the portion
of liquor doled out to them by their lords, and their clamour was worse
than the rest.

No sleep came to the two white men lying at the foot of a tree to the
west of the camp, with a guard pacing slowly between them and liberty.

Instead, thoughts were seething like dalle's foam in the mind of each.

If only this giant guard might drink deep enough of the libations of the
others,--who knew?--there might be the faint chance of escape for which
they had watched ceaselessly since leaving Red River.

But, with the irony of fate, this one Indian became the model warrior
of the tribe. As the confusion and uproar grew in intensity, one after
another joined the dancing circle, until it seemed that every brave in
the camp was leaping around the fire. Blue-eyed Indians, Bois-Brules,
Nakonkirhirinons, they circled and uttered the monotonous "Ah-a, ah-a,"
and in the light could be seen the white lock on the temple of Bois
DesCaut.

"I should have killed him long ago," thought McElroy simply, "as one
kills a wolf,--for the good of the settlement."

As they lay watching the unearthly orgy at the fire a plan slowly took
shape in McElroy's mind. They were unbound as they had been for many
days, the silent guard proving sufficient surety for their retention,
and they were two to one in the wild confusion of the growing
excitement. What easier than a swift grapple in the dusk, one man locked
in combat with the sentinel and one lost in the forest and the night? It
was a desperate chance, but they were desperate men with the post, the
hatchet, and the matete before them. As the thought grew it took on
proportions of possibility and the factor threw up his head with the old
motion, shaking out of his eyes the falling sun-burnt hair.

"M'sieu," he said, in a low voice, carefully modulated to the careless
tone of weary speech which was their habit of nights; "M'sieu, I have a
plan."

The cavalier looked up quickly.

"Ah!" he said; "a plan? Of what,--conduct at the stake? The etiquette of
the ceremony of the Feast of Flame?"

"Peace!" replied McElroy sternly; "you jest, M'sieu. We are in sore
straits and a drowning man snatches at straws. It is this. The fire of
liquor is rising out there. Hear it in the rising note of the blended
voices. How long, think you, will they be content with the dance and
the chanting, the tom-toms and the empty fire? How long before we are
dragged in, to be the centre of affairs? In this pla