river. But why go till
another sunrise?"

I hesitated. But I thought of the shadowing Huron, and decided that I
could elude him best at night. "We are in haste," I told Onanguisse,
and I pointed the men toward their work.

But before I myself had time to step toward the canoes, I felt the
woman's touch upon my arm. Though, in truth, it was odd that I felt
it, for the movement was light as the brushing of a grass stalk.

"Monsieur, do we go now?" she asked. "You have had no opportunity for
council with these Indians, yet I see that they are powerful."

She was watching my interests. I laid my fingers on hers, and looked
full at her as I had not done since we had been man and wife. Her eyes
were mournful as they often were, but they were starry with a thought I
could not read. The awe and the wonder were still there, and her
fingers were unsteady under mine. I dropped to my knees.

"I have done more than you saw," I said, with my eyes on hers. "I have
talked with Onanguisse, and have smoked a full pipe with the old men in
council. Thank you for your interest. Thank you, Madame de Montlivet."

But she would not look at me bent before her. "That I wish you to do
your best, unhampered by me, does not mean that I wish you success,"
she said, with her head high, and she went to Onanguisse, and curtsied
her adieus. Her last words were with Father Nouvel, and she hid her
eyes for a moment, while he blessed her and said good-by.

Our canoes pointed to the sunset as we rounded the headland and slid
outward. On the shore, the Indian women chanted a hymn to Messou,--to
Messou, the Maker of Life, and the God of Marriage, to whom, on our
behalf, many pipes had been smoked that day.

CHAPTER XV

I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER

Now the great bay on which we were embarked was a water empire, fair to
the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French
called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the
shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie
Islands that we had just left well-nigh blocked its mouth, and its
southern end was the outlet of a shining stream that was known as the
River of the Fox. The bay was thirty leagues long by eight broad, and
had tides like the ocean. Five tribes dwelt around it: the
Pottawatamies at its mouth, the Malhominis halfway down on its western
shore, and the Sacs, the Chippewas, and the Winnebagoes scattered at
different