A dozen braves, each clamoring, leaped forward, but before I could
select one of them, a young Huron elbowed his way into the midst of
them and placed himself before me.

"Try your skill with me," he cried, striking his breast, and though he
spoke a broken mixture of Huron and Ottawa, his air was so rhetorical
that the Ottawas, always keen for a dramatic moment, stopped to listen.

I balanced the spear in my hand. "I am trying my skill with the
Ottawas," I said. "Since when has Pemaou, the Huron, forsaken his own
camp?"

The Huron drew back. He was a son of that adroit traitor, the Baron,
and what his presence in this camp meant, I could only surmise. But
that he was of the Baron's blood was enough for me, and I was prepared
to dislike him without searching for excuse. He, on his part, looked
equally unfriendly. He resented my recognition, and taking his war
spear from his belt he sent it at me with a vicious fling.

This heated my blood. I caught the spear, and tested it across my
knee. It was pliant but tough, and wickedly barbed,--a weapon for a
man to respect. "So you wanted the color of my blood," I called
angrily. "You have a good spear; all that was lacking was a man to aim
it;" and with a contemptuous laugh I tossed the spear back to his hand.

Now this was mere childishness, and I knew it, and hoped, with shame
for my own lack of sense, that Pemaou would not accept my covert
challenge, and that the matter would end there. But Pemaou had
purposes of his own. He looked at the spear for a moment, then sent it
spinning toward my head. "On guard!" he cried in my own tongue, and I