It hardly needed a moment to prove this true; the thin smoke grew more and more dense, filling the narrow entrance until we lay gasping for breath.  De Croix, ever the most impulsive, was the first to act.

“Parbleu!” he gasped, pulling himself forward with his hands.  “Better Indians than this foul air!  If I die, it shall at least be in the open.”

To remain longer cooped in that foul hole was indeed madness; and as soon as I could I followed him, rolling out of the entrance to the water’s edge, fairly sick with the pressure upon my lungs, and caring so little what the end might be, provided I might first attain one breath of pure air, that before I gained strength to resist I was prisoner to as ill-looking a crew of savages as ever my eyes encountered.  The villains triced us firmly with thongs of skin, and sat us up against the bank like so many puppets, dancing about before us, snapping their dirty fingers in our faces, and treating us to all manner of taunts and insults.  ’T was done so quickly as to seem a dream, had I not smarted so sorely from the blows dealt me, and my limbs chafed where the tight cords were drawn.

I recall glancing aside at Burns; but his seamed and puckered face remained emotionless, as the red devils rolled him over till he stared straight up at the sky, now gray with coming dawn.  The sight of De Croix almost set me laughing, which won for me a kick from the brute who had me in special charge.  The Frenchman was surely no court dandy now; his fancy clothing clung to him in rags, while the powder-flash within the cellar had blackened his face and made sad havoc with his gay mustache.  He endeavored to smile at me as our eyes met, but the effort produced only what seemed like a demoniac grin.

“’T is a hard life, Monsieur,” I could not forbear remarking, “and will hardly remind you of Versailles.”

His form stiffened in its bonds, as if the words spurred his memory of other days.

“A French soldier smiles at fate, wherever it overtakes him,” he answered, a touch of pride in his voice.  “Besides, the game is not played out,—­I may yet prove the first one in.  But see! if I mistake not, here comes the chief of all these devils.”

The new-comer strode down the high bank alone, and was greeted noisily by our captors.  It was the same Indian that had halted Captain Wells the day previous; and he looked us over with a contemptuous sneer that curled his lips and transformed the whole expression of his hideously painted face.  I noted that he paid but small heed to either De Croix or myself, contenting his vengeance with sharp kicks at our prostrate bodies; but as he came to Burns, he paused, bending down till he could peer into the old borderer’s upturned face.

“Bah!  I know you,” he said, brokenly.  “You Ol’ Burns.  Stake down in village for you.”

The old man neither moved his head nor gave the slightest sign that he had heard.