"They would pick two of us off, and be gone like shadows through the woods. No, we had best go on our way."
"But they will follow us."
"I hardly think that they will. We are four and they are only two, and they know now that we are on our guard and that we can pick up a trail as quickly as they can themselves. Get behind these trunks where they cannot see us. So! Now stoop until you are past the belt of alder bushes. We must push on fast now, for where there are two Iroquois there are likely to be two hundred not very far off."
"Thank God that I did not bring Adele!" cried De Catinat.
"Yes, monsieur, it is well for a man to make a comrade of his wife, but not on the borders of the Iroquois country, nor of any other Indian country either."
"You do not take your own wife with you when you travel, then?" asked the soldier.
"Yes, but I do not let her travel from village to village. She remains in the wigwam."
"Then you leave her behind?"
"On the contrary, she is always there to welcome me. By Saint Anne, I should be heavy-hearted if I came to any village between this and the Bluffs of the Illinois, and did not find my wife waiting to greet me."
"Then she must travel before you."