"I have not lived among the Indians for nothing."
"And then?"
"I pulled him down into the ditch, and I got into his coat and his hat. I did not scalp him."
"Scalp him? Great heavens! Such things are only done among savages."
"Ah! I thought that maybe it was not the custom of the country. I am glad now that I did not do it. I had hardly got the reins before they were all back and bundled you into the coach. I was not afraid of their seeing me, but I was scared lest I should not know which road to take, and so set them on the trail. But they made it easy to me by sending some of their riders in front, so I did well until I saw that by-track and made a run for it. We'd have got away, too, if that rogue hadn't shot the horse, and if the beasts had faced the water."
The guardsman again pressed his comrade's hands. "You have been as true to me as hilt to blade," said he. "It was a bold thought and a bold deed."
"And what now?" asked the American.
"I do not know who these men are, and I do not know whither they are taking us."
"To their villages, likely, to burn us."
De Catinat laughed in spite of his anxiety. "You will have it that we are back in America again," said he. "They don't do things in that way in France."