? There is yet time,--to-night! You are thinking of
me, and I--I--Oh, I have been selfish--I did not know! We will stay
here, Father Claude and I. You need not think of us; they will not
harm us--you told me that yourself, M'sieu. I should be in your way,
but alone--it is so easy." She would have gone on, but Menard held up
his hand.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "no."

Her lips moved, but she saw the expression in his eyes, and the words
died. She turned to Father Claude, but he did not look up.

"I do not know," said Menard, slowly, "whether the heart of the Big
Throat is still warm toward me. He was once as my father."

"He will not be here in time," Father Claude said. "He does not start
from his village until the sun is dropping on the morrow."

The maid could not take her eyes from Menard's face. Now that the
final word had come, now that all the doubts of the unsettled day, now
only half gone, had settled into a fact to be faced, he was himself
again, the quiet, resolute soldier. Only the set, almost hard lines
about the mouth told of his suffering.

"If we had a friend here," he was saying, quietly enough, "it may be
that Tegakwita--But no, of course not. I had forgotten about
Danton--"

"Tegakwita has lost standing in the tribe for allowing Lieutenant
Danton to escape. He is very bitter, We can ask nothing from him."

"No, I suppose not."

The cool air of these two men, the manner in which they could face the
prospect, coupled with her own sense of weakness, weighed hard upon
the maid's heart. She felt that she must cry out, must in some manner
give way to her feelings. She rose and hurried into the open air. The
broad sunlight was still sifting down through the leaves and lying
upon the green earth in bright patches. The robins were singing, and
many strange birds, whose calls she did not know, but who piped
gently, musically, so in harmony with the soft landscape that their
notes seemed a part of it. It was all unreal, this quiet, sunlit
world, where the birds were free as the air which bore their songs,
while the brave Captain--she could not face the thought.

The birch cup was still on the stone by the door. She lifted out the
flowers with their dripping stems, and rearranged them carefully,
placing a large yellow daisy in the centre.

An Indian was approaching up the path. He had thrown aside his
blanket, and he strode rapidly, clad in close-fitting jacket and
leggings of deerskin, with k