as, little furtive rustlings preceded me.
The wood folks had seen me and were spreading the warning. Unless
Pemaou were asleep I had little chance of surprising him. Yet I crept
on till I saw through the leaves the outlines of a brown figure on the
ground.

I stopped. I had been trying for a good many hours to balance the
right and wrong of this matter in my mind, and my reason had insisted
to my inclination that, if I had opportunity, I must kill Pemaou
without warning. We respect no code in dealing with a rattlesnake, and
I must use this Huron like the vermin that he was. So I had taught
myself.

But now I could not do it. The blanket-wrapped shape was as
unconscious as a child in its cradle, and though the wilderness may
breed hardness of purpose it need not teach butchery. I crept out
determined to scuttle the Indian's canoe and go away. If the man
waked, my knife was ready to try conclusions with him in a fair field.

I suppose that I really desired him to wake, and that made me careless,
for just as I bent to the canoe, I let my foot blunder on a twig, and
it cracked like shattering glass. I grasped my knife and whirled. The
figure on the ground jerked, threw off its shrouding blanket, and
stretched up. It was not Pemaou. It was the Ottawa girl Singing Arrow.

I did not drop my knife. My thought was of decoy and ambush, which was
no credit to me, for this girl had been faithful before. But we train
ourselves not to trust an Indian except of necessity.

"Are you alone?" I demanded.

She nodded, pressing her lips together and dimpling. She feared me as
little as a kitten might.

"I came to the Pottawatamie camp just after you left," she volunteered.

And then I laughed, laughed as I had not done in days. So this was the
quarry that I had been stalking! I had been under a long tension, and
it was suddenly comfortable to be ridiculous. I sat down and laughed
again.

"Are you following Pierre?" I asked, sobering, and trying to be stern.

But she put her head sidewise and considered me. She looked like a
squirrel about to crack a nut.

"A hare may track a stag," she announced judicially. "I have followed
you. My back is bent like a worm with the aching of it, but I came
faster than a man. I have this for you," and fumbling in her blouse
she brought out a bulky packet addressed with my name.

I took it with the marvel that a child takes a sleight-of-hand toy and
stared at the seal.