he same dull voice; "I will say
to you only what is honest. If I return with you, it is not for your
sake."

"So that you return, Netawis, I will have patience. There was a time
when you set your face against me; and this I overcame. Again there
was a time when you pleaded with me that I should let you escape; and
still I waited, though with so small a hope that when my child Azoka
began to listen for your step I scolded her out of her folly."

"In that you did wisely, Menehwehna. It is not everything that I
have learned to forget."

"I told her," said Menehwehna simply, "that, as the snow melts and
slides from the face of a rock, so one day all thought of us would
slip from your heart and you would go from us, not once looking back.
Even so I believed. But the spring came, and the summer, and I began
to doubt; and, as I questioned you, a hope grew in my heart, and I
played with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powers
little by little, yet still in play, until a day came when I
discovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, my
brother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof."
He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John.
"Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend as
well as wife and children needs not fear to grow old."

John stretched out a hand and touched the earthen pipe bowl.
His fingers closed on it--but only to let it slip. It fell, struck
against the edge of the tree stump and was shivered in pieces.

Across the valley in Fort Niagara the British drums were sounding the
_reveille_.

He did not hear Menehwehna's voice lamenting the broken pipe.
He stood staring across at the fort. He saw the river-gate open, the
red-coats moving there, relieving guard. He saw the flagstaff
halliards shake out the red cross of England in the morning sunlight.
And still, like a river, rolled the music of British drums.

"Netawis!"

Menehwehna touched his arm. At first John did not seem to hear, then
his hand went up and began to unfasten the silver armlets there.

"Netawis! O my brother!"

But the ice had slipped from the rock and lay around its base in
ruin, and the music which had loosened it still sang across the
valley. He took a step down the slope towards it.

"You shall not go!" cried Menehwehna, and lifting his gun pointed it
full at John's back. And John knew that Menehwehna's finger was on
the trigger. He walke