Quickly, without moving his eyes from Pierre’s face, Philip told his own story of Lord Fitzhugh Lee.  And as he continued a strange change came over the half-breed.  When he came to the letters revealing the plot to turn the northerners against his company a low cry escaped Pierre’s lips.  His eyes seemed starting from his head.  Drops of sweat burst out upon his face.  His fingers worked convulsively, something rose in his throat and choked him.  When Philip had done he buried his face in his hands.  For a few moments he remained thus, and then suddenly looked up.  Livid spots burned in his cheeks, and he fairly hissed at Philip.

“M’sieur, if this is not the truth—­if this is a lie—­”

He stopped.  Something in Philip’s eyes told him to go no further.  He was fearless, and he saw more than fearlessness in Philip’s face.  Such men believe, when they come together.

“It is the truth,” said Philip.

With a low, strained laugh Pierre held out his hand as a pledge of his faith.

“I believe in you, M’sieur,” he said, and it seemed an effort for him to speak.  “Do you know what I would have thought, if you had told this to Jeanne before I came?”

“No.”

“I would have thought, M’sieur, that she threw herself purposely into the death of the Big Thunder rocks.”

“My God, you mean—­”

“That is all, M’sieur.  I can say no more.  Ah, there is Jeanne!” he cried, more loudly.  “Now we will take down the tent, and go.”

Jeanne stood a dozen steps behind them when Philip turned.  She greeted him with a smile, and hastened to assist Pierre in gathering up the things about the camp.  Philip was not blind to her efforts to evade him.  He could see that it was a relief to her when they were at last in Pierre’s canoe, and headed up the river.  They traveled till late in the evening, and set up Jeanne’s tent by starlight.  The journey was continued at dawn.  Late the following afternoon the Little Churchill swept through a low, woodless country, called the White Fox Barren.  It was a narrow barren and across it lay the forest and the ridge mountains.  Behind these mountains and the forest the sun was setting.  Above all else there rose out of the gathering gloom of evening a single ridge, a towering mass of rock which caught the last glow of the sun, and blazed like a signal-fire.

The canoe stopped.  Jeanne and Pierre both gazed toward the great rock.

Then Jeanne, who was in the bow, turned her face to Philip, and the glow of the rock itself suffused her cheeks as she pointed over the barren.

“M’sieur Philip,” she said, “there is Fort o’ God!”

XVI