I do not know how it would have ended, or whether dawn would have found us still staring like barnyard cats, for chance, and a dog, suddenly settled the matter. The dog, a forlorn, flea-driven cur, snuffed the fresh trail, followed it to the tree, and snarled out a shout of protest. He snarled but once. The Indian drew his knife, stooped, and I heard the sound of tearing hide and spouting blood. It was only a dog, but I cursed myself for not having been quicker.

And so I sat up. I was forced to shift my eyes for an instant in order to pick up my musket, which, secure in a friendly camp, I had dropped at a careless arm's length from me on the ground. When I looked again the Indian was gone. I went to the tree. The Indian had had but an instant, but he had secured himself out of reach of my eyesight; had faded into the background as a partridge screens itself behind mottled leaves. If I followed him, a knife would be slipped out at me from behind stump or tree trunk, and the dog might not have burial alone.

I went to the dog and stirred him with my sword point. He was a noisome heap, but I knew that I must overcome my repugnance and bury him, or I should have to explain the whole tale to the camp at dawn. And explanation would take time and was not necessary. The Huron was following me, and had no quarrel with the Pottawatamies. When I departed on the morrow he would undoubtedly retie his sandals and continue the voyage. A wife and a ghost! Two traveling guests I had not reckoned with in planning this expedition. I shrugged, and stooped to spit the dog upon my sword, when I saw a skin pouch lying blood-bathed at the creature's side. It was a bag such as savages wear around their necks, and the Indian had probably let it fall when he stooped to kill the dog.

I seized it, careless of the smearing of my fingers, and took it to the moonlight. It was made of the softest of dressed doeskin, and embroidered in red porcupine quills with the figure of a beaver squatting on a rounded lodge. I had seen that design before. It was the totem sign of the house of the Baron, and this bag had hung from Pemaou's neck that day when he danced between me and the sunset and flung the war spear at my heart.

I felt myself grow keenly awake and alive. So it was Pemaou who was following. Well, I had told him that we should meet again. I untied the strings of the bag and turned its contents into my handkerchief. There was an amulet in the form of a beaver's paw, a twist of tobacco, a flint, a tin looking-glass, and a folded sheet of birch bark. I stopped a moment. Should I look further? It was wartime and I was dealing with a savage. I unfolded the bark and pressed it open in my palm. There, boldly drawn in crayon, was a head in profile; it was the profile of the woman who lay in the lodge, and whose mat-hung door I was guarding. Yes, it was her profile, and it was one that no man could forget, though when I speak of a straight nose and an oddly rounded chin, they are but words to fit a thousand faces.

I refolded the bark, put it in my pocket, and buried the dog. Then I sat down before the woman's wigwam. I had one point to work on in my speculations. No Indian would draw a head in profile, for he would be superstitious about creating half of a person. I slept no more that night.

CHAPTER XIV

A PROVISIONAL BARGAIN

I began my day as early as I thought it wise to disturb the sleepers around me, and by the time the sun was two hours high I had accomplished several things. I had confessed to the priest, had had a clean lodge of green boughs built for the woman, and had bargained and bantered with the Indians, and blustered over them with knowledge of their language till they accorded me reluctant grins. They had a village of seven or eight hundred souls, and I found them a marked people. They were cleaner than any savages I had seen,—the women were modest and almost neat,—and their manners had a somewhat European air. I judged them to be politicians rather than warriors, for the braves, though well shaped and wiry, lacked the look of ferocious hardihood that terrified white men in the Iroquois race. But I found them keen traders.

One purchase that I made took time. I wished a new suit of skins for the woman, and I went from lodge to lodge, searching and brow-beating and dangling my trinkets till I was ready to join with the squaws in their laughter at my expense. But my purchase once completed pleasured me greatly. I had found it a little here and a little there, and it was worthy any princess of the woods. I had gathered blouse, skirt, leggings, and moccasins, all new, and made of white dressed deerskin pliable as velvet to the hand. They looked to me full of feminine bravery. The leggings and moccasins were beaded and quill broidered, and the skirt was fringed and trimmed with tiny hawk's bells.