"We will go home to my grandfather and grandmother au Caho'," said
Celeste. "I will not go anywhere else."

"But you forget that Beauvois is au Caho'?" said one of the young men.

"Oh, I never can forget anything connected with this day," said
Celeste, and the tears ran down her face. "I never can forget how
willingly I let those Puants take me, and I laughed as one of them
flung me on the horse behind him. We were nearly to the bluffs before
I spoke. He did not say anything, and the others all had eyes which
made me shudder. I pressed my hands on his buckskin sides and said
to him, 'Gabriel.' And he turned and looked at me. I never had seen a
feature of his frightful face before. And then I understood that the
real Puants had me. Do you think I will ever marry anybody but the
man who took me away from them? No. If worst comes to worst, I will
go before the high altar and the image of the Holy Virgin, and make a
public vow never to marry anybody else."

The young men flung up their arms in the air and raised a hurrah. Hats
they had none to swing. Their cheeks were burnt by the afternoon sun.
They were hungry and thirsty, and so tired that any one of them could
have flung himself on the old leaves and slept as soon as he stretched
himself. But it put new heart in them to see how determined she was.

So the horses were brought up, and the captured guns were packed upon
some of the recovered ponies. There were some new blankets strapped on
the backs of these Indian horses, and Gabriel took one of the blankets
and secured it as a pillion behind his own saddle for Celeste to ride
upon. As they rode out of the forest shadow they could see the moon
just coming up over the hills beyond the great Cahokian mound.