lf as a slave if your Excellency will spare them,"
said Duff, translating.

But Clark stared at the man sternly.

"I will tell them my plans at the proper time," he said and when Duff
had translated this the man turned and went silently into his house
again, closing the door behind him. And before we had traversed the
village the same thing had happened many times. We gained the fort
again, I wondering greatly why he had not reassured these simple people.
It was Bowman who asked this question, he being closer to Clark than any
of the other captains. Clark said nothing then, and began to give out
directions for the day. But presently he called the Captain aside.

"Bowman," I heard him say, "we have one hundred and fifty men to hold
a province bigger than the whole of France, and filled with treacherous
tribes in the King's pay. I must work out the problem for myself."

Bowman was silent. Clark, with that touch which made men love him and
die for him, laid his hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Have the men called in by detachments," he said, "and fed. God knows
they must be hungry,--and you."

Suddenly I remembered that he himself had had nothing. Running around
the commandant's house to the kitchen door, I came unexpectedly upon
Swein Poulsson, who was face to face with the linsey-woolsey-clad figure
of Monsieur Rocheblave's negro cook. The early sun cast long shadows of
them on the ground.

"By tam," my friend was saying, "so I vill eat. I am choost like an ox
for three days, und chew grass. Prairie grass, is it?"

"Mo pas capab', Michie," said the cook, with a terrified roll of his
white eyes.

"Herr Gott!" cried Swein Poulsson, "I am red face. Aber Herr Gott,
I thank thee I am not a nigger. Und my hair is bristles, yes. Davy"
(spying me), "I thank Herr Gott it is not vool. Let us in the kitchen
go."

"I am come to get something for the Colonel's breakfast," said I,
pushing past the slave, through the open doorway. Swein Poulsson
followed, and here I struck another contradiction in his strange nature.
He helped me light the fire in the great stone chimney-place, and we
soon had a pot of hominy on the crane, and turning on the spit a piece
of buffalo steak which we found in the larder. Nor did a mouthful pass
his lips until I had sped away with a steaming portion to find the
Colonel. By this time the men had broken into the storehouse, and the
open place was dotted with their breakfast fires. Clark was stand