“Your judgment does you credit, my young friend.  I did not tell you what I was going to do with you, because I did not know myself.  I know more about you than you think I do.  One of my warriors was with Tandakora in several of his battles with you and Willet, that mighty hunter whom the Indians call the Great Bear, and Tayoga, the Onondaga, who is probably following on our trail in the hope of rescuing you.  I have also heard of you from others.  Oh, as I tell you, I, Charles Langlade, take note of all things.  You are a prisoner of importance.  I would not give you to Tandakora, because he would burn you, and a man does not burn valuable goods.  I would not send you to St. Luc, because, being a generous man, he might take some foolish notion to exchange you, or even parole you.  I would not give you to the Marquis Duquesne at Quebec, because then I might lose my pawn in the game, and, in any event, the Marquis Duquesne is retiring as Governor General of New France.”

“Is that true?  I have met him.  He seemed to me to be a great man.”

“Perhaps he is, but he was too haughty and proud for the powerful men who dwelt at Quebec, and who control New France.  I have heard something of your appearance at the capital with the Great Bear and the Onondaga, and of what chanced at Bigot’s ball, and elsewhere.  Ah, you see, as I told you, I, Charles Langlade, know all things!  But to return, the Marquis Duquesne gives way to the Marquis de Vaudreuil.  Oh, that was accomplished some time ago, and perhaps you know of it.  So, I do not wish to give you to the Marquis de Vaudreuil.  I might wait and present you to the Marquis de Montcalm when he comes, but that does not please me, either, and thus I have about decided to present you to the Dove.”

“The Dove!  Who is the Dove?”

Langlade laughed with intense enjoyment.

“The Dove,” he replied, “is a woman, none other than Madame de Langlade herself, a Huron.  You English do not marry Indian women often—­and yet Colonel William Johnson has taken a Mohawk to wife—­but we French know them and value them.  Do not think to have an easy and careless jailer when you are put in the hands of the Dove.  She will guard you even more zealously than I, Charles Langlade, and you will notice that I have neither given you any opportunity to escape nor your friend, Tayoga, the slightest chance to rescue you.”

“It is true, Monsieur Langlade.  I’ve abandoned any such hope on the march, although I may elude you later.”

“The Dove, as I told you, will attend to that.  But it will be a pretty play of wits, and I don’t mind the test.  I’m aware that you have intelligence and skill, but the Dove, though a woman, possesses the wit of a great chief, and I’ll match her against you.”

There was a further abatement of the weather, and they reached a region where there was no snow at all.  Warm winds blew from the direction of the Great Lakes and the band traveled fast through a land in which the game almost walked up to their rifles to be killed, such plenty causing the Indians, as usual, now that they were not on the war path, to feast prodigiously before huge fires, Langlade often joining them, and showing that he was an adept in Indian customs.