I gave him a dubious glance. "Yet you were weeks with the Hurons after your capture."
I saw him set his teeth hard as if at a memory. "We traveled by water ways. I was little on the shore except at night."
A sudden picture sickened me. The nightly camp and this slender lad with his curious air of daintiness, and the great oily Hurons lounging in the dirt and smoke.
"Were they cruel to you?" I broke out.
He shook his head. "No," he said, with the air of justice I had liked in him heretofore; "no, they were not cruel. Indeed they were almost kind, in that they left me a great deal alone. I feared from the clemency they showed me that they were reserving me for torture."
I eyed him with some skepticism. "It was not the Hurons, but their rivals, the Ottawas, who would have sent you to the stake," I explained curtly. "The Hurons—those of the Baron's band—would have held you as a hostage,—perhaps as a deputy."
He looked up with interested eyes. "You are playing some political game, and these tribes are your counters. I should like to understand."
I examined his look, but could make nothing of it. "You will pardon me, monsieur," I said with a shrug, "but these are troublous times, and I find it hard to believe you as ignorant as you seem."
He still met my look. "And if I were not ignorant?" he asked. "Could I, one Englishman, alone and unarmed, accomplish anything that would hurt you? You see that I am harmless. Why not be friends?"
I shrugged my shoulders.