"It seems a pity to detain you," he mused. "You are obviously on business. When I came up behind you I thought that I had never seen a man work in such a frenzy of haste. There was sweat on your forehead."
I waved my pipe at him. I had the upper hand, and I felt cruelly jovial. "It was haste to meet you," I assured him. "I missed you in the fog, and feared you would reach camp before me."
"You feared me, monsieur?"
I felt an unreasoning impulse to be candid with him. The strange, choking terror had swept back at that instant, and again it had me by the throat. Yet here sat the cause of my terror before me, and he was in my power.
"I feared your Indians." I spoke gravely. "Handle those Hurons carefully, monsieur. It is a tricky breed."
"But I have no"—— He stopped, and looked at me strangely. "What made you think that I was near?"
"For one thing I heard your axe yesterday."
"But yesterday I was five leagues from here."
I whistled through my teeth. I hate a useless lie. "I heard your axe," I reiterated. "This morning you and your men passed me in the fog."
He stared at me, then at the forest. "Monsieur, I have no men!"