"Answer me, Singing Arrow," I commanded. "You are repeating what was
said in council, but you do not agree with it. You would like to save
the prisoner. Look at me again. Am I right?"

I could as well have held an eel. She slipped from my hands, and ran
back to her lodge. "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her
door. "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it
will eat. Why stay here? I have given you what you came to find.
Take it." And with a look at Pierre she disappeared.

Pierre gave a great bellow of laughter. "I will catch her," he
volunteered, and made a plunge in the direction of the lodge; but I
caught him by the hood of his blanket coat, and let his own impetus
choke him.

"Now look you, Pierre Boudin," I said, "if you cross the door of that
lodge on any errand,--on any errand, mind you,--you are no longer man
of mine. I mean that; you are no longer man of mine. Now begone.
Gather the men, go to the canoes, and wait there till I come. I may
come soon; I may not come till morning."

Pierre was still swelling. "As the master wishes," he said, with his
eyes down; but I thought that he hesitated, and I called him to me.

"Pierre," I said, "do you want to be sent back to Montreal, and have
François Labarthe put in your place?"

The giant looked up to see how much I was in earnest, and, as I
returned his look, all his bravado oozed away. It does not seem quite