I removed my hat.  “He was neither.  He was an ambition incarnate; an ambition so vast there were few to understand it, for it had no personal side.  You said the other night that but few motives rule men.  La Salle has been misunderstood because the usual motives—­greed, the love of woman, and the desire for fame—­did not touch him.  He was the slave of one great idea, and so he was lonely and men feared him.”  I finished with some defiance.  I knew that the blood had risen in my cheeks as I spoke, for some subjects touch me as if I were a woman.  The Englishman was watching me, and I disliked to have him see what I felt was weakness.  But he did not scoff.  His own cheeks flushed somewhat, and he looked off at the water.

“La Salle had more than a great idea,” he said meditatively.  “He had great opportunity.  He desired to found an empire in the west, did he not, monsieur?  Well, he failed, but, perhaps, that was accident.  He might have succeeded.  It is not often in the history of the world that such an opportunity comes to any person, man or woman.  La Salle, at least, tried to live up to his full stature.  Monsieur, how pitiable it would be, yes, more, how terrible it would be, to have such an opportunity thrown in your way and know that you were too weak to seize it.”

His voice rose to some earnestness, but I was ashamed of my own emotion, and so threw pebbles at the water and kept my mood cold.  I suspected that through all this random philosophizing I was being probed,—­probed by an Englishman who ate my rations, and wore a squaw’s dress.  I grew angry.

“Who are you?” I demanded roughly.  “Who are you, that you know of La Salle and of his plans, and use the French speech.  Can you, for once, answer me fairly, or is there no sound core of honesty in you?”

He rose.  But he replied, not to what I had said, but to what I had thought.  “It is true that I share your food and your escort, and that I requite you but poorly.  Yet I must remind you again, I share it under compulsion.  I cannot be entirely open with you,—­are you open with me?—­but I will tell you all that it is necessary for you to know, all that touches you in any way.  I said that I was a colonist.  It was the truth, but I had been but a year in the Colonies at the time of my capture.  I was born in England, and I have passed some time in France.  As to La Salle, I know nothing of him save what any man might hear.  Is it strange that I should be interested in him now that I find myself following in his steps?  Why do you always see a double meaning in my words, monsieur?”

I filled my pipe, and answered truthfully, “I do not know.”

But here he began to laugh.  “Monsieur, forgive me, but truly I forget at times that I am a spy, that you distrust me.  You are kind and I am interested, and so I grow careless of the fact that I am in a land where no speech is idle, where every glance is weighed.  This life must unfit one for court talk, monsieur.”