“In the fort, by the southern blockhouse,” I answered.  “Let Fort Stephenson be his monument.  It will stand here forever.  The woods around it will be trampled by prowling savages, and later on by prowling white men.  Within, nothing will obliterate the place.  Give a little fellow a bed here, who died between two countries, and will never be a citizen of either.”

“I don’t want to make a graveyard of the fort,” said Croghan.  But he looked at Paul, bent low over him, and allowed him to be buried near the southwest angle.

There the child’s bones rest to this day.  The town of Fremont in the commonwealth of Ohio has grown up around them.  Young children who climb the grassy bastion, may walk above his head, never guessing that a little gentleman of France, who died like a soldier of his wound, lies deeply cradled there.

Before throwing myself down in the dead heaviness which results from continual loss of sleep, I questioned the wounded British soldiers about Paul.  None of them had seen him.  Straggling bands of Indians continually joined their force.  Captives were always a possibility in the savage camp.  Paul might have been taken hundreds of miles away.

But I had the padlocked book, which might tell the whole story.  With desperate haste that could hardly wait to open the lids, I took it out, wondering at the patience which long self-restraint had bred in me.  I was very tired, and stretched my arms across the pillow where Paul’s head had lain, to rest one instant.  But I must have slept.  My hand woke first, and feeling itself empty, grasped at the book.  It was gone, and so was the sun.

I got a light and searched, thrusting my arm between the bunk and the log wall.  It was not on the floor, or in my breast pocket, or in my saddle-bags.

The robbery was unendurable.  And I knew the Indian who had done it.  He was the quietest, most stubborn Oneida that ever followed an adopted white man.  Why he had taken the book I could not understand.  But I was entirely certain that he had taken it out of my hand while I slept.  He would not break the padlock and read it, but like a judicious father he would take care of a possibly unwholesome volume himself.

I went out and found the bald-headed and well-beloved wretch.  He was sitting with his knees to his chin by the evening log fire.

“Skenedonk,” I said, “I want my book.”

“Children and books make a woman of you,” he responded.  “You had enough books at Longmeadow.”

“I want it at once,” I repeated.

“It’s sorcery,” he answered.

“It’s a letter from Madame de Ferrier, and may tell where she is.”

His fawn eyes were startled, but he continued to hug his knees.

“Skenedonk, I can’t quarrel with you.  You were my friend before I could remember.  When you know I am so bound to you, how can you deal me a deadly hurt?”

“White woman sorcery is the worst sorcery.  You thought I never saw it.  But I did see it.  You went after her to Paris.  You did not think of being the king.  So you had to come back with nothing.  That’s what woman sorcery does.  Now you have power with the tribes.  The President sees you are a big man!  And she sends a book to you to bewitch you!  I knew she sent the book as soon as I saw it.”