I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at her with a new and keenly searching question in my gaze.

“You have not shown me all,” I said.

“All that is written in the Iroquois tongue.  But there were other things in the packet with this bark letter.”  She opened it again upon her lap.

“Here is a soldier’s belt-buckle,” she said, offering it to me for my inspection.

It was made of silver and there were still traces of French gilt upon the device.

“Regiment de la Reine,” I read.  “What regiment is that, Lois?  I’m sure I’ve heard of it somewhere.  Oh!  Now I remember.  It was a very celebrated French regiment—­ cut all to pieces at Lake George by Sir William Johnson in ’55.  This is an officer’s belt-buckle.”

“Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?”

“Utterly.  In France they made the regiment again with new men and new officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name.”

“You say Sir William Johnson’s men cut it to pieces—­ the Regiment de la Reine?” she asked.

“His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that bloody day.”

She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together only by the narrow oval frame of gold.

There was no need to look twice.  This man, whoever he might be, was this girl’s father; and nobody who had ever seen her and this miniature could ever doubt it.

She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.

Presently I turned the portrait over.  There was a lock of hair there under the glass—­ bright, curly hair exactly like her own.  And at first I saw nothing else.  Then, as the glass-backed locket glanced in the lantern-light, I saw that on the glass something had been inscribed with a diamond.  This is what I read, written across the glass: 

“Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri.”

I looked up at her.

“Jean Coeur,” I repeated.  “That is no name for a man——­” Suddenly I remembered, years ago—­ years and years since—­ hearing Guy Johnson cursing some such man.  Then in an instant all came back to me; and she seemed to divine it, for her small hand clutched my arm and her eyes were widening as I turned to meet them.

“Lois,” I said unsteadily, “there was a man called Jean Coeur, deputy to the adventurer, Joncaire.  Joncaire was the great captain who all but saved this Western Continent to France.  Captain Joncaire was feared, detested, but respected by Sir William Johnson because he held all Canada and the Hurons and Algonquins in the hollow of his hand, and had even gained part of the Long House—­ the Senecas.  His clever deputy was called Jean Coeur.  Never did two men know the Indians as these two did.”

I thought a moment, then:  “Somewhere I heard that Captain Joncaire had a daughter.  But she married another man—­ one Louis de Contrecoeur——­” I hesitated, glanced again at the name scratched on the glass over the lock of hair, and shook my head.