a little healthful exercise will help to warm
your blood, especially as we dare not light a fire for such purpose.
So bend that broad back of yours, and aid us in lifting the boat to
cover."

He performed his portion of the work well, bearing with apparent ease
fully one-half the burden, while De Noyan and I staggered beneath the
remainder, until together we sank the boat well out of sight behind the
thick brush.

"And why not a fire?" the stranger questioned abruptly, noticing Eloise
spreading forth our stock of provisions on the grass. "It was in hope
of thus warming the inner man that I consented to come ashore and
companion with you. Are you refugees, fleeing from danger?"

I glanced aside at De Noyan and muttered hastily in French, "It will be
best to tell him our story--'tis not likely he will prove an emissary
of Spain."

"As you please; he is more of your class than mine," he returned
indifferently, and, with a shrug of the shoulders, strolled away.

"You have made fairly correct guess," I said to our new acquaintance;
"so we may as well understand each other first as last. We have
escaped with our lives from New Orleans, and are now seeking refuge on
the Ohio."

He nodded, his shrewd gray eyes fastened intently on my face, his own
countenance expressionless.

"Who holdeth New Orleans?" he asked in a tone of interest.

"The Spanish, under O'Reilly."

"'Tis what they told me above, yet I believed they lied. Those with
you are French?"

"Ay."

"And you?"

"Of Louisiana birth and English blood; five years I have been a hunter
in the Illinois country."

He groaned as though the mention of the word awoke unpleasant memories.

"'Tis an unholy land, no fit abiding place for the elect, as I learned,
having passed through its settlements seeking prayerfully to bear an
evangel unto that stiff-necked people. Friend, thou hast an honest
face, and I will say in confidence I have been ofttimes blessed of the
Spirit in the conversion of souls; yet this people laughed at my
unctuous speech, making merry regarding that head-covering with which
the Almighty chose to adorn his servant. Dost thou know the French
settlement on the Kaskaskia?"

"I have been there often."

"Ah! 'tis verily a stronghold of popish superstition. Recall you the
humble cabin of Gabriel La Motte, the Huguenot, close by the ravine?
It was there I abode in much spiritual and temporal comfort with that
godly man, until certain mad