“You can speak, Bastien,” Dorothy said.  “Falling Star will not understand a word.  I can see you have come with a message to Jumping Frog, but first, tell me—­what about my father and the others?”

“Helas, I know not!” said Bastien, feeling vastly relieved that it had not been a more awkward question.  “They haf go ’way South branch of Saskatchewan.  They all right.  I tink Poundmaker mooch ’fraid keel them.  They—­”

“But how is it you are here?  Have you joined the enemy again?”

It had come at last, and Bastien, shrugging his high shoulders, spread his hands out deprecatingly.

“Helas, Mam’selle!  What was there for to do?  I say I Eenglish, and they go for to shoot me mooch dead.  I say ‘Vive Riel!’ and they say, ’Zat ees all right, Bastien Lagrange, you mooch good man.’  I tell them that I nevare lof ze Eenglish, that your father and shermoganish peleece she was took me pressonar, and I was not able to get ’way, and that I plenty hate the Eenglish, oh! yees, and haf keel as many as three, four, fife, plenty times.  So they say, ’Bully for you, pardner! and you can go tell Man-Who-Jumps-Like-a-Frog to sit down here more long and ozer tings.’ Comprenez?”

The peculiar and delicate line of policy the unstable breed was pursuing was obvious.  Lagrange was one of those who wanted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds simply because he did not particularly care for either, and it was incumbent upon him that he should do one or the other.  When the proper time came he certainly wanted to be with the side that got the best of it, and he had a shrewd suspicion that that would be the English.  He was delightfully immune from any moral prejudice in the matter, and already a brilliant scheme was developing in his plastic brain that promised both safety and entertainment.  He, however, resolved to do whatever lay in his power to assist this charming young lady and her father.

“Bastien,” observed the girl, after a pause, “you’d better take good care what you do.  Take my word for it that all the rebels, both half-breeds and Indians, who have done wrong will have to answer for it.  I do not ask you what message you carry to the Indians here, but it is unlikely that you will stay with us.  Now, I know that Battleford is not so very far away; will you go and tell Pepin Quesnelle to come to me?  The Indians are all afraid of him, so he will suffer no harm.  See, give him this from me.”

She turned and plucked a little bunch of blue flowers that grew close at hand, which in the Indian language signify “Come to me.”  Then she produced a little brooch which she had worn at her throat that night she had met the dwarf, and wrapping both In a small piece of silk, gave them to the half-breed.

CHAPTER XXII

ANTOINE IN TROUBLE