accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did
they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed
beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated it to perfection.

"To work, my children!" he croaked. "Work is the only cure!"

They burst out laughing, and hurried back to gather the last load
before nightfall.

CHAPTER XI.

FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS.

For a little while after leaving the shore the priest kept silence.

"Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your guests
that puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner of
their coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you found
them."

"It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau came
running to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man--an
Indian--was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with his
arms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trick
of the Iroquois--not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood:
and Chretien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemed
to show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, which
might be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launched
a boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail:
and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready to
fire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me--for I have
been as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of the
Ojibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called back
to him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue."

"Yes, yes--he is an Ojibway beyond doubt."

"Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushed
forward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly.
He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian had
wrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and past
speaking, when at length we took him off."

"And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?"

"So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore."

"The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through the
wilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed a
canoe to launch on the Great River here."

"Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party of
Iroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessed
themselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped."

"Yes," mused the priest, "so again th