"All," reiterated Ta-wan-ne-ars.
De Veulle passed along the line, cross-questioning each prisoner to an accompaniment of kicks and threats. All told the same story. Next to success in battle nothing pleased an Iroquois more than the opportunity to exhibit indifference to torture. De Veulle seemed satisfied. The mistake he made was in failing to understand that the scouts had not counted Ta-wan-ne-ars, a chief, as a warrior. He returned to my side, and summoned a host of masked figures from the surrounding shadows. They jerked us to our feet, stamped out the fire and escorted us over the trampled, bloody snow where we had fought, through the gloomy aisles of the Evil Wood and into the irregular streets of La Vierge du Bois.
The dawn was a mere hint of pink in the eastern sky, but the Cahnuagas and their allied broods of renegades were all awake to greet us, and our guards forced a passage through the mass with difficulty. To our surprize, we were carried by the oblong hulk of the Council-House, and traversed the Indian village without stopping. Ahead of us loomed the tower of the chapel and the house where Murray dwelt, encircled by its stockade.
Two men stood by the gate of the stockade to greet us. One was Murray, debonair as ever in a frieze greatcoat, with a showing of lace at the collar, and a cocked hat. The other was Baptiste Meurier.
The unsavory face of the courrier de bois grinned appreciation of my astonishment.
"Peste, monsieur!" he exclaimed. "It seems you are a slow traveler. I feared I might be behind you, but I arrived twenty-four hours in advance. I have to thank you for the beaver-pelts. They were a sufficient bribe for my immediate release."
"That will do, Baptiste," interjected Murray.
And to me:
"One might think the animal deserved credit for a plan in which he was the humble instrument of superior intellects—which, I am bound to say, displayed their superiority mainly by seizing upon the opening presented to them by fortune. No, no; even had the good Baptiste been delayed we should have been ready for you. Heard you ever, Ta-wan-ne-ars, of scouts who wore bears' pads for moccasins?"
For the first and only time during our acquaintance Ta-wan-ne-ars was surprized into a look of chagrin.