"With all the skill and courtesy of a Frenchman, monsieur," she answered, really pleased with the attention and almost fatherly kindness of the soldier who had been arranging the hut.

"Then, now, as you have the means of rest, it only remains to provide you with meat and drink," said the officer. "I see they have spread my tablecloth on the grass there. Will you and your friend come and partake of my fare? Pray make my words understood to him."

Woodchuck readily agreed to accept the Frenchman's hospitality, but Edith declined taking anything more than a little bread and some wine, alleging that she needed rest more than anything. The French officer, however, would not be content with this, but with his own hands brought her some savory messes which would not have disgraced a Parisian dinner table, some choice wine, and, what was still more valuable to her, a small lamp. He then closed the hurdle door of the hut upon her and returned to his meal with Woodchuck, keeping up with him for half an hour a sort of conversation by words and signs, one-half of which was probably unintelligible to both. The Frenchman then took possession of another hut, and invited Woodchuck to share it with him for the night; but the stout woodsman declined any covering but the sky, and stretching himself across Edith's door, was soon in profound slumber.

CHAPTER XXX

We must go back for a very short time to the spot whence Edith and her Oneida captors set out upon what proved to the latter an unfortunate voyage across Lake Champlain, and to the very moment after their canoe had left the shore. The Long House, as the Five Nations were pleased to call their territory, extended from the great lakes and a point far west, to the banks of the Hudson and Lakes Huron and Champlain; but, as is always the case in border countries, the frontier was often crossed, both by wandering or predatory bands of Hurons and other nations under the sway of France, and by outlaws from the Iroquois tribes attached to England. The peculiar habits and laws of the Indian tribes rendered the incorporation of fugitives with other nations a very easy matter, although the language of the Five Nations would seem to be radically different from that of the tribes originally inhabiting the seaboard of America. Indeed, on the western shore of Lake Champlain not a few pure Hurons were to be found; for that tribe, during the successful campaigns of France against England, with which what is called the French and Indian war commenced, had somewhat encroached upon the Iroquois territory, supported in their daring by the redoubted name of Montcalm.

With some of these, it would seem, Apukwa and his companions had entered into a sort of tacit alliance, and toward their dwellings they had directed their steps after their attack upon Edith and her little escort, in the expectation of readily finding a canoe to waft them over the lake. At first they had been disappointed, for the barks which had been there the day before were gone; and when they did find the canoe in which they ultimately commenced their voyage, the avaricious old man to whom it belonged would not let them use it without a world of bargaining; and it cost them a considerable portion of the little stock of ornaments and trinkets which they had found in Edith's plundered baggage, before the Huron consented to lend them that which they did not dare take by force.

Thus more than an hour was passed, after they reached the lake shore, before they departed; and their taking their course so boldly across the bows of the French boats was more a matter of necessity than choice, although they little doubted a good reception from the inveterate enemies of England. No sooner, however, had the canoe shot out into the water than the figure of a tall, dark woman emerged from the bushes of the low point under which the skiff had lain, and she began wringing her hands with every appearance of grief and anxiety.

"O, what will poor massa do!" she cried, in a piteous voice. "What will poor massa do! Him son killed, him daughter stolen, and Chaudo tomahawked! Ah, me! ah, me! What will we all do?"

Her imprudent burst of grief had nearly proved destructive to poor Sister Bab. The old Huron had turned him quietly toward a small birch bark cabin in the forest hard by, and would never have remarked the poor negress if she had confined the expression of her cares to mere gesture; but her moans and exclamations caught the quick ear of the savage, and he turned and saw her plainly, gazing after the canoe. With no other provocation than a taste for blood, he stole quietly through the trees, with the soft, gliding, noiseless motion peculiar to his race, and making a circuit so as to conceal his advance, he came behind the poor creature just as she beheld the canoe which bore away her young mistress stopped and surrounded by the little flotilla of the French. Another moment would have been fatal to her, for the Indian was within three yards, when a large rattlesnake suddenly raised itself in his path and made him recoil a step. Whether attracted by the small, but never-to-be-forgotten sound of the reptile's warning, or some noise made by the Huron in suddenly drawing back, the poor negress turned her head and saw her danger.

With a wild scream she darted away toward the lake, The savage sprang after her with a yell, and though old he retained much of the Indian lightness of foot. Onward toward the shore he drove her, meditating each moment to throw his hatchet if she turned to the right or left. But Sister Bab was possessed of qualities which would not have disgraced any of his own tribe, and even while running at her utmost speed she contrived continually to deprive him of his aim. Not a tree, not a shrub, not a mass of stone that did not afford her a momentary shelter, and of every inequality of the ground she took advantage. Now she whirled sharply round the little shoulder of the hill; now, as the tomahawk was just balanced to be thrown with more fatal certainty, she sprang down a bank which almost made the Indian pause. Then she plunged head foremost, like a snake, through the thick brushwood, and again appeared in a different spot from that where he had expected to see her.