westering sun to sink beneath the horizon.  Yet all my plans were so vague, so visionary, so filled with difficulties and uncertainties, that at last I had nothing practical outlined beyond a firm determination in some way to reach the Indian camp and there learn what I could of its black secrets.  I wondered whether this rash hare-brained Frenchman would aid or hinder such a purpose; and I glanced aside at him, curious to test the working of his mind in such a time of trial.

“Saint Guise!” he exclaimed, marking my look, but misinterpreting it; “the sun has gone down at last, and there seems a chill in the air where it strikes my wet skin.  It is in my thought to wade ashore, Master Wayland, and seek food for our journey, as I can perceive no savages near at hand.”

“It will be safer if we wait here another half-hour,” I answered, almost inclined to smile at the queer figure he cut, with his long, wet hair hanging down his shoulders.  Then I added, “What journey do you contemplate?”

He gazed at me, his face full of undisguised amazement.

“What journey?  Why, Mon Dieu! to the eastward, of course!  Surely you have no wish to linger in this pleasant spot?”

“And is that the way of a French soldier?” I asked, almost angrily.  “I thought you made the journey westward, Monsieur, for the sake of one you professed greatly to admire; and now you confess yourself willing to leave her here to the mercy of these red wolves.  Is this the way of it?”

I spoke the words coolly, and they cut him to the quick.  His face flushed and his eyes flashed with anger; yet I faced him quietly, though I doubt not I should have felt his hand upon me had we been better circumstanced for struggle.

“How know you she lives?” he asked sullenly, eying the rifle I still held across my shoulder.

“I do not know, Monsieur, except that her body is not upon the field yonder; but I will know before I leave, or give my life in the search.  And if you really loved her as you professed to do, you would dream of nothing less.”

“Love her?” he echoed, his gaze upon the sand, now partially obscured in the descending twilight. “Sacre!  I truly thought I did, for the girl certainly has beauty and wit, and wove a spell about me in Montreal.  But she has become as a wild bird out here, and is a most perplexing vixen, laughing at my protestations, so that indeed I hardly know whether it would be worth the risk to stay.”

Hateful and selfish as these words sounded, and much as I longed to strike the lips that uttered them so coolly, yet their utterance brought a comfort to my heart, and I stared at the fellow, biting my tongue to keep back the words of disgust I felt.

“So this is the measure of your French gallantry, Monsieur!  I am sincerely glad my race holds a different conception of the term.  Then you will leave me here?”