"Whose is this? Who are you?" said he, quickly regarding the old chef with evident astonishment.
"It belongs to the Marquis de Beaujardin," replied Perigord, piteously.
"Beaujardin! Beaujardin!" answered the Indian, with increasing amazement. "There is one of that name in the camp. Who is this Beaujardin?"
"His father—his father!" exclaimed Perigord. "Have you seen him? Is he at Quebec? My poor Isidore! He was lost, and we have come out here to seek him.'
"Yes, Isidore—that is his name," replied the chief; and with that he turned to his warriors, and spoke to them rapidly, gesticulating vehemently all the while.
Perigord would have questioned him further, but the chief at first took no heed of him; after some further conference, however, he once more addressed his excited prisoner, saying, "It is well—the Frenchman shall see his son again."
"But in one thing you are mistaken," cried Perigord, with animation. "Yonder is his father—it is not I."
In some surprise the Indian looked first at one and then at the other, scanning alternately the plain suit which the marquis had been accustomed to wear on board ship, and the full dress costume in which old Perigord invariably waited on him. But apart from these the fiery black eyes, the dark complexion, and even the hooked nose of old Achille, and most of all the tears which had betrayed his emotion on hearing the name of Isidore, would have sufficed to settle the question.
"Is a chief of the Algonquins an owl that he cannot see in broad daylight?" said the Indian, contemptuously. "Does the cunning Frenchman think that a warrior of the red skins does not know the difference between a wild goose and an eagle?"
Then without further parley he gave the word for the march, and the amazed and terrified prisoners were hurried away into the woods.