Part 12 (1/2)

He gave a wave of the hand. ”It was my question,” he reminded. ”I asked if you knew him.”

I could not but be amused. How he liked to play at mystery! I would copy his brevity. ”Yes,” I replied.

He looked up with much interest. ”So you knew him. Tell me, monsieur, was he mountebank and freebooter, or a gallant gentleman much maligned?”

I removed my hat. ”He was neither. He was an ambition incarnate; an ambition so vast there were few to understand it, for it had no personal side. You said the other night that but few motives rule men.

La Salle has been misunderstood because the usual motives--greed, the love of woman, and the desire for fame--did not touch him. He was the slave of one great idea, and so he was lonely and men feared him.” I finished with some defiance. I knew that the blood had risen in my cheeks as I spoke, for some subjects touch me as if I were a woman.

The Englishman was watching me, and I disliked to have him see what I felt was weakness. But he did not scoff. His own cheeks flushed somewhat, and he looked off at the water.

”La Salle had more than a great idea,” he said meditatively. ”He had great opportunity. He desired to found an empire in the west, did he not, monsieur? Well, he failed, but, perhaps, that was accident. He might have succeeded. It is not often in the history of the world that such an opportunity comes to any person, man or woman. La Salle, at least, tried to live up to his full stature. Monsieur, how pitiable it would be, yes, more, how terrible it would be, to have such an opportunity thrown in your way and know that you were too weak to seize it.”

His voice rose to some earnestness, but I was ashamed of my own emotion, and so threw pebbles at the water and kept my mood cold. I suspected that through all this random philosophizing I was being probed,--probed by an Englishman who ate my rations, and wore a squaw's dress. I grew angry.

”Who are you?” I demanded roughly. ”Who are you, that you know of La Salle and of his plans, and use the French speech. Can you, for once, answer me fairly, or is there no sound core of honesty in you?”

He rose. But he replied, not to what I had said, but to what I had thought. ”It is true that I share your food and your escort, and that I requite you but poorly. Yet I must remind you again, I share it under compulsion. I cannot be entirely open with you,--are you open with me?--but I will tell you all that it is necessary for you to know, all that touches you in any way. I said that I was a colonist. It was the truth, but I had been but a year in the Colonies at the time of my capture. I was born in England, and I have pa.s.sed some time in France.

As to La Salle, I know nothing of him save what any man might hear. Is it strange that I should be interested in him now that I find myself following in his steps? Why do you always see a double meaning in my words, monsieur?”

I filled my pipe, and answered truthfully, ”I do not know.”

But here he began to laugh. ”Monsieur, forgive me, but truly I forget at times that I am a spy, that you distrust me. You are kind and I am interested, and so I grow careless of the fact that I am in a land where no speech is idle, where every glance is weighed. This life must unfit one for court talk, monsieur.”

What was he after? I eyed him over my pipe bowl, but said nothing. I was minded to tell him to clean the whitefish for our supper, but reflected in time that he would undoubtedly do it badly, so I spoke to Francois instead. But when I would have gone away the Englishman followed. He clapped me lightly on the shoulder, a familiarity he had not ventured before, and he put his head on one side with a little bantam swagger.

”If I am an enemy, I am an enemy,” he bowed. ”Yet one question, please, and I swear in the name of our joint father Noah that I ask it with the fairest motives in mind. Tell me something of what we are going to do. Is today a sample?”

I could not hold my ill-temper. He must have led a psalm-singing youth that every attempt at rakishness should make him as piquant as a figure at a masque.

”Yes,” I replied. ”To-day is a sample except that we have been indolent this afternoon. I made this a semi-holiday as a sop to the men for the added burden I have laid on them. I wish to do some exploring along the coast here, and we shall have to spend some time hunting. If you show yourself capable I shall leave you in charge of the camp while we are away.”

This time he bowed gravely. ”Thank you, monsieur. I have not been blind to the way you have spared me hards.h.i.+p, but when I said that I would do whatever you would teach me, I meant it. I think that I shall make a good woodsman in time.”

But I laughed. ”You wash yourself too much ever to make a good woodsman,” I told him, and I set him to measuring the meal for our supper, for indeed his hands were well kept, and it was pleasant to see him handle the food.

CHAPTER X

I WAKE A SLEEPER

What enchantment came upon the weather for the next week I do not know.

May is often somewhat sour of visage, but now she smiled from dawn till starlight. We paddled and hunted and slept, well fed and fire-warmed.

It was more like junketing than business, and we were as amiable as fat-bellied puppies. Even the Englishman looked content. We left him in camp when we went to hunt, and on our return he had a boiling pot and hot coals ready for our venison. I saw that he had won favor with the men. Yet he kept aloof from all of us, as he had promised.

This had gone on for a week, when one day, after we had placed the Englishman on guard and were tramping back into the timber to see what our eyes and muskets could find, Pierre pointed to a bent tree. ”It looks like a cow's back,” he ruminated. ”Trees are queer. Today, where we made camp, I saw a tree that looked like a Huron with his topknot.”

I stopped. ”Where?”

”I told the master. Near the camp.”