had a fair opinion of you," he said. "Coming with you in the
_Frontenac_ down the river I judged you, despite your weapons and the
fact that you belong to another race than mine, a gentle youth and full
of the virtues. Now I find that you have been fighting and fighting with
intent to kill."

"Hold hard, Father," said Willet in a good-humored tone. "Only half of
that is true. Your information is not full. He has been fighting, but
not with intent to kill. He held the life of Count Jean de Mezy on the
point of his sword, but gave it back to him, such as it was."

The deep eyes of the priest smoldered. Perhaps there was a distant and
fiery youth of his own that the morning's deed recalled, but his
menacing gaze relaxed.

"If you gave him back his life when you could have taken it, you have
done well," he said. "As the hunter intimates, it is a life of little
value, perhaps none at all, but you did not on that account have any
right to take it. And I say more, that if the misadventure had to happen
to any Frenchman here in Quebec I am glad it happened to one of the
wicked tribe of Bigot."

"Your man Bigot, powerful though he may be, seems to have plenty of
enemies," said the hunter.

"He has many, but not enough, I fear," said the priest gloomily. "He and
his horde are a terrible weight upon the shoulders of New France. But I
should not talk of these things to you who are our enemies, and who may
soon be fighting us."

He quit the subject abruptly, and talked in a desultory manner on
irrelevant matters. But Robert saw that Quebec itself and the struggle
between the powerful Bigot ring and the _honnetes gens_ was a much
greater weight on his mind than the approaching war with the English
colonies.

After a stay of a half hour he departed, saying that he was going to
visit a parish farther down the river, and might not see them again, but
he wished them well. He also bade them once more to beware of Tandakora.

"A good man and a strong one," said Willet, when, he left. "I seem to
feel a kindred spirit in him, but I don't think his prevision about not
seeing us again is right, though his advice to look out for Tandakora is
certainly worth following."

They saw the Ojibway warrior twice that afternoon. Either he concealed
the effects of the wound in his shoulder or it had healed rapidly, since
he was apparently as vigorous as ever and gave them murderous glances.
Tayoga shrugged his shoulders.

"Tandakora has foll