“Outchipouac, I have listened.  You have used an old trick.  When a man wishes to be rid of a dog he cries that it is mad; then he can kill it, and no one will call him to account.  So you.  If you wish to break the covenant between us, now is your time.  You can call me a fox, you can say that I have sold my honor to the Iroquois wolf.  No one will check you, for I am naked and ill, and you are powerful.  But you will have lied.  This is my answer.  I have called you ‘brother;’ I have kept the bond unbroken.  If there is a fox here it is the man who calls me one.”

I waited, and my mind was heavy.  If the chief called me “brother” in turn, I was ready to embrace him as of my kin.  For he was full of vigor of mind and honesty, and I respected him.  He had been kind to me.  Would he trust me against the evidence,—­the evidence of his ears and of my reluctant tongue?

He temporized.  “The Frenchman has a tongue like a bobolink,—­pleasant to hear.  Whether it says much,—­that is a different matter.  Can the Frenchman tell me why he wishes to go to Michillimackinac?  Can he tell me why he spends time from the moon of breaking ice to the moon of strawberries building a lodge of promises, and then when he is just ready to use the lodge blows it down with a breath?”

What could I tell him?  That I was following a woman?  That I had given her my name, and that I must protect her?  It would sound to him like a parrot’s laughter.  This was no court of love.  It was war.  A troubadour’s lute would tinkle emptily in these woods that had seen massacre and knew the shriek of the death cry.  Again I set my teeth and rose.

“Outchipouac, war is secret.  I cannot tell you why I go to Michillimackinac.  But trust me.  I go on business; I shall return at once, within ten days, unless the wind be foul.  Will you furnish me a canoe and a man to paddle?” I stooped and pulled rushes from my pallet, plaited them, and bound them in a ring.  “Take this ring; keep it.  It is firm, like my purpose, and unending, like my endeavor.  I shall replace it with a chain of bright silver when I come to you again.  I give it to you in pledge of my friendship.”

The chief took the ring and handled it loosely.  I thought he was about to throw it away, but he did not.  He put it in his blanket.

“It is well,” he said, and left the lodge.  I was held on probation.

I had a good night and woke with new sinews.  I saw that the sun was shining and the sky untroubled.  A squaw brought me broth, and I drank it hungrily and tried to see no evil augury in the fact that I was served by a woman.  I flattered her, and asked her to summon Pierre.

She brought him at once.  He thrust himself into the entrance, and I saw dismay written large upon him.

“There is a canoe waiting to take the master away,” he cried.  “I am going, too.”

Now I was prepared for this battle.  “Pierre, you are to stay here.  You are to keep near the Seneca camp to help Labarthe and Leclerc.  If they escape, go, all of you, to our camp on Sturgeon Cove and guard the stores till I send you word.  You understand?”