She thought a moment, and plaited the folds of her beaver-skin skirt as I have seen many a white girl do.  “I know of no dog,” she said, with a slow upward glance that tried to gauge my temper.  “And as for the moon, it shines alike on the grass and the tall trees, and I have seen no Frenchman yet who could reach up and pluck it from its place.  But I have seen a chain that was once bright like silver grow dull and eaten with rust.  A wise man will throw such a chain away, and ask for a new one.”

I shrugged.  “You have sharp eyes,” I said, shrugging yet more, “if you can see rust on the covenant chain that binds the French to the Ottawas.  Is that what you mean?”

She looked up with a flash of fun and diablerie such as I never thought to see in a savage face.  “Then monsieur has seen it himself?”

Now this would not do; I would leave all gallantries to my subordinate.  “This is idle talk,” I said, as I lit my pipe, and prepared as if to go.  “It is the clatter of water among stones that makes a great noise, but goes nowhere.  I have seen many strange things in my life, but never a cat that could fight fair, nor a woman that could answer a direct question.  Look at this now.  I ask you about the English prisoner, and you talk to me of covenant chains.”

She looked at me with impassive good humor, her hands busy with her wampum necklaces, and I saw, not only that I had failed to entrap her into losing her temper, but that I was dealing with a quick-witted woman of a race whose women were trained politicians.  But, for reasons of her own, she chose to answer me fairly.

“The Frenchman is right,” she said, with a second swift upward look to test the ice where she was venturing.  “I was wrong to talk of the covenant between the French and my people, for the chain is too weak to bear even the weight of words.  It is rusted till it is as useless as a band of grasses to bind a wild bull.  But blood will cleanse rust.  What can the French want with their enemy, the Englishman?  Why should not the prisoner’s blood be used to brighten the chain between the Ottawas and the French?”

Now this was plain language.  I listened to the girl’s speech, which was as gently cadenced as if she talked of flowers or summer pleasures, and thought that here was indeed snake’s venom offered as a sweetmeat.  But why did she warn me?  I had a flash of sense.  I went to her, and compelled her to stop playing with her necklaces, and raise her eyes to mine.

“Answer me, Singing Arrow,” I commanded.  “You are repeating what was said in council, but you do not agree with it.  You would like to save the prisoner.  Look at me again.  Am I right?”

I could as well have held an eel.  She slipped from my hands, and ran back to her lodge.  “So!” she cried, as she lifted the mat before her door.  “So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it will eat.  Why stay here?  I have given you what you came to find.  Take it.”  And with a look at Pierre she disappeared.