And so it was at last agreed, and Adele, still protesting, was consigned to the care of the lady of Sainte Marie, while De Catinat swore that without a pause he would return from Poitou to fetch her.  The old nobleman and his son would fain have joined them in their adventure, but they had their own charge to watch and the lives of many in their keeping, while a small party were safer in the woods than a larger one would be.  The seigneur provided them with a letter for De Lannes, the governor of the Poitou blockhouse, and so in the early dawn the four of them crept like shadows from the stockade-gate, amid the muttered good wishes of the guard within, and were lost in an instant in the blackness of the vast forest.

From La Noue to Poitou was but twelve miles down the river, but by the woodland route where creeks were to be crossed, reed-girt lakes to be avoided, and paths to be picked among swamps where the wild rice grew higher than their heads, and the alder bushes lay in dense clumps before them, the distance was more than doubled.  They walked in single file, Du Lhut leading, with the swift silent tread of some wild creature, his body bent forward, his gun ready in the bend of his arm, and his keen dark eyes shooting little glances to right and left, observing everything from the tiniest mark upon the ground or tree trunk to the motion of every beast and bird of the brushwood.  De Catinat walked behind, then Ephraim Savage, and then Amos, all with their weapons ready and with every sense upon the alert.  By midday they were more than half-way, and halted in a thicket for a scanty meal of bread and cheese, for De Lhut would not permit them to light a fire.

“They have not come as far as this,” he whispered, “and yet I am sure that they have crossed the river.  Ah, Governor de la Barre did not know what he did when he stirred these men up, and this good dragoon whom the king has sent us now knows even less.”

“I have seen them in peace,” remarked Amos.  “I have traded to Onondaga and to the country of the Senecas.  I know them as fine hunters and brave men.”

“They are fine hunters, but the game that they hunt best are their fellow-men.  I have myself led their scalping parties, and I have fought against them, and I tell you that when a general comes out from France who hardly knows enough to get the sun behind him in a fight, he will find that there is little credit to be gained from them.  They talk of burning their villages!  It would be as wise to kick over the wasps’ nest, and think that you have done with the wasps.  You are from New England, monsieur?”

“My comrade is from New England; I am from New York.”