“Run for the gate!” he yelled.

Like an arrow from the bow, I shot around the Agency corner, and raced for the stockade, De Croix, running like a deer, barely a foot behind me.  I never dreamed, in that moment of intense action, that Burns was not also coming,—­that he had deliberately sacrificed himself in order to hold back the savages and give us the better chance for life.  Behind arose the sound of struggle, but there was no indication of pursuit, and as I rounded the end of the stockade the lower gate swung open just before me and I glanced back, half pausing as I realized the old borderer had not followed us; then some one tripped me, and I fell headlong.  With a sudden rush, De Croix swept by.

“France wins, Monsieur!” he cried back in mocking triumph, as I staggered to my knees.

CHAPTER XVII

A CONTEST OF WITS

Though I was never of hasty or violent temper, it was quite as well that I failed to gain a sight of De Croix as I passed the posts and the sentry clanged the gate behind me.  The Frenchman’s scurvy trick would have heated cooler blood than mine; nor was my spirit soothed by the harsh fall I suffered.  But De Croix had not waited; nowhere along the bare sunlit parade was he visible.  I saw nothing but a squad of grinning soldiers lounging beside the barracks, until Captain Wells, issuing from the guard-house door, caught sight of me and came forward.

“Back, are you, Master Wayland?” he said gruffly, and ’t was easy to see he did not approve of my escapade.  “I scarcely thought to see you here again with so full a head of hair, after I learned of your mad wager.  Providence must indeed take special care of fools.  Have the redskins captured our French friend?”

“He entered a step in my advance.”

A gleam of amusement played over his swarthy face.

“Ah, and so you let him win!” he exclaimed; “he, a mere voyager from the courts, unused to forest play!  Such remissness deserves the guard-house, at the very least.  Come, how happened it that this gay sprig outfooted you?”

“’T was but a trick,” I retorted, aroused by these contemptuous words, “and one I shall make him pay well for.  But I pray you cut these bands and set me free.”

I think he had not noticed them before; but now, as he quickly drew his knife across the deerskin thongs, his whole expression changed.

“’Tis Indian tying,” he said earnestly; “you have been in the hands of the savages?”

“Ay!” and the memory of it instantly brought back the recollection of the sacrifice that had won us our freedom.  “There were three of us taken at daylight on the river bank, beyond the factory building.  De Croix and I escaped through the efforts of one who is still a prisoner, and marked for torture.”

Many were gathering about us by this time, anxious to learn whatever news I brought from without; but it was Captain Heald himself who now pushed his way through the throng until he fronted me.