e
to gain the council lodge undiscovered. What care I for this
Frenchman, that I should risk my life to save him? I pledge myself
only to Major Wayland's son; and even if I aid you, it is on condition
that you go alone."

"Alone, say you?" and I rested my hand on Mademoiselle's shoulder. "I
would die here, Sau-ga-nash, and by torture, before I would consent to
go one step without this girl."

The half-breed scowled at me, drawing his robe about him in haughty
indifference.

"Then be it so," he said mockingly. "'T is your own choice, I have
offered redemption of my pledge."

I started to utter some harsh words in answer; but before I could
speak, Toinette pressed her soft palm upon my lips in protest.

"Refuse him not," she murmured hastily. "'T is the only chance; for my
sake, do not anger him."

What plan her quick wit may have engendered, I did not know; but I
yielded to the entreaty in her pleading eyes, and sullenly muttered the
first conscious lie of my life.

"I accept your terms, Sau-ga-nash, harsh as they are."

He looked from one to the other of us, his face dark with distrust and
doubt.

"You are not mine to dispose of," he said sternly to the trembling
girl, who visibly shrank from his approach, and clung once more to me.
"You are prisoner to Little Sauk; nor will I release one thus held by
the Pottawattomies. They and the Wyandots are brothers. But I trust
you, and not the word of this white man. Pledge me not to go with him,
and I will believe you."

She glanced first at me, then back into the swarthy, merciless face.
Her cheeks were white and her lips trembled, yet her eyes remained
clear and calm.

"I give you my word, Sau-ga-nash," she said quietly. "While I am held
as prisoner by Little Sauk, I will not go away with John Wayland."

Little as I believed these words to be true at the time, the sound of
them so dulled me with apprehension that I could only stare at her in
speechless amazement. It seemed to me then as if the power of reason
had deserted me, as if my brain had been so burdened as to refuse its
office. I recall that Toinette almost compelled me to lie down against
the farther side of the lodge, placing a pile of skins in front of me
and assuming a position herself where she could occasionally reach
across the barrier and touch me with her soft hand. No doubt she
realized the struggle in my mind, for she spoke little after the
departure of the half-breed, as if anx