“Allow me to present you, Monsieur de Catinat,” said the Seigneur de Sainte Marie solemnly, “to my wife, Onega de la Noue de Sainte Marie, chatelaine by right of marriage to this seigneury, and also to the Chateau d’Andelys in Normandy, and to the estate of Varennes in Provence, while retaining in her own right the hereditary chieftainship on the distaff side of the nation of the Onondagas.  My angel, I have been endeavouring to persuade our friends to remain with us at Sainte Marie instead of journeying on to Lake Champlain.”

“At least leave your White Lily at Sainte Marie,” said the dusky princess, speaking in excellent French, and clasping with her ruddy fingers the ivory hand of Adele.  “We will hold her safe for you until the ice softens, and the leaves and the partridge berries come once more.  I know my people, monsieur, and I tell you that the woods are full of murder, and that it is not for nothing that the leaves are the colour of blood, for death lurks behind every tree.”

De Catinat was more moved by the impressive manner of his hostess than by any of the other warnings which he had received.  Surely she, if anyone, must be able to read the signs of the times.

“I know not what to do!” he cried in despair.  “I must go on, and yet how can I expose her to these perils?  I would fain stay the winter, but you must take my word for it, sir, that it is not possible.”

“Du Lhut, you know how things should be ordered,” said the seigneur.  “What should you advise my friend to do, since he is so set upon getting to the English Provinces before the winter comes?”

The dark silent pioneer stroked his beard with his hand as he pondered over the question.

“There is but one way,” said he at last, “though even in it there is danger.  The woods are safer than the river, for the reeds are full of cached canoes.  Five leagues from here is the blockhouse of Poitou, and fifteen miles beyond, that of Auvergne.  We will go to-morrow to Poitou through the woods and see if all be safe.  I will go with you, and I give you my word that if the Iroquois are there, Greysolon du Lhut will know it.  The lady we shall leave here, and if we find that all is safe we shall come back for her.  Then in the same fashion we shall advance to Auvergne, and there you must wait until you hear where their war-parties are.  It is in my mind that it will not be very long before we know.”

“What!  You would part us!” cried Adele aghast.

“It is best, my sister,” said Onega, passing her arm caressingly round her.  “You cannot know the danger, but we know it, and we will not let our White Lily run into it.  You will stay here to gladden us, while the great chief Du Lhut, and the French soldier, your husband, and the old warrior who seems so wary, and the other chief with limbs like the wild deer, go forward through the woods and see that all is well before you venture.”