“Lois?” I made out to whisper.

She placed one hand against her side, fighting for breath; and when she gained it sighed deeply once or twice, with a low sound like the whimpering wings of doves.

At her feet I saw a cup of water shining, a fragment of corn bread and meat.  Near these lay a bundle with straps on it.

“In God’s name,” I said in a ghostly voice, “what does this mean?  Why have you followed us these four days past?  Are you mad to risk a scalping party, or, on the open road, hazard the rough gallantries of soldiers’ bivouacs?  If you had business in these parts, and desired to come, why did you not tell me so and travel with us?”

“I did not wish to ask that privilege of——­” She hesitated, then bent her head. “——­ of any man.  What harm have I caused you by following?”

I said, still amazed and wondering: 

“I understand it all now.  The Sagamore brings you food.  Is that true?”

“Yes,” she said sullenly.

“And you have kept in touch with us ever since we started?”

“With Mayaro.”

“Why?”

“I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your company.”

“But for protection——­”

“Protection!  I have heard that, too, from men.  It is ever on men’s lips—­ that word meaning damnation.  I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, I require no protection.”

“Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me?  Or what?”

“Men!  And you twain are two of them.”

“You fear such men as we are!” I demanded impatiently.

“I know nothing of you,” she answered, “save that you are men.”

“Do you mean Mr. Boyd—­ and his thoughtless gallantry——­”

“I mean men!  All men!  And he differs in nothing from the rest that I can see.  Which is why I travel without your leave on my own affairs and by myself—­ spite of the Iroquois.”  She added bitterly; “And it is known to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man is not!”

Her meaning was plain enough now.  What this young girl had seen and suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know.  Boyd’s late gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had known of men.

If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment.  What her business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers’ camps I could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained of the rough gallantries offered.  And if their charms faded, they painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.

What her business might now be in following our little detail northward I could not surmise.  Here was no barracks wench!  But wench or gypsy or what not, it was impossible that I should leave her here alone.  Even the thought of it set one cold.