are sure it is he, Father?"

"Ah, M'sieu, I should know him."

Menard rested his hand on a strip of rotting bark in the wall. The priest saw the movement.

"Yes," he said cautiously, "it would be very simple. But you will be cautious, M'sieu. Of course, I do not know—I cannot tell surely—and yet it must be that Teganouan still has a warm heart. It cannot be that he has forgotten the many months of my kindness."

While they stood there, hesitating between a dozen hasty plans, a light step sounded, and in an instant their eyes were at the opening. A second Indian had joined the guard, and was talking with him in a low voice. Father Claude gripped the Captain's arm.

"See, M'sieu,—the wampum collar,—it is the Long Arrow."

Menard laid his finger on his lips. The two Indians were not a dozen yards away. The chief swayed unsteadily as he talked, and once his voice rose. He carried a bottle, and paused now and then to drink from it.

"Teganouan is holding back," whispered Menard. "See, the Long Arrow has taken his arm—they are coming—is the door fast?"

"We cannot make it fast, M'sieu. It opens outward."

Menard sprang across to the door and ran his hands over it, but found no projection that could be used to hold it closed. He stood for a moment, puzzling; then his face hardened, and he fell back to where the priest and the maid stood side by side.

"They will get in, M'sieu?"

"Yes. It is better."

They did not speak again. The moccasined feet made no noise on the cleared ground, and it seemed a long time before they could hear the log fall from the door. There were voices outside. At last the door swung open, and the Long Arrow, bottle in hand, came clumsily into the hut and stood unsteadily in the square of moonlight. He looked about as if he could not see them. Teganouan had come in behind him; and the door swung to, creaking.

"The White Chief is the brother of the Long Arrow," said the chief, speaking slowly and with an effort to make his words distinct. "He loves the Onondagas. Deep in his mind are the thoughts of the young white brave who lived in our villages and hunted with our braves and called the mighty Big Throat his father. He never forgets what the Onondagas have done for him. He has a grateful heart." The effort of speaking was confusing to the chief. He paused, as if to collect his ideas, and looked stupidly at the three silent figures before him. "... grateful heart," he repeated. "The Long Arrow has a grateful heart, too. He remembers the kind words of the white men who come to his village and tell him of the love of the Great Mountain. He never forgets that the Big Buffalo is his brother—he never forgets. When the Big Buffalo took his son from the hunting party of the Onondagas he did not forget."

Menard did not listen further. He was looking about the hut with quick, shifting eyes, now at the chief in the moonlight, now at Teganouan, who stood at one side in the shadow, now at the door. Could Teganouan be trusted to help them? He glanced sharply at the warrior, who was looking at his chief with an alert, cunning expression. His musket lay carelessly in the hollow of his arm, his knife and hatchet hung at his waist. The chief had only his knife; in his hand was the bottle, which he held loosely, now and then spilling a few drops of the liquor.

"The Long Arrow nev'r f'rgets,"—the chief's tongue was getting the better of him. "His house is lonely, where the fire burns alone and the young warr'r who once laid 's blanket,—laid 's blanket by the fire, no long'r 's there to warm the heart of the Long Arrow. But now his loneliness is gone. Now when he comes from the hunt to 's house he'll find a new fire, a bright fire, and a new squaw to warm 's heart—warm 's heart." He swayed a little as he spoke, and Teganouan took a short step forward; but the chief drew himself up and came slowly across the patch of moonlight. His eyes were unnaturally bright, and they rolled uncertainly from one to another of the little group before him. His coarse black hair was matted and tangled, and the eagle feathers that at the council had stood erect from his head now drooped, straggling, to one side.

The maid had understood. The two men drew close to her on each side, and her hand rested, trembling, on Menard's arm. All three were thinking fast. One scream, the sound of a struggle or even of loud voices, would bring upon them the whole drunken band. As the chief approached, the maid could feel the muscles harden on the Captain's arm.

"Long Arrow's lonely—his fire's not bright when he comes from hunt—" Here and there in his talk a few words were distinguishable as he stood lurching before them. He reached out in a maudlin effort to touch the maid's white face. She drew in her breath quickly and stepped back; then Menard had sprung forward, and she covered her eyes with her hands.

There was a light scuffle, but no other sound. A strong smell of brandy filled the hut. Slowly she lifted her head, and let her hands drop to her sides. The Long Arrow lay sprawling at her feet, his head gashed and bleeding, and covered with broken glass and dripping liquor. The priest had kneeled beside him, and over his bowed head she saw Teganouan, startled, defiant, his musket halfway to his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the door. Her eyes followed his gaze. There stood the Captain, his back to the door, the broken neck of the bottle firmly gripped in his hand.

She stepped forward, too struck with horror to remain silent.

"Oh, M'sieu!" she said brokenly, stretching out her hands.

He motioned to her to be quiet, and she sank down on the bench.

"Father," he said.

The priest looked up questioningly. There was a long moment of silence, and the shouts and calls of the half-drunken revellers without sounded strangely loud. Then, as the priest gazed at the set, hard face of the Captain, and at the motionless Indian, he understood of a sudden all the wild plan that was forming in the Captain's mind. He rose slowly to his feet, and stood facing Teganouan, with the light streaming down upon his gentle face.

"The sun has gone to sleep many times, Teganouan, since you left the great white house of the church at St. Francis. You have heard the counsel of evil men, who think only of the knife and the hatchet and the musket, who have no dream but to slay their brothers." He was speaking slowly and in a kindly voice, as a father might speak to a son who has wandered from the right. "Have you forgotten the talk of the holy Fathers, when they told you the words of the Book of the Great Spirit, who is to all your Manitous and Okis as the sun is to the stars. Have you forgotten the many moons that passed while you lived in the great white house,—when you gave your promise, the promise of an Onondaga, that you would be a friend to the white man, that you would believe the words of the Great Spirit and live a peaceful life? Have you forgotten, Teganouan, the evil days when your enemy, the fire-water, took possession of your heart and led you away from the white house into the lodges of them that do wrong,—how when the good spirit returned to you and you came back to the arms of the Faith, you were received as a son and a brother? The holy Fathers did not say, 'This warrior has done that which he should not do. Let him be punished. We have no place for the wrongdoer.' No; they did not say this. They said, 'The lost is found. He that wandered from the fold has returned.' And they welcomed the lost one, and bade him repent and lead a right life. Have you forgotten, Teganouan?"

The Indian had slowly lowered his musket.

"Teganouan has not forgotten," he replied. "He has a grateful heart toward the holy Fathers of the great white house. When he was sick, they brought him their good doctor and told him to live. He believed that the white men were his brothers, that they would do to him as the Fathers had promised. But when Teganouan came to the white men, and asked to be made like they were, he left behind in his village a brother and a sister and a father who said that he was a traitor, who said that he was false to the trust of his blood and his nation, that he was not of their blood."

"And did he believe them? Did he not know, better than they could, that the faith of the white man is also the faith of the redman; that the love of the white man includes all who breathe and speak and hunt and trade and move upon the earth?"

"Teganouan has not forgotten. He heard the words of the Fathers, and he believed that they were true; but when the white Captain took from the Onondagas five score of their bravest warriors and called them slaves, when he took the brother of Teganouan, borne by the same mother and fed by the same hand, to be a slave of the mighty Chief-Across-the-Water, could he remember what the holy Fathers had said,—that all men were brothers?"

"Teganouan has heard what the White Chief, the Big Buffalo, has said, that the evil man who was treacherous to the Onondagas shall be punished?"

"Teganouan understands. But the evil man is far from the vengeance of the white man. The White Chief is here in our lodges."

Menard left the door and came to the priest's side. The jagged piece of glass, his only weapon, he threw to the ground.

"Teganouan," he said slowly and firmly, looking into the Indian's eyes, "you heard the great council at the Long House of the Five Nations. You heard the decision of the chiefs and warriors, that they whom Onontio had sent to bring a message of peace should be set free. You have broken the pledge made by your council. You have attacked us and made us prisoners, and brought us here where we may be tortured and killed and none may know. But when the Great Mountain finds that the Big Buffalo has not come back, when he sends his white soldier to the villages of the Onondagas and asks what they have done to him who brought his voice, what will you say? When the chiefs say, 'We set him free,' and look about to find the warrior who has dared to disobey the Long House, what will you say? When the young boys and the drunkards with loose tongues have told the story of the death of the Long Arrow, what will you say? Then you will be glad to flee to the white house of the holy Fathers, knowing that they will protect you and save you when the braves of your own blood shall pursue you."

Teganouan's eyelids had drooped, and now he was looking at the ground, where the chief lay.

"You will come with me, Teganouan. You will fly with us over the Long Lake, and through the forests and down the mighty rivers and over the inland sea, and there you shall be safe; and you shall see with your own eyes the punishment that the Great Mountain will give to the evil man who has been false to the Onondagas."

He held out his hand, and silently waited. The priest's head was raised, and his lips moved slowly in prayer. The maid sat rigid, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the bench. Though he knew that every moment brought nearer the chance of discovery, that the lives of them all hung on a thread as slender as a hair, the Captain stood without the twitching of a muscle, without a sign of fear or haste in his grave, worn face.

The Indian's eyes wavered. He looked at the fallen chief, at the priest, at Menard; then he took the offered hand. No further word was needed. Menard did not know the thought that lay behind the cunning face; it was enough that the Indian had given his word.

"Quick, we must hide him," said the Captain, looking swiftly about the hut. "We must disturb you, Mademoiselle—"

In a moment the three men had lifted the body of the Long Arrow and laid it away under the low bench. Teganouan scraped a few handfuls of earth from a corner and spread it over the spot where the chief had been.

"How far is it to the lake, Teganouan?"

"But a few rods."

"And the forest is thick?"

"Yes."

"We must cross the lake. Is there a canoe here?"

The Indian shook his head. Menard stood thinking for an instant.

"If you are thinking of me, M'sieu, I think I can swim with you," said the maid, timidly.

"There is no other way, Mademoiselle. I am sorry. But we will make it as easy as we can."

He stepped to the rear wall, and with a blow of his fist would have broken an opening through the rotted bank, but the Indian caught his arm.

"It is not necessary. See." He set rapidly to work, and in a few silent moments he had unlaced the thread-like root that held the sheet of bark in place, and lowered it to the ground. He raised himself by the cross-pole that marked the top of the wall, and slipped through the opening. A few quick glances through the trees, and he turned and beckoned. Menard followed, with the knife of the Long Arrow between his teeth; and with Father Claude's help the maid got through to where he could catch her and lower her to the ground.