" In a few sentences Menard outlined the
conversation. "Now, Danton, this may or may not be an important
incident. I want you to know the necessity for keeping our own counsel
in all such matters, dropping no careless words, and letting no
emotions show. I wish you would make a point of learning the Iroquois
language. Father Claude will help you. You are to act as my right-hand
man, and you may as well begin now to learn to draw your own
conclusions from an Indian's words."

Danton took eagerly to the lessons with Father Claude, for they seemed
another definite step toward the excitement that surely, to his mind,
lay in wait ahead. The studying began on that afternoon, while they
were toiling up against the stream.

In the evening, when the dusk was coming down, and the little camp was
ready for the night, Menard came up from the heap of stores, where the
_voyageurs_ had already stretched out, and found the maid sitting
alone by the fire. Danton, in his rush of interest in the new study,
had drawn Father Claude aside for another lesson.

"Mademoiselle is lonely?" asked Menard, sitting beside her.

"No, no, M'sieu. I have too many thoughts for that."

"What interesting thoughts they must be."

"They are, M'sieu. They are all about the Indians this morning. Tell
me, M'sieu,--they called you Onontio. What does it mean?"

"They called me the son of Onontio, because of my uniform. Onontio,
the Great Mountain, is their name for the Governor; and the Governor's
soldiers are to them his sons."

"They speak a strange language. It is not the same as that of the
Ottawas, who once worked for my father."

"Did you know their tongue?"

"A few words, and some of the signs. This,"--raising her hand, with
the first finger extended, and slowly moving her arm in a half circle
from horizon to horizon,--"this meant a sun,--one day."

Menard looked at her for a moment in silence. He enjoyed her
enthusiasm.

"Why don't you learn Iroquois? You would enjoy it. It is a beautiful
tongue,--the language of metaphor and poetry."

"I should like to," she replied, looking with a faint smile at Danton
and the priest, who were sitting under a beech tree, mumbling in low
tones.

"You shall join the class, Mademoiselle. You shall begin to-morrow. It
was thoughtless of Danton to take the Father's instruction to himself
alone."

"And then, M'sieu, I will know what the Indians say when they sit up
stiffly in their blankets, and talk down