As I ran through the camp toward the north I saw a woman ahead of me. She had a broad, fat figure, and I knew she was an Indian. But she was a woman and the first that I had seen. I caught her and jerked her around to face me.
"The woman? The white woman? Where is she?" I used the Illinois speech.
The woman was a Miami slave and apparently unhurt. But as I stood over her a line of foam bubbled out of her blue lips. Her eyes were meaningless. I had frightened her into catalepsy, and I ground my teeth at my ill luck, for she could have told me something of the woman. I took my brandy flask and tried to pry her teeth apart.
Both of my hands were busy with her when Pierre's bellow rose from behind me. "Master! Jump! Jump!" In the same instant I heard breathing close upon me.
I jumped. As I did it I heard the crash of a hatchet through bone, and the pounding of a great body heaving down upon its knees. I turned.
Pemaou's hatchet was in Pierre's brain, and my giant, my man who had lived with me, was crumpled down on hands and knees, looking at me and dying.
I called out like a mad thing, and insanity gave me power. I tore the red hatchet from Pemaou's hands and pinioned him. My fingers dug into his throat, and I threw him to the ground. He bared his wolf's teeth and began his death song. But I raved at him, and choked him to silence. "You are not to die now!" I shouted at his glazing eyes. "You shall live. I shall torture you. You shall live to be tortured."
I carried rope around my waist, and I took it and bound him. How I did it is not clear, for I had a weak shoulder and he was muscular. But now he seemed palsied and I a giant. It was done. I bound him till he was rigid and helpless.
And then I fell to my knees beside Pierre. He was dead. I had lost even the parting from him. My giant was dead. He had taken the blow meant for me.
Pierre was dead, and Simon and Labarthe and Leclerc. I had brought them to the wilderness because I believed in a western empire for France. I left Pierre and went on.