All animals are braggarts, from the cock in the barnyard to the moose when he hears his rival, and man is not much better.  I pricked the spear point against my hand, and looked at it critically.

“It is as dull as the Huron’s wits,” I scoffed, “but we will do the best that we can with it;” and stepping back several feet nearer the council fire, I put the weapon into play.

I have been in weightier occasions than the one that followed, but never in one that I can remember in more detail.  In all lives there are moments that memory paints in bright, crude colors, like pictures in a child’s book, and so this scene looks to me now.  I can see the crowding Ottawas, their bodies painted red and black, their nose pendants—­a pebble hung on a deer-sinew—­swinging against their greasy lips as they shouted plaudits or derision.  But best I can see Pemaou, dancing between me and the sun like some grotesque dream fantasy.  He was in full war bravery, his body painted red, barred with white stripes to imitate the lacing on our uniforms, and his hair feather-decked till he towered in height like a fir tree.  I say that he was grotesque, but at the time I did not think of his appearance; I thought only that here was a man who was my mate in cunning, and who wished me ill.

This was no squaw’s game, for each cast was made with force and method.  We both threw warily, and the spear whistled to and fro as regularly as a weaver’s shuttle.  I backed my way toward the council fire until I could hear Longuant distinctly, then I prayed my faculties to serve me well, and stood my ground.  My mind was on the rack.  I could not, for the briefest instant, release the tension of my thought as to the game before me, yet I missed no sound from the group around the fire.  The low, red sun dazzled my eyes, and I waited, with each throw from the Huron, for one that should be aimed with deadlier intent.

For I realized that Pemaou was not doing his best, and, since I had seen hate in his eyes, this clemency troubled me.  I wondered if he were a decoy, and if some one were coming upon me from the rear, and I stopped and stared at him with defiance, only to see that he was looking, not at me, nor at the attentive audience around us, but over my head at the council fire.

Then, indeed, the truth clapped me in the face, and I could have laughed aloud to think what a puppet I had been, just when I was comforting my vanity with my own shrewdness.  Of course, Pemaou would spare me, and so prolong the game.  As the son of the leader of the Hurons, he had more to learn from Longuant’s speech than I. We were playing with the same cards, but his stakes were the larger.  I suddenly realized that I was enjoying myself more than in a long time.

But the test was to come.  When Pemaou had heard all he wished, he would aim the spear at my throat, and so, though I threw negligently, I watched like a starved cat.  I heard the council agree upon a decisive measure, and I knew that the Huron’s moment had arrived.  He seized it.  His spear whistled at me like a bullet, but my muscles were braced and waiting.  I caught the weapon, and held it, though the wood ate into my palms.  The savages told the Huron in a derisive roar that the Frenchman was the better man.