I planted my elbows on the grass that I might face her. "Listen, madame. It is time you knew the story of Pemaou." And thereupon I recited all that had happened between the Huron and myself from the day when we had played at shuttlecock with spears till the night when he had shadowed us at the Pottawatamie camp,—the night before our wedding. I even told her of the profile in his pouch.
She winced at that. "Why did you not tell me before?"
"It seemed useless to alarm you."
"But you tell me now."
I smiled at her. "I know you better. It seems fitting to tell you everything now, madame."
She looked at me with a frown of worry. "Monsieur, you are in danger from that Huron. He hates you if you humbled him."
I laughed at her. "He would not dare harm a Frenchman, madame."
"Then why does he follow you?"
But there I could only shrug. "He was probably in Lord Starling's pay, and was keeping track of us that he might direct your cousin to us. But we have shaken him off."
She thought this over for some time without speaking, and I was content to lie silent at her feet. Bees droned in the flowers and white drifts of afternoon clouds floated over us. I was happy in the moment, and more than that, I was drugged with my dreams of the future. There were days and days and days before us. This was but the threshold. And then, with my ear to the ground, I heard the sound of an axe. The sound of an axe in an untraveled wilderness!