For a moment Outchipouac’s speech had warmed me as I thought I might not be warm again.  But when I saw the chiefs advancing I became stone.

“I cannot lead you,” I said in Algonquin, and I knew my voice was blank.  “Outchipouac is wrong.  I am no manitou, but a man so weak he does not know the truth even for himself.  How can he lead others?  When I brought you here the sun shone brightly, and I thought I saw the way ahead.  Now I am in darkness and mist.  Go.  Leave me.  Find a leader whose sight is not clouded.”  I turned my back and stood with my head down.

A murmur rose.  I had broken the illusion.  We had all been riding the clouds of fancy, and I had dashed us to earth again.  The chiefs had come to me with their hands out, and I had thrown water in their faces.  They had reason for their anger.  Cadillac saw the pantomime and lumbered from his seat.  He seized my arm.

“Montlivet, you are insane!  You are insane!”

I pointed him to the woods.  “Monsieur, I have dropped my sword.  I shall go into the forest for a time.”

He shook me as if I were in a torpor.  “Your wife”——­

“I shall search for her.  I am going out now with Indian trailers.  I shall not leave this country till all hope is past,—­then I shall go west.”

For a moment suspicion clutched him.  “Oh, you would form your union without me!  You are planning a dictatorship.”

I took him by the arm and begged him to understand.  “I have dropped my sword,” I reiterated.  “I am going on alone.  I have skins and provisions cached at Sturgeon Cove—­enough for barter.  I am not insane.  I shall go prudently.  There are lands and peoples to be explored in the west.”

The clamor grew.  Dubisson and others of the French came nearer.

“Speak to the chiefs now.  Speak to them now,” they begged.  “You can save the situation yet.”

I watched the Indians.  “They are departing peacefully.”

“But they are departing!”

I looked at Cadillac.  “And why not?”

He drew his sword.  “Montlivet, have you turned priest—­or coward?  Do you dare to try and tell me that war is wrong?”

I looked at him, and left my own sword untouched.  “I do not know what I believe.  I am going back in the woods.  Perhaps I shall learn.  But now we have done all that we set out to do.  We have destroyed the Seneca war party.  We shall be safe from the Iroquois for some time.”

“But we are just ready to go on.  Our men are ready.”

His words seemed meaningless.  “Ready!  Are intoxicated men ready?  We have drunk blood.  Now we are drunk with words.  I will not”——­

A roar outside cut my words short.  “The woman!  The woman!” I heard the cry in several languages at once, but I could not comprehend it.  I saw the crowd rise and surge toward me, making for the entrance of the tent.  I turned and ran with them.  Yet my mind was numb.