She looked at me with impassive good humor, her hands busy with her wampum necklaces, and I saw, not only that I had failed to entrap her into losing her temper, but that I was dealing with a quick-witted woman of a race whose women were trained politicians. But, for reasons of her own, she chose to answer me fairly.
"The Frenchman is right," she said, with a second swift upward look to test the ice where she was venturing. "I was wrong to talk of the covenant between the French and my people, for the chain is too weak to bear even the weight of words. It is rusted till it is as useless as a band of grasses to bind a wild bull. But blood will cleanse rust. What can the French want with their enemy, the Englishman? Why should not the prisoner's blood be used to brighten the chain between the Ottawas and the French?"
Now this was plain language. I listened to the girl's speech, which was as gently cadenced as if she talked of flowers or summer pleasures, and thought that here was indeed snake's venom offered as a sweetmeat. But why did she warn me? I had a flash of sense. I went to her, and compelled her to stop playing with her necklaces, and raise her eyes to mine.
"Answer me, Singing Arrow," I commanded. "You are repeating what was said in council, but you do not agree with it. You would like to save the prisoner. Look at me again. Am I right?"
I could as well have held an eel. She slipped from my hands, and ran back to her lodge. "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her door. "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it will eat. Why stay here? I have given you what you came to find. Take it." And with a look at Pierre she disappeared.
Pierre gave a great bellow of laughter. "I will catch her," he volunteered, and made a plunge in the direction of the lodge; but I caught him by the hood of his blanket coat, and let his own impetus choke him.
"Now look you, Pierre Boudin," I said, "if you cross the door of that lodge on any errand,—on any errand, mind you,—you are no longer man of mine. I mean that; you are no longer man of mine. Now begone. Gather the men, go to the canoes, and wait there till I come. I may come soon; I may not come till morning."
Pierre was still swelling. "As the master wishes," he said, with his eyes down; but I thought that he hesitated, and I called him to me.
"Pierre," I said, "do you want to be sent back to Montreal, and have
François Labarthe put in your place?"
The giant looked up to see how much I was in earnest, and, as I returned his look, all his bravado oozed away. It does not seem quite the part of a man to cow a subordinate till he looks at you with the eyes of a whipped hound; but it was the only method to use with Pierre, and I went away satisfied.