He drew back like one who has hit a bull’s-eye and waited for me to ask questions, but I thought that I knew my man, and laughed at his childishness.

“No more of that!” I said with perfunctory sternness.  “What pot-house rabble of Indians have you been with that you should prattle of making broth of white men, and dare bring such speech to me as a jest!  That is not talk for civilized men, and if you repeat it I shall send you back to France.  You are more familiar with the savages than I like a man of mine to be.  Remember that, Pierre.  Now go.”

But he lingered.  “It is no pot-house story,” he defended sulkily.  “The Ottawas say they will go to war if the prisoner is not put in the pot before to-morrow morning.  And what can the commandant do?  The Ottawas are two thousand strong.”

I knew, without comment, that he was telling me the truth, and I stood still.  The din of the dancing and feasting was growing more and more uproarious, and the Indians were ripe for any insanity.  I saw that the sun was already casting long shadows, and that the night would be on us before many hours.  I looked at the garrison.  Two hundred Frenchmen all told, and most of them half-hearted when it came to defending an Englishman and a foe!  I turned to my man.

“You have been with an Ottawa girl, called Singing Arrow,” I said.  “Are you bringing me some woman’s tale you learned from her?”

He squirmed like a clumsy puppy, but I could see his pride in my omniscience.  “She is smarter than a man,” he said vaguely.

And Pierre were the man, I thought that likely.  “Take me to her,” I commanded.

I expected to follow him among the revelers, but he turned his back on them, and led the way through a labyrinth of huts, a maze so winding that I judged him more sober than I had thought.  When we found the girl, she was alone, and I saw from her look that this was not the first visit Pierre had made.

He summoned her importantly, while I withdrew to a distance, that I might have her brought to me in form.  I was intent and uneasy, but I had room in my heart for vain self-satisfaction that I knew something of the Ottawa speech.  My proficiency in Indian dialects, for which the world praised me lightly, as it might commend the cut of my doublet, had cost me much drudgery and denial, and my moments of reward were rare.

Singing Arrow came forward, and curtsied as the priests had taught her.  I was forced to approve my man’s taste.  Not that she was beautiful to my eyes, for brown women were never to my liking; but she had youth and neatness, and when she raised her eyes I saw that I might look for intelligence and daring.  I motioned her to come nearer.

“Singing Arrow,” I said, in somewhat halting Ottawa, “my man here tells me that your people are talking as if they were asleep, and were dreaming that they were all kings.  Now when a dog barks at the moon, we do not stop to tremble for the safety of the moon, but we ask what is the matter with the dog.  That is what I would ask of you.  What do the Ottawas care what Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac, the commandant, does with the English prisoner?”