trained and struggled until the tears ran down
his face. Then he sat up in despair; and behold! he had awakened the
child, and the child was laughing at him. 'Oh, oh!' cried Manabozho
in a passion, 'am I then to be mocked by a babe!' And with that he
drew a great breath and blew the child away over the mountains, and
afterwards walked across and across the lodge, trampling it down
until not a trace of it remained. 'After all,' said Manabozho,
'I can do something. And I see nobody hereabouts to deny that I can
put my toe in my mouth!'"

As Menehwehna concluded, John waited for an explosion of wrath.
None came. He raised his head after a minute and looked about him.
Barboux sat smoking and staring into the camp-fire. The Indian had
laid himself down to slumber, with his blanket drawn up to his ears.

CHAPTER VI.

BATEESE.

Next morning Barboux and Menehwehna held a long colloquy aft, but in
tones so low that John could not catch a word. By and by Muskingon
was called into council, and lastly le Chameau.

The two Indians were arguing against some proposal of the sergeant's,
which by the way they pointed and traced imaginary maps with their
fingers, spreading their palms apart to indicate distances, plainly
turned on a point of geography. Le Chameau's opinion seemed to
settle the dispute in the sergeant's favour. Coming that afternoon
to the mouth of a tributary stream on the left bank he headed the
canoe for it without a word, and at once the paddles were busy,
forcing her against the rapid current.

Then followed days during which, though reason might prove that in
the river he held an infallible clue, John's senses lost themselves
in the forest maze. It overlapped and closed upon him, folding him
deeper and illimitably deeper. On the Richelieu he had played with
thoughts of escape, noting how the canoe lagged behind its convoy,
and speculating on the Indians' goodwill--faint speculations, since
(without reckoning his own raw wound) McQuarters was almost too weak
to stir as yet, and to abandon him would be a scurvy trick. So he
had put aside his unformed plans, which at the best had been little
better than hopes; and now the wilderness oppressed and smothered and
buried them out of recollection.

The _voyageurs_ made tedious progress; for almost at once they came
to a chain of rapids around which the canoe had to be ported.
The Indians toiled steadily, and le Chameau too, stripped to the
waist