“It is well,” said Joncaire, abruptly.  “My brothers are wise.  Now let the council end, for my path is long and I must travel back to Onontio at once.”

Joncaire knew well enough the fickle nature of these savages, who might upon the morrow demand another council and perhaps arrive at different conclusions.  Hearing there were no white prisoners in the villages farther to the west, he resolved to set forth at once upon the return with those now at hand.  Hurrying, therefore, as soon as might be, to their leader, he urged him to make ready forthwith for the journey back to the St. Lawrence.

“Unless I much mistake, Monsieur,” said he to Law, “you are that same gentleman who so set all Quebec by the ears last winter.  My faith!  The regiment Carignan had cause to rejoice when you left for up river, even though you took with you half the ready coin of the settlement.  Yet come you once more to meet the gentlemen of France, and I doubt not they will be glad as ever to stake you high, as may be in this poverty-stricken region.  You have been far to the westward, I doubt not.  You were, perhaps, made prisoner somewhere below the Straits.”

“Far below; among the tribe of the Illini, in the valley of the Messasebe.”

“You tell me so!  I had thought no white man left in that valley for this season.  And madame—­this child—­surely ’twas the first white infant born in the great valley.”

“And the most unfortunate.”

“Nay, how can you say that, since you have come more than half a thousand miles and are all safe and sound to-day?  Glad enough we shall be to have you and madame with us for the winter, if, indeed, it be not for longer dwelling.  I can not take you now to the English settlements, since I must back to the governor with the news.  Yet dull enough you would find these Dutch of the Hudson, and worse yet the blue-nosed psalmodists of New England.  Much better for you and your good lady are the gayer capitals of New France, or la belle France itself, that older France.  Monsieur, how infinitely more fit for a gentleman of spirit is France than your dull England and its Dutch king!  Either New France or Old France, let me advise you; and as to that new West, let me counsel that you wait until after the Big Peace.  And, in speaking, your friend, Du Mesne, your lieutenant, the coureur—­his fate, I suppose, one need not ask.  He was killed—­where?”

Law recounted the division of his party just previous to the Iroquois attack, and added his concern lest Du Mesne should return to the former station during the spring and find but its ruins, with no news of the fate of his friends.