Singing Arrow came forward, and curtsied as the priests had taught her.
I was forced to approve my man's taste. Not that she was beautiful to
my eyes, for brown women were never to my liking; but she had youth and
neatness, and when she raised her eyes I saw that I might look for
intelligence and daring. I motioned her to come nearer.

"Singing Arrow," I said, in somewhat halting Ottawa, "my man here tells
me that your people are talking as if they were asleep, and were
dreaming that they were all kings. Now when a dog barks at the moon,
we do not stop to tremble for the safety of the moon, but we ask what
is the matter with the dog. That is what I would ask of you. What do
the Ottawas care what Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac, the commandant,
does with the English prisoner?"

She thought a moment, and plaited the folds of her beaver-skin skirt as
I have seen many a white girl do. "I know of no dog," she said, with a
slow upward glance that tried to gauge my temper. "And as for the
moon, it shines alike on the grass and the tall trees, and I have seen
no Frenchman yet who could reach up and pluck it from its place. But I
have seen a chain that was once bright like silver grow dull and eaten
with rust. A wise man will throw such a chain away, and ask for a new
one."

I shrugged. "You have sharp eyes," I said, shrugging yet more, "if you
can see rust on the covenant chain that binds the French to the
Ottawas. Is that what you mean?"

She looked up with a flash of fun and diablerie such as I never thought
to see in a savage face. "Then monsieur has seen it himself?"