“Here?” I questioned, thinking instantly of my duty to De Croix.  “But I would first have speech with the Frenchman.  He is my friend, Sau-ga-nash.  Besides, I have left my rifle in the council lodge.”

The face of the savage darkened, and his eyes gleamed ominously as they roamed questioningly from my face to Toinette’s.

“I said you were to stay hidden here,” he answered shortly, his tone showing anger, and his hand pointing at the robes.  “Many of the sleeping Pottawattomies are again astir without, and you could not hope to gain the council lodge undiscovered.  What care I for this Frenchman, that I should risk my life to save him?  I pledge myself only to Major Wayland’s son; and even if I aid you, it is on condition that you go alone.”

“Alone, say you?” and I rested my hand on Mademoiselle’s shoulder.  “I would die here, Sau-ga-nash, and by torture, before I would consent to go one step without this girl.”

The half-breed scowled at me, drawing his robe about him in haughty indifference.

“Then be it so,” he said mockingly. “’T is your own choice, I have offered redemption of my pledge.”

I started to utter some harsh words in answer; but before I could speak, Toinette pressed her soft palm upon my lips in protest.

“Refuse him not,” she murmured hastily. “’T is the only chance; for my sake, do not anger him.”

What plan her quick wit may have engendered, I did not know; but I yielded to the entreaty in her pleading eyes, and sullenly muttered the first conscious lie of my life.

“I accept your terms, Sau-ga-nash, harsh as they are.”

He looked from one to the other of us, his face dark with distrust and doubt.

“You are not mine to dispose of,” he said sternly to the trembling girl, who visibly shrank from his approach, and clung once more to me.  “You are prisoner to Little Sauk; nor will I release one thus held by the Pottawattomies.  They and the Wyandots are brothers.  But I trust you, and not the word of this white man.  Pledge me not to go with him, and I will believe you.”

She glanced first at me, then back into the swarthy, merciless face.  Her cheeks were white and her lips trembled, yet her eyes remained clear and calm.

“I give you my word, Sau-ga-nash,” she said quietly.  “While I am held as prisoner by Little Sauk, I will not go away with John Wayland.”

Little as I believed these words to be true at the time, the sound of them so dulled me with apprehension that I could only stare at her in speechless amazement.  It seemed to me then as if the power of reason had deserted me, as if my brain had been so burdened as to refuse its office.  I recall that Toinette almost compelled me to lie down against the farther side of the lodge, placing a pile of skins in front of me and assuming a position herself where she could occasionally reach across the barrier and touch me