But now I could not do it. The blanket-wrapped shape was as unconscious as a child in its cradle, and though the wilderness may breed hardness of purpose it need not teach butchery. I crept out determined to scuttle the Indian's canoe and go away. If the man waked, my knife was ready to try conclusions with him in a fair field.
I suppose that I really desired him to wake, and that made me careless, for just as I bent to the canoe, I let my foot blunder on a twig, and it cracked like shattering glass. I grasped my knife and whirled. The figure on the ground jerked, threw off its shrouding blanket, and stretched up. It was not Pemaou. It was the Ottawa girl Singing Arrow.
I did not drop my knife. My thought was of decoy and ambush, which was no credit to me, for this girl had been faithful before. But we train ourselves not to trust an Indian except of necessity.
"Are you alone?" I demanded.
She nodded, pressing her lips together and dimpling. She feared me as little as a kitten might.
"I came to the Pottawatamie camp just after you left," she volunteered.
And then I laughed, laughed as I had not done in days. So this was the quarry that I had been stalking! I had been under a long tension, and it was suddenly comfortable to be ridiculous. I sat down and laughed again.
"Are you following Pierre?" I asked, sobering, and trying to be stern.
But she put her head sidewise and considered me. She looked like a squirrel about to crack a nut.
"A hare may track a stag," she announced judicially. "I have followed you. My back is bent like a worm with the aching of it, but I came faster than a man. I have this for you," and fumbling in her blouse she brought out a bulky packet addressed with my name.