I took it with the marvel that a child takes a sleight-of-hand toy and stared at the seal.
"From Cadillac! From the commandant!" I ejaculated.
She nodded. It was her moment of triumph, but she passed it without outward show.
"Read it. I am sleepy," she said, and yawning in my face she tumbled herself back into the blanket and closed her eyes.
The packet was well wrapped and secured, and I dug my way to the heart of it and found the written pages. The letter began abruptly.
"Monsieur," it said, "I send you strange tidings by a stranger messenger. It is new to me to trust petticoats in matters of secrecy, but it is rumored that you set me the example, and that you carried off the Englishman dressed in this Singing Arrow's clothes. The Indian herself will tell me nothing. That determined me to trust her.
"Briefly, you are followed. That fire-eating English lad that you have with you—I warrant that he has proved a porcupine to travel with—must be of some importance. At all events, an Englishman, who gives his name as Starling, has made his way here in pursuit. He tells a fair tale. He says that the lad, who is dear as a brother to him, is a cousin, who was captured in an Indian raid on the frontier. As soon as he, Starling, learned of the capture, he started after them, and he has spent months searching the wilderness, as you would sift the sand of the sea. He found the trail at last, and followed it here. He begs that I send him on to you with a convoy.
"Now this, as you see, sounds very fair, and part of it I know to be true. The man is certainly in earnest—about something,—and has spent great time and endeavor in this search. He has even been to Quebec, and worked on Frontenac's sympathies, for he bears from the governor a letter of safe conduct to me, and another, from the Jesuits, to Father Carheil. He comes—apparently—on no political mission; he is alone, and his tale is entirely plausible. There is but one course open to me. I must let him go on.
"But I do it with misgivings. The story is fair, but I can tell a fair story myself upon occasion, and there is no great originality in this one. I remember that you said after your first interview with your Englishman, that you were afraid he was a spy. There is always that danger,—a danger that Frontenac underestimates because he has not grasped the possibilities that we have here. If both these men should prove to be spies, and in collusion—— Well, they are brave men, and crafty; it will be the greater pleasure to outwit them. I cannot overlook the fact that the first Englishman was brought here by the Baron's band of Hurons, and that this man selects his messengers from the same dirty clan. I have reason to think he was in communication with them before he came,—which is no credit to a white man. Dubisson, my lieutenant, tells me that a Huron told his Indian servant that pictures of the prisoner drawn on bark had been scattered among the Indians for a fortnight past. The story was roundabout, and I could not run it down. But it makes me watchful.
"So this is where we stand. I must give this man Starling a letter to you. The letter will be official, and will direct you to deliver your prisoner into Starling's hands. If he finds you, you have no choice but to obey; so, if you think from your further knowledge of your prisoner that it is unwise for these two men to meet, it is your cue not to be found. I leave it with you.