She forced her glance to mine.  “Monsieur, I had been terribly anxious for three days.  When I saw you”——­

A sun ray fell across her face, and I took my hat and held it between her and the light.  “You did not finish,” I said.  “I will help you.  When you saw that I was safe you were vexed that I had not come earlier and so saved you anxiety?  Is that what you were about to say, madame?”

She turned to smile and shake her head at my seriousness.  She fought down her rising color and held her head like a gallant boy.

“I was unreasonable,” she said.  “Please forget it.  Did your trading prosper, monsieur?”

But I would not shift my eyes.  “I shall try not to vex you again in that way.  I did not think—­except of my own anxiety.  Let me tell you what I have been doing.  I have been trading, yes, but I have also”——­

“Careful, monsieur!”

“I wish you to know.  Madame, I am succeeding in my intriguing among the tribes.  I talk more than I trade.  You would smile at my rhetoric and call me a mountebank, but I am succeeding.  I tell the tribes that when more than one Englishman reaches here the whole race will follow and will overflow the hunting grounds as a torrent does the lowlands.  I tell them the English will bring the Iroquois.  I show them that the French are their only protection.  They listen, for what I say is not new.  It has been talked around their fires for a long time, but the tribes are not powerful enough to act alone, and they have lacked a leader who could unite them.  I think that they will follow me if I call them to war, madame!”

She looked at me steadily.  “War upon whom, monsieur?”

“War upon the Iroquois.  Upon the English if they venture near.”

“And you tell me this because”——­

“Because I wish sincerity between us.”

My hat lay at her feet, and she pressed its sorry plume between her fingers.  “Monsieur, if you had heard news of Lord Starling during this last week you would have told me at once.”

“I should have told you at once, madame.  I am glad you introduced this matter.  Does your mind still hold?  Or do you now think that we should seek your cousin?”

Again she lowered her eyes, but I did not miss the sudden flash in them.  “My cousin chose his path.  Why need we interfere?  Have you—­have you theories as to where he can be?”

I flicked my finger at a wandering robin.  “I am as guiltless of theories as that bird.  It is passing strange.  Your cousin and our ghostly Huron seem to have gone up in vapor.”

“Our ghostly Huron, monsieur?”

I planted my elbows on the grass that I might face her.  “Listen, madame.  It is time you knew the story of Pemaou.”  And thereupon I recited all that had happened between the Huron and myself from the day when we had played at shuttlecock with spears till the night when he had shadowed us at the Pottawatamie camp,—­the night before our wedding.  I even told her of the profile in his pouch.