The other was undoubtedly a pure Frenchman, elderly, dark and wiry, with a bristling black beard and a fierce eager face.  He, too, was clad in hunter’s dress, but he wore a gaudy striped sash round his waist, into which a brace of long pistols had been thrust.  His buckskin tunic had been ornamented over the front with dyed porcupine quills and Indian bead-work, while his leggings were scarlet with a fringe of raccoon tails hanging down from them.  Leaning upon his long brown gun he stood watching the party, while his companion advanced towards them.

“You will excuse our precautions,” said he.  “We never know what device these rascals may adopt to entrap us.  I fear, madame, that you have had a long and very tiring journey.”

Poor Adele, who had been famed for neatness even among housekeepers of the Rue St. Martin, hardly dared to look down at her own stained and tattered dress.  Fatigue and danger she had endured with a smiling face, but her patience almost gave way at the thought of facing strangers in this attire.

“My mother will be very glad to welcome you, and to see to every want,” said he quickly, as though he had read her thoughts.  “But you, sir, I have surely seen you before.”

“And I you,” cried the guardsman.  “My name is Amory de Catinat, once of the regiment of Picardy.  Surely you are Achille de la Noue de Sainte Marie, whom I remember when you came with your father to the government levees at Quebec.”

“Yes, it is I,” the young man answered, holding out his hand and smiling in a somewhat constrained fashion.  “I do not wonder that you should hesitate, for when you saw me last I was in a very different dress to this.”

De Catinat did indeed remember him as one of the band of the young noblesse who used to come up to the capital once a year, where they inquired about the latest modes, chatted over the year-old gossip of Versailles, and for a few weeks at least lived a life which was in keeping with the traditions of their order.  Very different was he now, with scalp-lock and war-paint, under the shadow of the great oaks, his musket in his hand and his tomahawk at his belt.

“We have one life for the forest and one for the cities,” said he, “though indeed my good father will not have it so, and carries Versailles with him wherever he goes.  You know him of old, monsieur, and I need not explain my words.  But it is time for our relief, and so we may guide you home.”

Two men in the rude dress of Canadian censitaires or farmers, but carrying their muskets in a fashion which told De Catinat’s trained senses that they were disciplined soldiers, had suddenly appeared upon the scene.  Young De la Noue gave them a few curt injunctions, and then accompanied the refugees along the path.

“You may not know my friend here,” said he, pointing to the other sentinel, “but I am quite sure that his name is not unfamiliar to you.  This is Greysolon du Lhut.”