storing away metaphors
even as I carried beads in my cargo. I should need all the eloquence
at my command before the close of the summer, and my own tongue was
always too direct of speech.

Cadillac felt me at his elbow, and when he saw my listening face he
stopped to give me a slow wink. "Will monsieur turn pupil to learn
swaggering?" he asked, with an upward cock of the eye. "I had thought
him too old for a school."

I bowed, and hated myself for my lagging wits that would not furnish a
retort. "Never too old to sit at your feet," I assured him, and I went
away knowing that I had been slow, and that the honors were with him,
but knowing, also, that somehow I liked the man, and that I should
drink his health when I opened my next tierce of canary.

I went to find my men, and it was time that I bestirred myself.
License was in order, and the revel assaulted eyes, ears, and nose,
till a white man was wise if he forsook his dignity, and ran like a fox
to cover. The air was surfeiting with the steam of food. Dog-meat
bubbled in great caldrons, and maize cakes crackled on hot stones. A
bear had been brought in, and was being hacked in pieces to add to the
broth. The women did this, and as I passed them they stopped, with
their hands dripping red, and shook their wampum necklaces at me, and
pointed meaningly toward a neighboring hut, where I had been told that
rum could be bought if you were discreet in choosing your occasion. I
tossed them a handful of small coins, and warned them in Huron that if
they molested my men I should report them to the commandant. I felt
yet more haste to see my canoes under way.

I was plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my
sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled,
and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine. It was an
old face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and
gray, but never have I met a look that showed more fire and
unconquerable will. "The commandant wishes you," he went on. "He
asked me to fetch you. I should not have complied--it is I who should
ask services of him--but I wished to speak to you on my own account.
Monsieur, do you know these men that you have in your employ?"

I nodded. "As well as I know my own heart. They are my habitants."

"Your habitants! Then you have a seigniory? Why do you not stay there
as the king wishes?"

I shook my head at him. "We use large wor