“Meantime,” continued he, “let us see that all is well with our men and arms, for henceforth we must put out guards.  Attention, comrades!  Present your pieces and answer the roll-call!  Pierre Berthier!”

“Ici!  Monsieur,” replied the one better known as Pierre Noir, a tall and dark-visaged Canadian, clad in the common costume, half-Indian and half-civilized, which marked his class.  A shirt of soft dressed buckskin fell about his thighs; his legs were encased in moose-skin leggings, deeply fringed at the seams.  About his middle was a broad sash, once red, and upon his head a scanty cap of similar color was pushed back.  At his belt hung the great hunting knife of the voyageur, balanced by a keen steel tomahawk such as was in common use among the Indians.  In his hand he supported a long-barreled musket, which he now examined carefully in the presence of the captain of the voyageurs.

“Robert Challon!” next commanded Du Mesne, and in turn the one addressed looked over his piece, the captain also scrutinizing the flint and priming with careful eye.

“Naturally, mes enfants,” said he, “your weapons are perfect, as ever.  Kataikini, and you, Kabayan, my brothers, let me see,” said he to the two Indians, the former a Huron and the latter an Ojibway, both from the shores of Superior.  The Indians arose silently, and without protest submitted to the scrutiny which ever seemed to them unnecessary.

“Jean Breboeuf!” called Du Mesne; and in response there arose from the shadows a wiry little Frenchman, who might have been of any age from twenty to forty-five, so sun-burnt and wrinkled, yet so active and vigorous did he seem.

“Mon ami,” said Du Mesne to him, chidingly, “see now, here is your flint all but out of its engagement.  Pray you, have better care of your piece.  For this you shall stand the long watch of the night.  And now let us all to bed.”

One by one the little party was lost to view within the dark interior of the hut which they had arranged for themselves.  Du Mesne retired a distance from the fire and seated himself upon a fallen log, his pipe glowing like a coal in the enveloping darkness.

Law himself did not so soon leave the outer air.  He remained gazing out at the wild scene about him, at the rolling waves dashing on the shore, their crests whitening in the glare of the lightning, now approaching more closely.  He harkened to the roll of the far-off thunder reenforced by the thunder of the waves upon the shore, and noted the sweep of the black forest about, of the black sky overhead, unlit save for one far-off, faint and feeble star.

It was a new world, this that lay around him, a new and savage world.  If there were a world behind him, a world which once held sunlight and flowers, and love and hope—­why then, it was a world lost and gone forever, and it was very well that this new world should be so different and so stern.