away. Singing Arrow, I have brandy in my cargo. I have drawn off two
large flasks. Could you carry them to the other end of the camp, and
send word among the braves?"

Now this was a contemptible thing to suggest; but any one who stoops,
as I was letting myself do, to use a cat's-paw to work out his ends
will surely soil his fingers. The sword is the clean weapon. I felt
that even this Indian would look at me with disdain, but she did not.
She thought a moment, then wagged her head in assent.

"But I promised Father Carheil not to drink any brandy myself," she
added defiantly, as if she feared I might protest, and I felt myself as
low as the hound that I had kicked that day because it would have
stolen a child's sagamité.

"Make haste!" I cried, in a fury with myself, and with the speeding
time. "Tell the prisoner to saunter away from the door, to pass the
largest fire, and then to go straight through the old maize field
toward the timber. I will be waiting there."

"I can do it," she vaunted, and she gathered the brandy under her
blanket, and ran like a quail, while I went to my red-topped giant.

"Pierre Boudin," I cried, with my hand on his collar, "if we get back
to this place alive, you are to marry that Ottawa girl; to marry her
fairly with priest and book. Remember that."

My man turned a complacent eye. "If the master wishes," he said
dutifully. Then he gave a fat chuckle. "I promised to marry her when
we came back if she would save the Englishman,--but then I thought that