we should go home the other way."

Why try to teach decency to a barnyard brood! I dusted my fingers free
from the soil of him. "I will marry her to you, if only to see her
flout you," I promised vengefully. "Now to the canoes, and have your
paddles ready." I had no smile for him, though he sought it, as I
walked away.

The moon had swung free of the horizon, and cabins and trees stood out
as if made of white cardboard. The night was chilly, and as I crept
along the edge of the maize field, I caught my numbed toes on the
stiffened clods of earth turned up by last year's plowing. Yet I moved
silently, and by keeping in the shadow of blackened stumps and withered
maize stalks, I reached bow-shot of the commandant's door.

Truly one part of my plan had succeeded. The house was the centre of
an ant-like swarm skurrying here and there, apparently without method,
but with a jerkiness of movement that suggested attack and recoil. I
could distinguish the nose pendants of the Ottawas and the bristling
crests of the Hurons. It was a crew with choice potentialities for
mischief. Cadillac was justified in feeling that his scalp sat but
unsteadily upon his head.

I had given Singing Arrow fifteen minutes to hide her brandy and send
word to the braves, and I counted off the time to myself, trying to
numb my anxiety. But among savages news runs underground as well as
over, and I had scarcely covered half the space that I had set for
myself before the crowd began to disappear. It slipped away like water
between the fingers, and in a moment there remained only the guards,
Pemaou, and a few Ottawas. The guards, relieved from immediate anxiety