I expected to follow him among the revelers, but he turned his back on
them, and led the way through a labyrinth of huts, a maze so winding
that I judged him more sober than I had thought. When we found the
girl, she was alone, and I saw from her look that this was not the
first visit Pierre had made.

He summoned her importantly, while I withdrew to a distance, that I
might have her brought to me in form. I was intent and uneasy, but I
had room in my heart for vain self-satisfaction that I knew something
of the Ottawa speech. My proficiency in Indian dialects, for which the
world praised me lightly, as it might commend the cut of my doublet,
had cost me much drudgery and denial, and my moments of reward were
rare.

Singing Arrow came forward, and curtsied as the priests had taught her.
I was forced to approve my man's taste. Not that she was beautiful to
my eyes, for brown women were never to my liking; but she had youth and
neatness, and when she raised her eyes I saw that I might look for
intelligence and daring. I motioned her to come nearer.

"Singing Arrow," I said, in somewhat halting Ottawa, "my man here tells
me that your people are talking as if they were asleep, and were
dreaming that they were all kings. Now when a dog barks at the moon,
we do not stop to tremble for the safety of the moon, but we ask what
is the matter with the dog. That is what I would ask of you. What do
the Ottawas care what Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac, the commandant,
does with the English prisoner?"

She thought a moment, and plaited the folds of her beaver-skin skirt as
I have seen many a white girl do. "I know of no dog," she said, with a
slow upward glance that tried to gauge my temper. "And as for the
moon, it shines alike on the grass and the tall trees, and I have seen
no Frenchman yet who could reach up and pluck it from its place. But I
have seen a chain that was once bright like silver grow dull and eaten
with rust. A wise man will throw such a chain away, and ask for a new
one."

I shrugged. "You have sharp eyes," I said, shrugging yet more, "if you
can see rust on the covenant chain that binds the French to the
Ottawas. Is that what you mean?"

She looked up with a flash of fun and diablerie such as I never thought
to see in a savage face. "Then monsieur has seen it himself?"

Now this would not do; I would leave all gallantries to my subordinate.
"This is idle talk," I said, as I lit my pipe, and