"Here--at Hawkins's, mean you? Ten days, as I live; would you believe
I could ever have survived so grievous a siege?" and he looked
appealingly about upon the bare apartment. "Ten days of Hawkins and of
Sam, Monsieur; ay! and of Ol' Burns; of sky, and woods, and river, with
never so much as a real white man even to drink liquor with. By Saint
Louis! but I shall be happy enough to face you across the board
to-night. Yet surely it is not your purpose to halt here long?"

"Only until I succeed in joining some party travelling westward to the
Illinois country."

"No! is that your aim? 'T is my trip also, if Fate be ever kind enough
to bring hither a guide. _Sacre_! there was one here but now, as odd a
devil as ever bore rifle, and he hath taken the western trail alone,
for he hated me from the start. That was Ol' Burns. Know you him?"

"'T was he who brought the message that sent me here; yet he said
little of his own journey. But you mention not where you are bound?"

"I seek Fort Dearborn, on the Great Lake."

"That likewise is to be the end of my journey. You go to explore?"

"Explore? Faith, no," and he patted his hand upon the bench most
merrily. "There are but two reasons to my mind important enough to
lure a French gentleman into such a hole as this, and send him
wandering through your backwoods,--either war or love, Monsieur; and I
know of no war that calleth me."

Love, as he thus spoke of it, was almost an unknown term to me then;