sides and said to him, ‘Gabriel.’  And he turned and looked at me.  I never had seen a feature of his frightful face before.  And then I understood that the real Puants had me.  Do you think I will ever marry anybody but the man who took me away from them?  No.  If worst comes to worst, I will go before the high altar and the image of the Holy Virgin, and make a public vow never to marry anybody else.”

The young men flung up their arms in the air and raised a hurrah.  Hats they had none to swing.  Their cheeks were burnt by the afternoon sun.  They were hungry and thirsty, and so tired that any one of them could have flung himself on the old leaves and slept as soon as he stretched himself.  But it put new heart in them to see how determined she was.

So the horses were brought up, and the captured guns were packed upon some of the recovered ponies.  There were some new blankets strapped on the backs of these Indian horses, and Gabriel took one of the blankets and secured it as a pillion behind his own saddle for Celeste to ride upon.  As they rode out of the forest shadow they could see the moon just coming up over the hills beyond the great Cahokian mound.

It was midnight when the party trampled across the rigole bridge into Cahokia streets.  The people were sleeping with one eye open.  All day, stragglers from the wedding procession had been coming in, and a company was organized for defense and pursuit.  They had heard that the whole Pottawattamie nation had risen.  And since Celeste Barbeau was kidnaped, anything might be expected.  Gabriel and his men were missed early, but the excitement was so great that their unexplained absence was added without question to the general calamity.  Candles showed at once, and men with gun barrels shining in the moonlight gathered quickly from all directions.

“Friends, friends!” Celeste called out; for the young men in buckskin, with their booty of driven horses, were enough like Puants to be in danger of a volley.  “It is Celeste.  Gabriel Chartrant and his men have killed the Indians and brought me back.”

“It is Celeste Barbeau!  Gabriel Chartrant and his men have killed the Indians and brought her back!” the word was passed on.

Her grandfather hung to her hand on one side of the horse, and her grandmother embraced her knees on the other.  The old father was in his red nightcap and the old mother had pulled slippers on her bare feet.  But without a thought of their appearance they wept aloud and fell on the neighbors’ necks, and the neighbors fell upon each others’ necks.  Some kneeled down in the dust and returned thanks to the saints they had invoked.  The auberge keeper and three old men who smoked their pipes steadily on his gallery every day took hold of hands and danced in a circle.  Children who had waked to shriek with fear galloped the streets to proclaim at every window, “Celeste Barbeau is brought back!” The whole town was in a delirium of joy.  Manette