e Ojibway told me. A strange
story: and when I began to put questions he grew more and more
stupid--but I know well enough by this time, I should hope, when an
Indian pretends to be duller than he is. The sick man I could not
well cross-examine. He told me something of the fight at Fort
Carillon, where he, it appears, saw the main fighting upon the ridge,
while the Indians were spread as sharpshooters along the swamps
below. For the rest he refers me to his comrade." Father Launoy
fell to musing again. "What puzzles me is that he carries no
message, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings him
across the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded and
prisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will be
travelling up the Great River to Montreal--that is, if they have not
already arrived. Now why should this one boat have turned aside?
That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: the
way he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal,
or up-stream to Fort Amitie or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, this
man apparently carries no message. Also he started from Fort
Carillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to a
wounded man?"

"Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drew
off his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and he
has a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from which
he suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian."

"A bad blow--and yet he escaped."

"A bad blow. Either from that or from the drenching, towards morning
his head wandered and he talked at full speed for an hour."

"Of what did he talk?" asked the priest quickly.

"That I cannot tell, since he chattered in English."

"English? How do you know that it was English?"

"Why, since it was not French, nor like any kind of Indian! Moreover,
I have heard the English talk. They were prisoners brought down from
Oswego, twelve bateaux in all, and I took them through the falls.
When they talked, it was just as this man chattered last night."

"Then you, too, Dominique, find your guest a strange fellow?"

"Oh, as for that! He is a sergeant, and of the regiment of Bearn.
Your reverence saw his coat hanging by the bed."

"Even in that there is something strange. For Bearn lies in the
Midi, close to the Pyrenees; and, as I understand, the regiment of
Bearn was recruited and officered almost entir