"From Cadillac! From the commandant!" I ejaculated.

She nodded. It was her moment of triumph, but she passed it without
outward show.

"Read it. I am sleepy," she said, and yawning in my face she tumbled
herself back into the blanket and closed her eyes.

The packet was well wrapped and secured, and I dug my way to the heart
of it and found the written pages. The letter began abruptly.

"Monsieur," it said, "I send you strange tidings by a stranger
messenger. It is new to me to trust petticoats in matters of secrecy,
but it is rumored that you set me the example, and that you carried off
the Englishman dressed in this Singing Arrow's clothes. The Indian
herself will tell me nothing. That determined me to trust her.

"Briefly, you are followed. That fire-eating English lad that you have
with you--I warrant that he has proved a porcupine to travel with--must
be of some importance. At all events, an Englishman, who gives his
name as Starling, has made his way here in pursuit. He tells a fair
tale. He says that the lad, who is dear as a brother to him, is a
cousin, who was captured in an Indian raid on the frontier. As soon as
he, Starling, learned of the capture, he started after them, and he has
spent months searching the wilderness, as you would sift the sand of
the sea. He found the trail at last, and followed it here. He begs
that I send him on to you with a convoy.

"Now this, as you see, sounds very fair, and part of it I know to be
true. The man is certainly in earnest--about something,--and has spent
great time and endeavor in this search. He has even been to Quebec,
and worked on Frontenac's sympathies, for he bears from the governor a
letter of safe conduct to me, and another, from the Jesuits, to Father
Carheil. He comes--apparently--on no political mission; he is alone,
and his tale is entirely plausible. There is but one course open to
me. I must let him go on.

"But I do it with misgivings. The story is fair, but I can tell a fair
story myself upon occasion, and there is no great originality in this
one. I remember that you said after your first interview with your
Englishman, that you were afraid he was a spy. There is always that
danger,--a danger that Frontenac underestimates because he has not
grasped the possibilities that we have here. If both these men should
prove to be spies, and in collusion---- Well, they are brave men, and
crafty; it will be the greater pleasure to