I looked up at him, and he was as calm as when he had joked with me a quarter of an hour since.

“Very well,” said Clark, briefly.

Monsieur Gratiot surveyed them scornfully.

“Where is the Hungry Wolf, who speaks English?” he said.

There was a stir in the rear ranks, and a lean savage with abnormal cheek bones pushed forward.

“Hungry Wolf here,” he said with a grunt.

“The Hungry Wolf knew the French trader at Michilimackinac,” said Monsieur Gratiot.  “He knows that the French trader’s word is a true word.  Let the Hungry Wolf tell his companions that the Chief of the Long Knives is very angry.”

The Hungry Wolf turned, and began to speak.  His words, hoarse and resonant, seemed to come from the depths of his body.  Presently he paused, and there came an answer from the fiend who had seized me.  After that there were many grunts, and the Hungry Wolf turned again.

“The North Wind mean no harm,” he answered.  “He play with the son of the Great White Chief, and his belly is very sore where the Chief’s son kicked him.”

“The Chief of the Long Knives will consider the offence,” said Monsieur Gratiot, and retired into the house with Colonel Clark.  For a full five minutes the Indians waited, impassive.  And then Monsieur Gratiot reappeared, alone.

“The Chief of the Long Knives is mercifully inclined to forgive,” he said.  “It was in play.  But there must be no more play with the Chief’s son.  And the path to the Great Chief’s presence must be kept clear.”

Again the Hungry Wolf translated.  The North Wind grunted and departed in silence, followed by many of his friends.  And indeed for a while after that the others kept a passage clear to the gate.

As for the son of the Great White Chief, he sat for a long time that afternoon beside the truck patch of the house.  And presently he slipped out by a byway into the street again, among the savages.  His heart was bumping in his throat, but a boyish reasoning told him that he must show no fear.  And that day he found what his Colonel had long since learned to be true that in courage is the greater safety.  The power of the Great White Chief was such that he allowed his son to go forth alone, and feared not for his life.  Even so Clark himself walked among them, nor looked to right or left.

Two nights Colonel Clark sat through, calling now on this man and now on that, and conning the treaties which the English had made with the various tribes—­ay, and French and Spanish treaties too—­until he knew them all by heart.  There was no haste in what he did, no uneasiness in his manner.  He listened to the advice of Monsieur Gratiot and other Creole gentlemen of weight, to the Spanish officers who came in their regimentals from St. Louis out of curiosity to see how this man would treat with the tribes.  For he spoke of his intentions to none of them, and gained the more respect by it.  Within