“My brother sees his young men,” said le Bourdon, quietly, the instant a dead calm had succeeded to the outcries with which he had been greeted.  “I thought he might wish to say something to them, and my bees told me where to find them.  Does my brother wish to know anything else?”

Great was the wonder of the three chiefs, at this exhibition of medicine power!  So far from suspecting the truth, or of detecting the lucky coincidence by which le Bourdon had been led to the cover of their warriors, it all appeared to them to be pure necromancy.  Such an art must be of great service; and how useful it would be to the warrior on his path, to be accompanied by one who could thus command the vigilance of the bees.

“You find enemy all same as friend?” demanded Peter, letting out the thought that was uppermost, in the question.

“To be sure.  It makes no difference with a bee; he can find an enemy as easily as he can find a friend.’

“No whiskey-spring dis time?” put in Crowsfeather, a little inopportunely, and with a distrust painted in his swarthy face that le Bourdon did not like.

“Pottawattamie, you do not understand medicine-men.  Ought I to have shown your young men where whiskey was to be had for nothing?  Ask yourself that question.  Did you wish to see your young men wallowing like hogs in such a spring?  What would the great medicine-priest of the pale-faces, who is out yonder, have said to that?”

This was a coup de maitre on the part of the bee-hunter.  Until that moment, the affair of the whiskey-spring had weighed heavily in the balance against him; but now, it was suddenly changed over in the scales, and told as strongly in his favor.  Even a savage can understand the morality which teaches men to preserve their reason, and not to lower themselves to the level of brutes, by swallowing “fire-water”; and Crowsfeather suddenly saw a motive for regarding our hero with the eyes of favor, instead of those of distrust and dislike.

“What the pale-face says is true,” observed Peter to his companion.  “Had he opened his spring, your warrior would have been weaker than women.  He is a wonderful medicine-man, and we must not provoke him to anger.  How could he know, but through his bees, that our young men were here?”

This question could not be answered; and when the chiefs, followed by the whole band of warriors, some three or four hundred in number came out upon the open prairie, all that had passed was communicated to those who awaited their return, in a few brief, but clear explanations.  Le Bourdon found a moment to let Margery comprehend his position and views, while Parson Amen and the corporal were put sufficiently on their guard not to make any unfortunate blunder.  The last was much more easily managed than the first.  So exceedingly sensitive was the conscience of the priest, that had he clearly understood the game le Bourdon was playing, he might have revolted at the