the tales told you by the officers of the North-West Company--entered on
a carnival of blood. From a garret, where a Pawnee Indian woman had
secreted me, I saw the captured soldiers tomahawked and scalped, and
some butchered like so many cattle, just as required for the cannibal
feast that followed."

"Tortured?" interrogated Brock.

"Tortured!" repeated Henry. "Why, the diabolical devices that those men
resorted to to inflict acute physical agony were inconceivable--
unutterable, Colonel." He paused.... "After all, no worse, perhaps, than
the tortures that have been inflicted by civilized fanatics in Europe."

There was silence for a moment. Both men were buried deep in thought,
the one living in the past, the other striving to forecast the future.

"Through the intercession of Wennway, another friendly Indian,"
continued Henry, "my life was spared. Preparations were made for my
secret departure. As I shoved my canoe into the water, _en voyage_ for
Wagoshene, the prayers of Wawatam rang in my ears as, standing on the
yellow beach with outstretched arms, he invoked the _Gitche Manitou_,
the Great Spirit, to conduct me in safety to the wigwams of my people."

"Surely, Master Henry," commented Isaac Brock, "with all the latent
qualities for good that seem to underlie the outward ferocity of some
redmen, firmness and kindness are alone needed to convert them into
faithful friends."

"An Indian, or Indians collectively," said Henry, pausing before he
answered,--"I speak from personal experience only--are faithful so long