Dominique Guyon departed shortly before noon; and a week later half a dozenhabitantsarrivéd from Boisveyrac to work at the entrenchment which the Commandant had already opened across Sans Quartier's cabbage plot. The Commandant himself donned a blouse and dug with the rest; and M. Etienne; and even old Jérémie Tripier, though grumbling over his rheumatism almost as bitterly as Sans Quartier over his wasted cabbages. Every one, in fact, toiled, and with a will, at the King'scorvée: every one, that is, except the women, and John, and Menehwehna (whose Indian dignity revolted against spade-work), and old Father Joly, the chaplain of the fort, who was too infirm.
From him, as they sat together and watched the diggers, John learned much of the fort's history, and something, too, of his hosts'; for Father Joly delighted in gossip, and being too deaf to derive much profit from asking questions kept the talk to himself—greatly to John's relief. His gossip, be it said, was entirely innocent. The good man seemed to love every one in his small world, except Father Launoy. And again this exception was fortunate; for on learning that John had been visited and exhorted at Boisveyrac by Father Launoy, Father Joly showed no further concern in his spiritual health. He was perhaps the oldest parochial priest in New France, and since leaving the seminary at Quebec had spent almost all his days at Boisveyrac. He remembered the Seigneur's father (he always called the Commandant "the Seigneur"). "Such a man, monsieur! He stood six feet four inches in his stockings, and could lift and cast a grown bullock with his own hands." John pointed out that the present Seigneur—in his working blouse especially—made a fine figure of a man; but this the old priest could hardly be brought to allow. "A heart of gold, I grant you; but to have seen his father striding among hiscensitaireson St. Martin's Feast! It may be that, having watched the son from childhood, I still think of him as a boy.…"
Of Fort Amitié itself Father Joly had much to tell. It dated from the early days of the great Frontenac, who had planted a settlement here—a collection of wooden huts within a stockade—to be anentrepôtof commerce with the Indians of the Upper Lakes. Later it became a favourite haunt of deserters from the army andcoureurs de boisoutlawed by royal edict; and, strangely enough, these had been the days of its prosperity. Its real decline began when the Governor, toward the end of his rule, replaced the wooden huts with a fortress of stone. The traders, trappers, ne'er-do-wells and Indians deserted the lake-head, which had been a true camp of amity, and moved their rendezvous farther west, leaving the fortress to its Commandant and a sleepy garrison.
From that time until the war the garrison had been composed of regulars, who lived on the easiest terms with their Commandant and his officers, and retired at the age of forty or fifty, when King Louis presented them with a farm and farm stock and provisions for two or three years, and often completed the outfit with a wife.
"A veritable Age of Gold, monsieur! But war has put an end to it all—war, and the greed of these English, whom God will confound! The regulars went their ways, leaving only Sergeant Bédard; who had retired upon a farm, but was persuaded by the Seigneur to come back and drill the recruits of the militia."
—"Who take very kindly to garrison life, so far as I can see."
"Fort Amitié has its amenities, monsieur," said Father Joly, catching John's glance rather than hearing the words. "There are the allotments, to begin with—the fences between them, you may not have observed, are made of stakes from the original palisade; the mould is excellent. The Seigneur, too, offers prizes for vegetable-growing and poultry-raising; he is an unerring judge of poultry, as one has need to be at Boisveyrac, where the rents are mostly paid in fowls. Indeed, yes, the young recruits are well enough content. The Seigneur feeds them well, and they can usually have a holiday for the asking and go a-hunting in the woods or a-fishing in the river. But, for my part, I regret Boisveyrac. A man of my years does not readily bear transplanting. And here is a curious thing, monsieur; deaf though I am, I miss the sound of the rapids. I cannot tell you how; nevertheless it seems to me that something has gone out of my daily life, and the landscape here is still and empty."
"And how," John managed to make him hear, "did the Seigneur come to command Fort Amitié?"
Father Joly glanced nervously down the slope and lowered his voice. "That was M. Armand's doing, monsieur." Then, seeing that John did not understand, "M. Armand—mademoiselle's brother and the Seigneur's only son. He went to Quebec, when the Governor had given him a post in his household; a small post, but with good prospects for a young man of his birth and address. He had wits, monsieur, and good looks; everything in short but money; and there is no better blood in the province than that of the des Noël-Tilly. They have held Boisveyrac now for five generations, and were Seigneurs of Deuxmanoirs and Preaux-Sources even before that. Well, as I say, the lad started with good prospects; but by and by he began to desert the Château Saint-Louis for the Intendant's Palace. Monsieur has heard of the Intendant Bigot—is perhaps acquainted with him? No? Then I may say without hurting any one's feelings what I would say to the Intendant himself were he here—that he is a corrupter of youth, and a corrupter of the innocence of women, and a corrupter of honest government. If New France lie under the scourge to-day, it is for the sins of such men as he." The old man's voice shook with sudden anger, but he calmed himself. "In brief, there was a gambling debt— a huge sum owing; and the Seigneur was forced to travel to Quebec and fetch the lad home. How he paid the amount I cannot tell you; belike he raised the money on Boisveyrac; but pay he did. Dominique Guyon went with him to Quebec, having just succeeded his father, old Bonhomme Guyon, as Boisveyrac's man of business; and doubtless Dominique made some arrangements with the merchants there. He has a head on his shoulders, that lad. M. de Vaudreuil, too, taking pity on a distressed gentleman of New France, gave the Seigneur the command of this fort, to grow fat on it, and hither we have all migrated. But our good Seigneur will never grow fat, monsieur; he is of the poor to whom shall belong the Kingdom of God."
John did not clearly understand this, being unacquainted with the official system of peculation by false vouchers—a system under which the command of a backwoods fort was reckoned to be worth a small fortune. His mind recurred to Dominique and to the Commandant's uneasiness at Dominique's mention of business.
"A queer fellow, that Dominique!" he muttered, half to himself; "and a queer fate that made him the brother of Bateese."
The priest heard, as deaf men sometimes will hear a word or two spoken below ordinary pitch.
"Ah!" said he, shaking his head. "You have heard of Bateese? A sad case—a very sad case!"
"There was an accident, I have heard."
Father Joly glanced at John's face and, reading the question, bent his own dim eyes on the river. John divined at once that the old man knew more than he felt inclined to tell.
"It was at Bord-à-Loup, a little above Boisveyrac, four years ago last St. Peter's tide. The two brothers were driving some timber which the Seigneur had cleared there; the logs had jammed around a rock not far from shore and almost at the foot of the fall. The two had managed to get across and were working the mass loose with handspikes when, just as it began to break up, Bateese slipped and fell between two logs."
"Through some careless push of Dominique's, was it not?"
But Father Joly did not hear, or did not seem to.
"He was hideously broken, poor Bateese. For weeks it did not seem possible that he could live. Thehabitantsfind Dominique a queer fellow, even as you do; and I have observed that even Mademoiselle Diane treats him somewhat impatiently. But in truth he is a lad grown old before his time. It is terrible when such a blow falls upon the young. He and Bateese adored one another."
And this was all John learned at the time. But three days later he heard more of the story, and from Mademoiselle Diane.
She was seated in an embrasure of the terrace—the same, in fact, in which she had taken measurements for John's new tunic. She was embroidering it now with the Béarnais badge, and had spread Barboux's tunic on the gun-breach to give her the pattern. John, passing along the terrace in a brown study, while his eyes followed the evolutions of Sergeant Bédard's men at morning parade in the square below, did not catch sight of her until she called to him to come and admire her handiwork.
"Monsieur isdistrait, it appears," she said, mischievously. "It must be weary work for him, whiling away the hours in this contemptible fortress?"
"I do not find Fort Amitié contemptible, mademoiselle."
She shook her head and laughed. "If you wish to please me, monsieur, you must find some warmer praise for it. For in some sort it is my ancestral home, and I love every stone of it."
"Mademoiselle speaks in riddles. I had thought that every one of the Commandant's household—except the Commandant himself, perhaps—was pining to get back to Boisveyrac."
She let her needlework lie for a moment, and sat with her eyes resting on the façade of the Commandant's quarters across the square.
"It is foolish in me," she said musingly; "for in the days of which I am thinking not one of these stones was laid. You must know, monsieur, that in those days many and many a young man of family took to the woods; no laws, no edicts would restrain them; the life of the forest seemed to pass into their blood and they could not help themselves… ah, I myself understand that, sometimes!" she added, after a pause.
"Well, monsieur," she went on, "there came to Fort Amitié a certain young Raoul de Tilly, who suffered from this wandering fever. The Government outlawed him in the end; but as yet his family had hopes to reclaim him, and, being powerful in New France, they managed to get his sentence delayed. He came here, and here he fell in love with an Indian girl, and married her—putting, they say, a pistol at the priest's head. The girl was a Wyandot from Lake Huron, and had been baptised but a week before. For a year they lived together in the Fort here; but when a child was born the husband sent her down the river to his father's Seigniory below Three Rivers, and himself wandered westward into the Lakes, and was never again heard of. The mother died on the voyage, it is said; but the child— a daughter—reached the Seigniory and was acknowledged, and lived to marry a cousin, a de Tilly of Roc Sainte-Anne. My mother was her grand-daughter."
Why had she chosen to tell him this story? He turned to her in some wonder. But, for whatever reason she had told it, the truth of the story was written in her face. Hardly could he recognise the Mademoiselle Diane who had declaimed to him of Joan of Arc and the glory of fighting for New France. She was gone, and in her place a girl fronted him, a child almost, with a strange anguish in her voice, and in her eyes the look of a wild creature trapped. She was appealing to him. But again, why?
"I think you must be in some trouble, mademoiselle," said he, speaking the thought that came uppermost. Something prompted him to add, "Has it to do with Dominique Guyon?" The question seemed to stab her. She stood up trembling, with a scared face.
"Why should you think I am troubled? What made you suppose—" she stammered, and stopped again in confusion. "I only wanted you to understand. Is it not much better when folks speak to one another frankly? Something may be hidden which seems of no importance, and yet for lack of knowing it we may misjudge utterly, may we not?"
Heaven knew that of late John had been feeling sorely enough the torment of carrying about a secret. But to the girl's broken utterances he held no clue at all, nor could he hit on one.
"See now," she went on, almost fiercely; "you speak of Dominique Guyon. You suspected something—what, you could not tell; perhaps it had not even come to a suspicion. But, seeing me troubled—as you think—at once Dominique's name comes to your lips. Now listen to the truth, how simple it is. When Armand and I were children… you have heard of Armand?"
"A little; from Father Joly."
"Papa thinks he has behaved dishonourably, and will scarcely allow his name to be uttered until he shall return from the army, having redeemed his fault. Papa, though he seems easy, can be very stern on all questions of honour. Well, when Armand and I were children, we played with the two Guyon boys. Their father, Bonhomme Guyon, was only my father's farmer; but in a lonely place like Boisveyrac, and with no one to instruct us in difference of rank and birth—for my mother died when I was a baby—"
"I understand, mademoiselle."
"And so we played about the farm, as children will. But by and by, and a short while before I left Boisveyrac to go to school with the Ursulines, Dominique began to be—what shall I say? He was very tiresome."
She paused. "I understand," repeated John quietly. "At first I did not guess what he meant. And the others, of course, did not guess. But he was furiously jealous, even of his brother, poor Bateese. And when Bateese met with his accident—"
"One moment, mademoiselle. When Bateese fell between the logs, was it because Dominique had pushed him?"
She wrung her hands as in a sudden fright. "You guessed that? How did you guess? No one knows it but I, and Father Launoy, no doubt, and perhaps Father Joly. But Dominique knows thatIknow; and his misery seems to give him some hold over me."
"In what way can I help you, mademoiselle?"
"Did I ask you to help me?" She had resumed her seat on the gun-carriage and, drawing Sergeant Barboux's tunic off its gun, began with her embroidery scissors to snip at the shanks of its breast-buttons. His cheeks were burning now; she spoke with a trained accent of levity. "I called you, monsieur, to say that I cannot, of course, copy these buttons, and to ask if you consent to my using them on your new tunic, or if you prefer to put up with plain ones. But it appears that I have wandered to some distance from my question." She attempted a laugh; which, however, failed dolefully.
"Decidedly I prefer any buttons to those. But, excuse me," persisted John, drawing nearer, "though you asked for no help and need none, yet I will not believe you have honoured me so far with your confidence and all without purpose."
"Oh," she replied, still in the same tone of hard, almost contemptuous, levity. "I had a whim, monsieur, to be understood by you, that is all; and perhaps to rebuke you by contrast for telling us so little of yourself. It is as Félicité said—you messieurs of the army keep yourselves well padded over the heart. See here—" She began to dig with her scissor-point and lay bare the quilting within Barboux's tunic; but presently stopped, with a sharp cry.
"What is the matter, mademoiselle?"
For a second or two she snipped furiously, and then—"This is the matter!" she cried, plunging her fingers within the lining. "A dispatch! He carried one after all!" She dragged forth a paper and held it up in triumph.
"Give it to me, please. But I say that you must and shall, mademoiselle!" John's head swam, but he stepped and caught her by the wrists.
And with that the paper fell to the ground. He held her wrist; he felt only the magnetic touch, looked into her eyes, and understood. From wonder at his outburst they passed to fear, to appeal, to love. Yes, they shrank from him, sick with shame and self-comprehension, pitifully seeking to hide the wound. But it would not by any means be hid. A light flowed from it, blinding him.
"You hurt! Oh, you hurt!"
He dropped her hands and strode away, leaving the paper at her feet.
The Commandant tapped the dispatch on the table before him, with arusésmile.
"I was right then, after all, M. à Clive, in maintaining that your comrade carried a message from the General. My daughter has told me how you came, between you, to discover it. That you should have preserved the tunic is no less than providential; indeed, I had all along supposed it to be your own."
John waited, with a glance at the document, which lay with the seal downward, seemingly intact.
"It is addressed," the Commandant pursued, "in our ordinary cypher to the Marquis de Vaudreuil at Montreal. In my own mind I have not the least doubt that it instructs him—the pressure to the south having been relieved by the victory at Fort Carillon—to send troops up to us and to M. de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. My good friend up there has been sending down appeals for reinforcements at the rate of two a week, and has only ceased of late in stark despair. It is evident that your comrade carried a message of some importance to Montreal; and I have sent for you, monsieur, to ask: Are you in a condition to travel?"
"You wish me to carry this dispatch, monsieur?"
"If you tell me that you are fit to travel. Indeed it is a privilege which you have a right to claim, and M. de Vaudreuil will doubtless find some reward for the bearer. Young men were ambitious in my day—eh, M. à Clive?"
John, averting his face, gazed out of window upon the empty courtyard, the slope of the terrace and the line of embrasures above it. Diane was not there beside her accustomed gun, and he wondered if he should see her again before departing. He wondered if he desired to see her. To be sure he must accept this mission, having gone so far in deceit. It would set him free from Fort Amitié; and, once free, he could devise with Menehwehna some plan of escaping southward. Within the fort he could devise nothing. He winced under the Commandant's kindness; yet blessed it for offering, now at last, a term to his humiliation.
"M. de Vaudreuil will not be slow, I feel sure, to recognise your services," pursued the Commandant genially. "But, that there may be no mistake about it, I have done myself the pleasure to write him a letter commending you. Would you care to hear a sentence or two? No?"—for John's hand went up in protest—"Well, youth is never the worse for a touch of modesty. Be so good, then, monsieur, as to pass me the seal yonder."
John picked up and handed the seal almost without glancing at it. His thoughts were elsewhere as the Commandant lit a taper, heated the wax, and let it drop upon the letter. But just as the seal was impressed, old Jérémie Tripier entered without knocking, and in a state of high perturbation. "Monseigneur! Monseigneur! A whole fleet of boats in sight—coming down the river!"
The Commandant pushed back his chair.
"Boats? Down the river? Nonsense, Jérémie, it is up the river you mean; you have the message wrong. They must be the relief from Montreal!"
"Nay, Monseigneur, it is down the river they are approaching. The news came in from Sans Quartier, who is on sentry-go upstream. He has seen them from Mont-aux-Ours, and reports them no more than three miles away."
"Please God no ill has befallen de Noyan!" muttered the Commandant. "Excuse me, M. à Clive; I must look into this. We will talk of our business later."
But John scarcely heard. His eyes had fallen on the seal of the Commandant's letter. It stared back at him—a facsimile of the one hidden in his pocket—a flying Mercury, with, cap, winged sandals, and caduceus.
He pulled his wits together to answer the Commandant politely, he scarcely knew how, and followed him out to the postern gate. Half a dozen of the garrison—all, in fact, who happened to be off duty—were hurrying along the ridge to verify Sans Quartier's news. John, still weak from his wound, could not maintain the pace. Halting on the slope for breath, while the Commandant with an apology left him and strode ahead, he turned, caught sight of Diane, and waited for her.
She came as one who cannot help herself, with panting bosom and eyes that supplicated him for mercy. But Love, not John à Cleeve, was the master to grant her remission—and who can supplicate Love?
They met without greeting, and for a while walked on in silence, he with a flame in his veins and a weight of lead in his breast.
"Is papa sending you to Montreal?" she asked, scarcely above a whisper.
"He was giving me orders when this news came."
There was a long pause now, and when next she spoke he could hardly catch her words. "You will come again?"
His heart answered, "My love! O my love!" But he could not speak it. He looked around upon sky, forest, sweeping river—all the landscape of his bliss, the prison of his intolerable shame. A fierce peremptory longing seized him to kill his bliss and his shame at one stroke. Four words would do it. He had but to stand up and cry aloud, "I am an Englishman!" and the whole beautiful hideous dream would crack, shiver, dissolve. Only four words! Almost he heard his voice shouting them and saw through the trembling heat her body droop under the stab, her love take the mortal hurt and die with a face of scorn. Only four words, and an end desirable as death! What kept him silent then? He checked himself on the edge of a horrible laugh. The thing was called Honour: and its service steeped him in dishonour to the soul.
"You will come again?" her eyes repeated.
He commanded himself to say, "It may be that there is now no need to go. If Fort Frontenac has fallen—"
"Why should you believe that Fort Frontenac has fallen?" she broke in; and then, clasping her hands, added in a sort of terror, "Do you know that—that now—I hardly seem able to think about Fort Frontenac, or to care whether it has fallen or not? What wickedness has come to me that I should be so cruelly selfish?"
He set his face. Even to comfort her he must not let his look or voice soften; one touch of weakness now would send him over the abyss.
"Let us go forward," said he. "At the next bend we shall know what has happened."
But around the bend came a procession which told plainly enough what had happened; a procession of boats filled with dark-coated provincial soldiers, a few white-coats, many women and children. No flags flew astern; the very lift of the oars told of disgrace and humiliation. Thus came Payan de Noyan with his garrison, prisoners onparole, sent down by the victorious British to report the fall of Frontenac and be exchanged for prisoners taken at Ticonderoga.
Already the Commandant and his men had surmised the truth, and were hurrying back along the ridge to meet the unhappy procession at the quay. John and Diane turned with them and walked homeward in silence.
The flotilla passed slowly beneath their eyes, but did not head in toward the quay. An old man in the leading boat waved an arm from mid-stream—or rather, lifted it in salutation and let it fall again dejectedly.
This was de Noyan himself, and apparently hisparoleforbade him to hold converse with his countrymen before reaching Montreal. On them next, for aught the garrison of Fort Amitié could learn, the enemy were even now descending.
Diane, halting on the slope, heard her father call across the water to de Noyan, who turned, but shook his head and waved a hand once more with a gesture of refusal.
"He was asking him to carry the dispatch to Montreal. Since he will not, or cannot, you must follow with it."
"For form's sake," John agreed. "It can have no other purpose now."
They were standing at the verge of the forest, and she half turned towards him with a little choking cry that asked, as plainly as words, "Is this all you have to say? Are you blind, that you cannot see how I suffer?"
He stepped back a pace into the shadow of the trees. She lifted her head and, as their eyes met, drooped it again, faint with love. He stretched out his arms.
"Diane!"
But as she ran to him he caught her by the shoulders and held her at arms' length. Her eyes, seeking his, saw that his gaze travelled past her and down the slope. And turning in his grasp she saw Menehwehna running towards them across the clearing from the postern gate, and crouching as he ran.
He must have seen them; for he came straight to where they stood, and gripping John by the arm pointed towards the quay, visible beyond the edge of the flagstaff tower.
"Who are these newcomers?" cried Diane, recovering herself. "Why, yes, it is Father Launoy and Dominique Guyon! Yes, yes—and Bateese!—whom you have never seen."
John turned to her quietly, without haste.
"Mademoiselle," said he in a voice low and firm, and not altogether unhappy, "I have met Bateese Guyon before now. And these men bring death to me. Run, Menehwehna! For me, I return to the Fort with mademoiselle."
She stared at him. "Death?" she echoed, wondering.
"Death," he repeated, "and I deserve it. On many accounts I have deserved it, but most of all for having stolen your trust. I am an Englishman."
For a moment she did not seem to hear. Then slowly, very slowly, she put out both hands and cowered from him.
"Return, Menehwehna!" commanded John firmly. "Yes, mademoiselle, I cannot expiate what I have done. But I go to expiate what I can."
He took a step forward; but she had straightened herself up and stood barring his path with her arm, fronting him with terrible scorn.
"Expiate! What can you expiate? You can only die; and are you so much afraid of death that you think it an atonement? You can only die, and—and—" she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Menehwehna, help me! He can only die, and I cannot let him die!"
Menehwehna stepped forward with impassive face. "If my brother goes down the hill, I go with him," he announced calmly.
"You see?" Diane turned on John wildly. "You will only kill your friend—and to what purpose? The wrong you have done you cannot remedy; the remedy you seek would kill me surely. Ah, go! go! Do not force me to kneel and clasp your knees—you that have already brought me so low! Go, and let me learn to hate as well as scorn you. You wish to expiate? This only will I take for expiation."
"Come, brother!" urged Menehwehna, taking him by the arm.
Diane bent close to the Indian, whispered a word in his ear, and, turning about, looked John in the face.
"Are you sorry at all? If you are sorry, you will obey me now."
With one long searching look she left him and walked down the slope. Menehwehna dragged him back into the undergrowth as the postern door opened, and M. Etienne came through it, followed by Father Launoy, Dominique, and Bateese.
Peering over the bushes Menehwehna saw Diane descend to meet them—he could not see with what face.
Marvellous is woman. She met them with a gay and innocent smile.
Her whispered word to Menehwehna had been to keep by the waterside. And later that night, when the garrison had given over beating the woods for the fugitives, a canoe stole up the river, close under the north bank. One man sat in it; and after paddling for a couple of miles up-stream he began to sing as he went—softly at first, but raising his voice by little and little—
"Chante, rossignol, chante,Toi qui as le cœur gai;Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer."
"Chante, rossignol, chante,Toi qui as le cœur gai;Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer."
"Chante, rossignol, chante,Toi qui as le cœur gai;Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer."
No answer came from the dark forest. He took up his chant again, more boldly:
"Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer;J'ai perdu ma maîtresseSans pouvoir la trouver.—Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
"Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer;J'ai perdu ma maîtresseSans pouvoir la trouver.—Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
"Tu as le cœur à rire,Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer;J'ai perdu ma maîtresseSans pouvoir la trouver.—Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
He listened. A low call sounded from the trees on his right, and he brought the canoe under the bank.
"Is that you, Bateese?"
"Monsieur, forgive me! I said as little as I could, but the Reverend Father and Dominique were too clever for me. And how was I to have known?… . Take the canoe and travel fast, my friends; they will be searching again at dawn."
"Did mademoiselle send the canoe?"
"Yes; and she charged you to answer one question. It was her brother—M. Armand—whom the Iroquois slew in the Wilderness. Ah, that cry! Can one ever forget?"
"Her brother!" John's hand went to his breast in the darkness.
"Monsieur did not know, then? I was sure that monsieur could not have known! For myself I did not know until four days ago. The Iroquois had not seen us, and we escaped back to the Richelieu— to Sorel—to Montreal, where I left my wounded man. Ah, monsieur, but we suffered on the way! And from Montreal I made for Boisveyrac, and there my tongue ran loose—but in all innocence. And there I heard that M. Armand had been crossing the Wilderness… but monsieur did not know it was her brother?"
"That, at least, I never knew nor guessed, Bateese. Was this the question Mademoiselle Diane desired you to ask me?"
"It was, monsieur. And, according to your answer, I was to give you her word."
"What is her word, Bateese?"
"She commends you to God, monsieur, and will pray for you."
"Take back my word that I will pray to deserve her prayers, who can never deserve her pardon."
"And what will my brother do?"
For minutes before John heard and answered it the question had been singing in his ears to the beat of the paddles. He supposed that Menehwehna had asked it but a moment ago.
"I cannot tell. Let us press on; it may be we shall find my countrymen at Frontenac."
"As a child breaks down a lodge which another child has built, and runs away, so your countrymen will have departed."
Fort Amitié lay far behind. They were threading their way now among the Thousand Isles, and soon Lake Ontario opened before them, spreading its blue waters to the horizon. But John heeded neither green islands nor blue lake, nor their beauty, nor their peace, but only the shame in his heart. He saw only the dazzle on the water, heard only the swirl around his paddle, stroke by stroke, hour after hour; prayed only for fatigue to drug the ache and bring about oblivion with the night.
Coasting the shore they came at the close of day upon the charred skeletons of three ships lifting their ribs out of the shallows against the sunset, and beyond these, where the water deepened, to a deserted quay.
They landed; and while they climbed the slope towards the fort, out of one of its breaches its only inhabitant crawled to them—a young dog, gaunt and tame with hunger.
The dog fawned upon Menehwehna. But John turned his back on the smoke-blackened walls in a sick despair, seated himself on the slope, and let his gaze travel southward over the shoreless water. Beyond the rim of it would lie Oswego, ruined by the French as the English had ruined Frontenac.
The dog came and stretched itself at his feet, staring up with eyes that seemed at once to entreat his favour and to marvel why he sat there motionless. Menehwehna had stepped down to the canoe to fetch food for it, and by and by returned with a handful of biscuit.
"He will be useful yet," said Menehwehna, seating himself beside the dog and feeding it carefully with very small pieces. "He cannot be more than a year old, and before the winter is ended we will make a hunter of him."
John did not answer.
"You will come with me now, brother?" Still Menehwehna kept his eyes on the dog. "There is no other way."
"There is one way only," answered John, with his eyes fastened on the south. "Teach me to build a canoe, and let me cross the water alone. If I drown, I drown."
"And if you reached? Your countrymen are all gathering back to the south; until the snow has come and passed, there will be no more fighting. You are better with me. Come, and when the corn begins to shoot again you shall tell me if you are minded to return."
"Menehwehna, you do not understand."
"I have studied you, my brother, when you have not guessed it; and I say to you that if you went back now to your people it would be nothing to their gain, nor to yours, for the desire of fighting has gone out of you. Now in my nation we do not wonder when a man loses that desire, for we put it away as men by eating put away the desire of food. All things come to us in their season. This month the corn ripens, and at home my wife and children are gathering it; but anon comes the Moon of Travel, and they will weary of the village and watch the lake for me to arrivé and lead them away to the hunting-grounds. So the beasts have their seasons; the buck his month for belling, and the beaver his month for taking shelter in his house which he has stored. And with us, when the snow melts, it may happen that the war-talk begins—none knowing how—and spreads through the villages: first the young men take to dancing and painting their faces, and the elder men catch fire, and a day sees us taking leave of our womankind to follow the war-path. But in time we surfeit even of fighting, and remember our lodges again."
Menehwehna paused awhile, and patted the dog's head.
"Therefore, brother, were you of our race, I should not wonder that the spirit of war has gone out of you. I myself am weary of it for a season; I forget that Frenchman differs from Englishman, and think of the sound of thin ice above the beaver's wash, the blood of the red-deer's hocks on the snow, the smell of his steak over the fire. But of the pale-faces some are warriors, some are not; and the warriors fight, year in and year out, whenever they can. That is your calling, brother, is it not?"
"I am not grown a coward, I hope."
"No," said Menehwehna thoughtfully, "you are not a coward; else my heart had never gone out to you. But I think there is something dead within you that must come to life, and something alive within you that must die, before you grow into a warrior again. As for your going back to-day, listen—
"There was war once between our nation and the Pottawatamies, and in an open fight our braves killed many of their enemies and scattered the rest to their villages. Great was the victory, but mournful; for in the chase that followed it an arrow pierced the throat of the leader of the Ojibways. His name was Daimeka, and he a chief in my own island of Michilimackinac. Where he fell there he lay. His people lifted the body and propped it against a tree, seated, with its face towards the forest into which the Pottawatamies had fled. They wiped the dirt from his head-dress, set his bow against his shoulder, and so, having lamented him, turned their faces northward to their own country.
"But Daimeka, although he could neither speak nor stir, saw all that his friends did, and heard all that they said. He listened to their praises of him and their talk of their victory, and was glad; he felt the touch of their hands as they set out his limbs against the tree, but his own hands he could not lift. His tears, indeed, ran as they turned to abandon him; but this sign they did not see, and he could give no other.
"The story says that little by little his hot tears melted the frost that bound him; and by and by, as he remembered the cry of home-coming—'Kumad-ji-wug!We have conquered!'—his spirit put forth an effort as a babe in its mother's travail, and he found his feet and ran after the braves. Then was he mad with rage to find that they had no eyes for him, and he no voice to call their attention. When they walked forward he walked forward, when they halted he halted, when they slept he slept, when they awoke he awoke; nay, when they were weary he felt weariness. But for all the profit it brought him he might still have been sitting under the tree; for their eyes would not see him, and his talk to them was as wind.
"And this afflicted him so that at length he began to tear open his wounds, saying, 'This, at least, will move them to shame, who owe their victory to me!' But they heeded nothing; and when he upbraided them they never turned their heads.
"At length they came to the shore where they had left the canoes, and put across for the island. As they neared it the men in Daimeka's canoe raised the war-shout, 'Kumad-ji-wug!We have conquered!' and old men, wives and children came running from the village, his own father and wife and children among them. 'Daimeka is dead!' was shouted many times in the uproar; and the warriors spoke his praises while his father wept, and his wife, and his two small ones.
"'But I am alive!' Daimeka shouted; for by this time he was in a furious passion. Then he ran after his wife, who was fleeing towards his own lodge, tearing her hair as she went. 'Listen to me, woman!' he entreated, and would have held her, but could not. He followed her into the lodge and stood over her as she sat on the bed, with her hands in her lap, despairing. 'But I am alive!' he shouted again. 'See how my wounds bleed; bind them, and give me food. To bleed like this is no joke, and I am hungry.' 'I have no long time to live,' said the woman to one of the children, 'even now I hear my man calling me, far away.' Daimeka, beside himself, beat her across the head with all his force. She put up a hand. 'Children, even now I felt his hand caressing me. Surely I have not long to live.'
"'I was better off under the tree,' said Daimeka to himself, and strode forth from the lodge. By the shore he launched one of the canoes; and now he felt no wish in his heart but to return to the battlefield and sit there dead, if only he could find his body again which he had left—as he now felt sure—sitting beneath the tree.
"On the fourth day he reached the battlefield. Night was falling, and as he sought the tree he came on a blazing fire. Across it he could see the tree plainly, and at the foot of it his body with the light on its face.
"He stepped aside to walk round the fire; but it moved as he moved, and again stood in his path. A score of times he tried to slip by it, but always it barred his way, and always beyond it stood the tree, with his own face fronting him across the blaze.
"'Fire, I am a fool,' said he at the last; 'but, fire, thou art a worse fool to think that Daimeka would turn his back!' And so saying he strode straight through its flame. At once he found himself seated with his back to the tree in his dress of war, with his bow resting against his shoulder. 'Now I am dead,' said he, contentedly; nevertheless he began to finger his bow. 'On what do the dead feed themselves?' he wondered; and, for a trial, fixed and shot an arrow at a passing bird: for above the tree there was clear sky, though darkness lay around its foot and in the darkness the fire still burned. The bird fell; he plucked it, cooked it at the fire, and ate.
"'In life I never ate better partridge,' said Daimeka, `but now that I am a real ghost I will return once more to Michilimackinac and frighten my wife out of her senses, for she deserves it.'
"So when the fire died down he arose, warm in all his limbs, and started northward again. On the fourth day he found his canoe where he had left it, and pushed off for the island. But, as he neared the shore, a man who had been standing there ran back to the village, and soon all his folk came running down to the beach, his wife in their midst.
"'Daimeka!' they cried. 'It is indeed Daimeka returned to us!'
"'That may be,' said Daimeka, as his wife flung her arms around him; 'and again, it may not be. But, dead or alive, I find it good enough.'
"Such, my brother, is the tale of Daimeka. Is it better, now, to return to your people as a ghost or as a man who has found himself?"
John lifted a face of misery.
"Come," said Menehwehna, looking him straight in the eyes, and letting his hand rest from patting the dog, which turned and licked it feebly.
"I will come," said John.
The encampment stood under the lee of a tall sandhill, a few paces back from the brink of a frozen river. Here the forest ended in a ragged fringe of pines; and, below, the river spread into a lagoon, with a sandy bar between it and the lake, and a narrow outlet which shifted with every storm. The summer winds drove up the sand between the pine-stems and piled it in hummocks, gaining a few yards annually upon the forest as the old trees fell. The winter winds brought down the snow and whirled it among the hummocks until these too were covered.
For three weeks the encampment had been pitched here; and for two weeks snow had fallen almost incessantly, banking up the lodges and freezing as it fell. At length wind and snow had ceased and given place to a hard black frost, still and aching, and a sky of steel, and a red, rayless sun.
A man came down the river-bank, moving clumsily in his snow-shoes over the hummocks; a man dressed as an Indian, in blanket-cloak and scarletmitases. His head was shaven to the crown around a top-knot skewered with heron's feathers; his face painted with black, vermilion, and a single streak of white between the eyebrows. He carried a gun under his left arm, and over his shoulder a pole to which he had slung the bodies of five beavers. Two dogs ran ahead of him straight for the encampment, which he had not discerned until they began to salute it with glad barking.
Five lodges formed the encampment—four of them grouped in a rough semicircle among the main lodge, which stood back close under the sand-bank where an eddy of wind had scooped it comparatively clear of snow.
The hunter followed his dogs to the door of the main lodge and lifted its frozen tent-flap.
"Is it well done, Menehwehna?" he asked, and casting his pole with its load upon the floor he clapped his mittened hands together for warmth. "Ough!" He began to pull the mittens off cautiously.
Menehwehna, seated with his back against the roof-pole (he had lain sick and fasting there all day), looked triumphantly towards his wife, who crouched with her two daughters by the lodge fire.
"Said I not that he would bring us luck? And, being bitten, did they bite, my brother?" he asked mischievously.
"A little. It did not hurt at the time." One of the two girls rose from beside the fire.
"Show me your hands, Netawis," she said.
Netawis—that is to say, John à Cleeve—stretched out his lacerated hands to the firelight. As he did so his blanket-cloak fell back, showing a necklace of wampum about his throat and another looser string dangling against the stained skin of his breast. On his outstretched wrists two silver bangles twinkled, and two broad bands of silver on the upper arms.
The girl fetched a bladder of beaver-fat and anointed his hands, her own trembling a little. Azoka was husband-high, and had been conscious for some weeks of a bird in her breast, which stirred and began to flutter whenever she and Netawis drew close. At first, when he had been fit for little but to make kites for the children, she had despised him and wondered at her father's liking. But Netawis did not seem to care whether folks despised him or not; and this piqued her. Whatever had to be learnt he learned humbly, and now the young men had ceased to speak of him as a good-for-nothing, Azoka began to think that his differing from them was not wholly against him; and all the women acknowledged him to be slim and handsome.
"Many thanks, cousin," said Netawis as she bound up the wounds. Then he began to talk cheerfully over his shoulder to Menehwehna. "Five washes I tried, and all were empty; but by the sixth the water bubbled. Then I wished that I had you with me, for I knew that my hands would suffer." He smiled; this was one of his un-Indian tricks.
"It was well done, brother," said Menehwehna, and his eyes sought those of his wife Meshu-kwa who, still crouching by the fire, gazed across it at the youth and the girl.
"But that is not all. While I was at work the dogs left me. At first I did not miss them; and then, finding them gone, I made sure they had run home in scorn of my hunting. But no; their tracks led me to a tree, not far up the stream, and there I found them. They were not barking, but sometimes they would nose around the trunk and sometimes fall back to a little distance and sit whining and trembling while they stared up at it."
"And the tracks around the tree?"
"I could find none but what the dogs themselves had made. I tapped the tree, and it was hollow. Then I saw on the north side, a little above my head, many deep scratches with moss hanging in strips from them. The trunk ran up straight, and was so stout that my two arms would not span more than a tenth of it; but the scratches went up to the first fork, and there must be the opening, as I guess."
"Said I not that Netawis would become a hunter and bring us luck?" asked Menehwehna again. "He has found bear."
"Bear! Bear! Our Netawis has found bear!" cried two small urchins who had been rolling and tumbling with the dogs and almost burning their toes at the edges of the fire. They were the children of Azoka's elder sister Seeu-kwa, Muskingon's widow. Scrambling past Menehwehna, who never spoke harshly to them, and paying no heed to their mother's scolding, they ran out into the snow to carry the news to the other lodges.
"Our Netawis has found bear!"
"What news is this?" asked some of the young men who lived in a lodge apart—the bachelors' lodge—gathering round the doorway. "Seeu-kwa, look to it that your children do not grow up to be little liars."
Now John, surprised to find his news so important, had turned to Azoka with a puzzled smile. The firelight which danced on his face danced also on the long bead necklace heaving like a snake with the rise and fall of her bosom. He stared down at it, and Azoka—poor girl—felt his wrist trembling under her touch; but it was with the thought of another woman. She caught her hand away; and John, looking up, saw a young Indian, Ononwe by name, watching him gloomily from the doorway.
"Ask Netawis to tell the story," said Menehwehna. So John told it again, and added that it had been difficult to call the dogs away from the tree.
"But about the bear I say nothing; that is Menehwehna's talk. I only tell you what I saw."
"The wind has fallen," said one, "and soon the moon will be up. Let us go and prove this tale of Netawis."
Meshu-kwa opposed this, calling it folly. "We have no axes heavy enough for tree-cutting," she said; not giving her real reason, which was that she came of a family which claimed descent from a bear. When they mocked at her she said, "Also—why should I hide it?—there came to me an evil dream last night."
"This is the first that I have heard of your evil dream," answered Menehwehna, and gave order that after supper Netawis should lead the party to the tree, promising that he himself would follow as soon as the sickness left him.
At moonrise, therefore, they set out—men and women together, and even the small children. But Menehwehna called Azoka back from the door of the lodge.
"My daughter," he asked, they two being left alone, "has Ononwe a cause of quarrel against Netawis?"
"They are good friends," Azoka answered innocently. "Ononwe never speaks of Netawis but to praise. Surely my father has heard him?"
"That is returning a ball I never flung," her father said, fixing grave eyes on her, under which she flinched. "I am thinking that the face of Netawis troubles the clear water that once was between you and Ononwe. Yet you tell me that Ononwe praises him. Sit down, therefore, and hear this tale."
Azoka looked rebellious; but no one in his own household disobeyed Menehwehna—or out of it, except at peril.
"There was a man of our nation once, a young man, and good-looking as Ononwe; so handsome that all the village called him the Beau-man. This Beau-man fell deeply in love with a maiden called Mamondago-kwa, who also was passably handsome; but she had no right to scorn him as she did, both in private and openly, so that all the village talked of his ill-success. This talk so preyed on his mind that he fell ill, and when his friends broke up their camp after a winter's hunting to return to the village, he lay on his bed and would not stir, but declared he would remain and die in the snow rather than look again on the face of her who scorned him. So at length they took down the lodge about him and went their ways, leaving him to die.
"But when the last of them was out of sight this Beau-man arose and, wandering over the ground where the camp had been, he gathered up all kinds of waste that his comrades had left behind—scraps of cloth, beads, feathers, bones and offal of meat, with odds and ends of chalk, soot, grease, everything that he could pick out of the trodden snow. Then, having heaped them together, he called on his guardianmanitou, and together they set to work to make a man. They stitched the rags into coat,mitosesand mocassins, and garnished them with beads and fringes; of the feathers they made a head-dress, with a frontlet; and then, taking mud, they plastered the offal and bones together and stuffed them tightly into the garments. Themanitoubreathed once, and to the eye all their patchwork became fresh and fine clothing. Themanitoubreathed twice, and life came into the figure, which the Beau-man had been kneading into the shape of a handsome youth. 'Your name,' said he, 'is Moowis, or the Muck-man, and by you I shall take my revenge.'
"So he commanded the Muck-man to follow, and together they went after the tracks of the tribe and came to the village. All wondered at the Beau-man's friend and his fine new clothes; and, indeed, this Moowis had a frank appearance that won all hearts. The chief invited him to his lodge, and begged the Beau-man to come too; he deserved no less for bringing so distinguished a guest. The Beau-man accepted, but by and by began to repent of his deception when he saw the Muck-man fed with deer tongue and the moose's hump while he himself had to be content with inferior portions, and when he observed further that Mamondago-kwa had no eyes for anyone but the Muck-man, who began to prove himself a clever rogue. The chief would have promoted Moowis to the first place by the fire; but this (for it would have melted him) he modestly refused. He kept shifting his place while he talked, and the girl thought him no less vivacious than modest, and no more modest than brave, since he seemed even to prefer the cold to the cheerful warmth of the hearth. The Beau-man attempted to talk; but the Muck-man had always a retort at which the whole company laughed, until the poor fellow ran out of the lodge in a fury of shame and rage. As he rose he saw the Muck-man rise, with the assent of all, and cross over to the bridegroom's seat beside Mamondago-kwa, who welcomed him as a modest maiden should when her heart has been fairly won.
"So it happened—attend to me well, my daughter—that Mamondago-kwa married a thing of rags and bones, put together with mud. But when the dawn broke her husband rose up and took a bow and spear, saying, 'I must go on a journey.' 'Then I will go with you,' said his bride. 'My journey is too long for you,' said the Muck-man. 'Not so,' answered she; 'there is no journey that I could not take beside you, no toil that I could not share for love of you.' He strode forth, and she followed him at a distance; and the Beau-man, who had kept watch all night outside their lodge, followed also at a distance, unseen. All the way along the rough road Mamondago-kwa called to her husband; but he went forward rapidly, not turning his head, and she could not overtake him. Soon, as the sun rose, he began to melt. Mamondago-kwa did not see the gloss go out of his clothes, nor his handsome features change back again into mud and snow and filth. But still as she followed she came on rags and feathers and scraps of clothing, fluttering on bushes or caught in the crevices of the rocks. She passed his mittens, his mocassins, hismitases, his coat, his plume of feathers. At length, as he melted, his footprints grew fainter, until she lost even his track on the snow. 'Moowis! Moowis!' she cried; but now there was none to answer her, for the Muck-man had returned to that out of which he was made."
Menehwehna ceased and looked at his daughter steadily.
"And did the Beau-man find her and fetch her back?" asked Azoka.
"The story does not say, to my knowledge; but it may be that Ononwe could tell you."
Azoka stepped to the moonlit doorway and gazed out over the snow.
"And yet you love Netawis?" she asked, turning her head.
"So much that I keep him in trust for his good, against a day when he will go and never return. But that is not a maiden's way of loving, unless maidens have changed since I went a-courting them."
Netawis having led them to the tree, the young men fell to work upon it at once. It measured well over ten fathoms in girth; and by daybreak, their axes being light, they had hewed it less than half-way through. After a short rest they attacked it again, but the sun was close upon setting when the tree fell—with a rending scream which swelled into a roar so human-like that the children ran with one accord and caught hold of their elders' hands.
John, with Seeu-kwa's small boys clinging to him, stood about thirty paces from the fallen trunk. Two or three minutes passed, and he wondered why the men did not begin to jeer at him for having found them a mare's nest. For all was quiet. He wondered also why none of them approached the tree to examine it.
"I shall be the mock of the camp from this moment," he thought, and said aloud, "Let go of my hands, little ones; there is no more danger."
But they clung to him more tightly than ever; for a great cry went up. From the opening by the fork of the trunk a dark body rolled lazily out upon the snow—an enormous she-bear. She uncurled and gathered herself up on all fours, blinking and shaking her head as though the fall had left her ears buzzing, and so began to waddle off. Either she had not seen the crowd of men and women, or perhaps she despised it.
"Ononwe! Ononwe!" shouted the Indians; for Ononwe, gun in hand, had been posted close to the opening.
He half-raised his gun, but lowered it again.
"Netawis found her," he said quietly. "Let Netawis shoot her."
He stepped back towards John who, almost before he knew, found the gun thrust into his hands; for the children had let go their clasp.
Amid silence he lifted it and took aim, wondering all the while why Ononwe had done this. The light was fading. To be sure he could not miss the bear's haunches, now turned obliquely to him; but to hit her without killing would be scarcely less dishonouring than to miss outright, and might be far more dangerous. His hand and forearm trembled too—with the exertion of hewing, or perhaps from the strain of holding the children. Why had he been fool enough to take the gun? He foretasted his disgrace even as he pulled the trigger.
It seemed to him that as the smoke cleared the bear still walked forward slowly. But a moment later she turned her head with one loud snap of the jaws and lurched over on her side. Her great fore-pads smote twice on the powdery snow, then were still.
He had killed her, then; and, as he learned from the applause, by an expert's shot, through the spine at the base of the skull. John had aimed at this merely at a guess, knowing nothing of bears or their vulnerable points, and in this ignorance neglecting a far easier mark behind the pin of the shoulder.
But more remained to wonder at; for the beast being certified for dead, Meshu-kwa ran forward and kneeling in the snow beside it began to fondle and smooth the head, calling it by many endearing names. She seated herself presently, drew the great jaws on to her lap and spoke into its ear, beseeching its forgiveness. "O bear!" she cried for all to hear, "O respected grandmother! You yourself saw that this was a stranger's doing. Believe not that Meshu-kwa is guilty of your death, or any of her tribe! It was a stranger that disturbed your sleep, a stranger who fired upon you with this unhappy result!"
The men stood around patiently until this propitiation was ended; and then fell to work to skin the bear, while Meshu-kwa went off with her daughters to the lodges, to prepare the cooking pots. In passing John she gave him a glance of no good will.
That night, as Azoka stood by a cauldron in which the bear's fat bubbled, and the young men idled around the blaze, she saw Netawis draw Ononwe aside into the darkness. Being a quick-witted girl she promptly let slip her ladle into the fat, as if by mischance, and ran to her father's lodge for another, followed by Meshu-kwa's scolding voice. The lodge had a back-exit towards the wall of the sandhill, where the wind's eddy had swept a lane almost clear of snow; and Azoka pushed her pretty head through the flap-way here in time to spy the dark shadows of the pair before they disappeared behind the bachelor's lodge. Quietly as a pantheress she stole after them, smoothing out her footprints behind her until she reached the trampled snow; and so, coming to the angle of the bachelors' lodge, cowered listening.
"But suppose that I had missed my shot?" said the voice of Netawis. "I tell you that my heart was as wax; and when the lock fell, I saw nothing. Why, what is the matter with you, Ononwe?"
"I thought you had led me here to quarrel with me," Ononwe answered slowly, and Azoka held her breath.
"Quarrel, brother? Why should I quarrel with you? It was a risk, as I am telling you; but you trusted me, and I brought you here to thank you that in your good heart you gave the shot up to me."
"But it was not my good heart." Ononwe's voice had grown hoarse. "It was an evil thought in my head, and you will have to quarrel with me, Netawis."
"That Ononwe is a good man," said Azoka to herself.
"I do not understand. Did you expect me, then, to miss? Do not say, brother, that you gave me the gunwishingme to miss and be the mock of the camp!"
"Yes, and no. I thought, if you took the gun, it would not matter whether you hit or missed."
"Why?"
"Are you so simple, Netawis? Or is it in revenge that you force me to tell?… Yes, I have played you an evil trick, and by an evil tempting. I saw you with Azoka.… I gave you the gun, thinking, 'If he misses, the whole camp will mock him, and a maid turns from a man whom others mock. But if he should kill the bear, he will have to reckon with Meshu-kwa. Meshu-kwa fears ill-luck, and she will think more than twice before receiving a son-in-law who has killed her grandmother the bear.'"
"I will marry Netawis," said Azoka to herself, shutting her teeth hard. And yet she could not feel angry with Ononwe as she ought. But it seemed that neither was Netawis angry; for he answered with one of those strange laughs of his. She had never been able to understand them, but she had never heard one that sounded so unhappy as did this.
"My brother," said Netawis—and his voice was gentle and bitterly sorrowful—"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed than you to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms with her again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as little of me as I of her. Last night when you saw us… I remember that I looked down on her and something reminded me… of one…" He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as the anguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" cried John à Cleeve, with a sob.
"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing the relief in his voice.
But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothing the snow over her traces.