Somewhat to my surprise, the Ottawas listened with respect.  I had apparently won some reputation among them, and without demur they took me to the chief.

Longuant was squatting before his lodge.  A piece of wood was laid across his lap, and he was chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife.  He smelled of oil, and smoke, and half-cured hides; yet he met me as a ruler meets an ambassador.  As I stumbled after him into his dark lodge, I saw that he was preparing to greet me with all the silence and circumlocution of a state messenger.  I had no time for that,—­though it gratified me.  I tramped my way through all ceremony and plunged at my point.

“I am no envoy,” I began, shaking my head in refusal of the proffered seat upon the mat beside him.  “I am only a voice.  A bird that calls ‘beware’ from the branches, and then flits away.  Why watch the old wolf, and let the cub play free?  Would you make yourself a laughing-stock among your people, by letting the Englishman escape into the Baron’s hands?  Pemaou, son of the Baron, stands with his followers outside the Englishman’s window.  What does he seek?  I am no Ottawa.  I am a free man, bound to no clan, and to no covenant, and friend to the Ottawas and Hurons alike.  But I do not like to see a wise man tricked by a boy.  I have spoken.”

Longuant rose.  “My brother’s voice speaks the truth,” he said, gathering his robes to leave me.  “My brother sent his words, even as he flung his spear at Pemaou, straight at the mark.  Only one word goes astray.  My brother is not the free man he vaunts himself.  He is tied by hate;” and pushing out his lip till his huge nose pendant stood at a right angle, he went on his way to be my willing, but entirely unhoodwinked agent.

I went to my canoes, stumbling a little, for I was tired.  It was dark now, and the fires glowed brazenly, so that the Indians showed like dancing silhouettes.  The sky was cloudless, and to the east lay a band of uncertain light that meant the rising moon.  This was the time that I had planned to use in action, and the knowledge that I was powerless to accomplish anything myself made me so irritable that I could not bear to speak even to Pierre and the men.  I sent them to a distance, and sat down on the sand so torn and frayed by anxiety that I was like a sick man.

And here, after long minutes, Singing Arrow found me.  She came running down the beach, slipping on the rolling pebbles, and careless either of her grace, or of the noise she made.

“And you sit here doing nothing!” she cried, quite as a white girl might have done.

I pushed her down on the sand.  “Stop!” I said.  “I knew you would seek me here.  Now answer briefly.  Pemaou and his men would not let you get near the window?”

“No.”

“They had seen you with me,” I explained.  “I feared it.  Did Longuant and his men come?”

“Like bees,” she answered, with a fling of her arms.  “They are everywhere.  We can do nothing;” and she dropped her head in her arms and cried.