"Peste!" said the latter. "One doesn't know how to deal with these idiots; it's of no use talking sensibly to them, and they are as obstinate as mules. Monsieur must try to make her go back. One cannot beat her, you know," he added half apologetically, as the thought of Amoahmeh's resolutely refusing to relieve them of her company probably suggested some such extreme proceeding.
"Beat her!" exclaimed Isidore indignantly, "I should think not. My good girl, I cannot take you with me. You must go back to your friends."
She looked at him long and wistfully. At last she said, "You are my friend, you know where they are. I will go with you until we find them."
Boulanger struck the end of his rifle on the ground despair. Isidore was puzzled, but suddenly a thought struck him.
"If Amoahmeh goes with me," said he quietly, "I shall be discovered by the English, and if they find me they will shoot me."
She looked inquiringly at him as if she half understood the purport of his words.
"To be sure," interposed the guide. "Do you want him to be shot? If not, you must go back." There was a short pause; then Amoahmeh bowed her head, and crossing her hands over her bosom turned away and began to retrace her steps towards the settlement.
The young soldier made a gesture as though he would have recalled her, but Boulanger stopped him. "Let her alone, monsieur, for goodness sake. But for that lucky shot of yours we should never have got rid of her; and think, only think, monsieur, the further she had gone the more impossible it would have been for you to shake her off. Do you want her to stick to you all your life?"
Isidore admitted that the guide was right, and on they went. Yet his heart was full of pity for the poor child as he looked back and saw her stealing silently away through the wood, and he felt that he had been compelled to extinguish the ray of sunlight that had shone in upon the darkness of her soul.
The travellers halted before noon and rested for some hours. They then pursued their march until near sunset, when they came to the elevated ridges which divide the small rivers flowing northward into the St. Lawrence, from those which run southward towards the West Hudson and the Ohio. Boulanger's object was to reach a village situated amongst the numerous small lakes in this district, and obtain a canoe, by means of which he might greatly lighten the rest of their journey. The Indians were of a friendly tribe and knew him of old, so he had no fears about the reception they might give him.