"Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your guests that puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner of their coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you found them."
"It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau came running to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man—an Indian—was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with his arms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trick of the Iroquois—not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood: and Chrétien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemed to show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, which might be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launched a boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail: and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready to fire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me—for I have been as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of the Ojibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called back to him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue."
"Yes, yes—he is an Ojibway beyond doubt."
"Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushed forward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly. He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian had wrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and past speaking, when at length we took him off."
"And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?"
"So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore."
"The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through the wilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed a canoe to launch on the Great River here."
"Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party of Iroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessed themselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped."
"Yes," mused the priest, "so again the Ojibway told me. A strange story: and when I began to put questions he grew more and more stupid—but I know well enough by this time, I should hope, when an Indian pretends to be duller than he is. The sick man I could not well cross-examine. He told me something of the fight at Fort Carillon, where he, it appears, saw the main fighting upon the ridge, while the Indians were spread as sharpshooters along the swamps below. For the rest he refers me to his comrade." Father Launoy fell to musing again. "What puzzles me is that he carries no message, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings him across the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded and prisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will be travelling up the Great River to Montreal—that is, if they have not already arrivéd. Now why should this one boat have turned aside? That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: the way he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal, or up-stream to Fort Amitié or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, this man apparently carries no message. Also he started from Fort Carillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to a wounded man?"
"Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drew off his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and he has a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from which he suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian."