Frontin leaped up. “Which of you goes with me, Loups?”
“I go.” Le Talon rose. “My brother Black Kettle has hurt his foot. Come!”
The two shook their powder-horns, examined firebags, divided meat and bullets. In five minutes they were ready.
“Take care of the star, cap’n,” said Frontin. Then he added, in his assumed cynicism, “Ora pro nobis!”
The next moment, with a wave of his hand, he vanished among the trees in the wake of Le Talon. The two were gone.
Crawford and Black Kettle fell hastily to work, since there was much to be done ere nightfall. Perrot, fast bound in fever, was tossing and moaning. After locating a sheltered and hidden spot on a hillside, they carried him to it; there was a bed of pine boughs to be laid, a shelter to be constructed, precious dry wood to be uncovered and collected. The packs had to be moved and the fire-embers transferred. In all this Black Kettle was at a disadvantage, for he had twisted his ankle badly and walking was painful.
Crawford resigned himself to this delay, the more easily because of the singular coincidence which had brought him and Perrot together. Or was it coincidence? He had come from the northeast, Perrot from the southeast, roughly aiming at a mutual point; why, then, should they not have met before reaching that point? It was natural enough.
During two full days he devoted himself to caring for the sick man. Black Kettle scouted and reported no sign of any foe in forest or on horizon. During these two days, Crawford pondered the reason for Perrot’s presence here. The Mohegan explanation, that his manitou had impelled the action, was absolutely accurate; but Crawford was slow to accept it. Sieur Perrot was an example of the ingratitude of princes, since he occupied no position in Canada. He had no official reason to be here, then.
These thirty years, Nicholas Perrot had sowed where other men had reaped. No other Frenchman had his influence among the western tribes. His very name of Little Indian Corn spoke of the godhead with which the Green Bay tribes had endowed this first white man to come among them. Since 1665 he had blazed the trails where others walked to wealth and fame. To the red men, he was always known as the sun-bringer. Where others fanned hot sparks of wrath, Perrot had made peace, composed quarrels, kept the tribes in alliance to Onontio. And now he sought the Star Woman—why? In the end, Crawford renewed this question to Black Kettle, and received a story whose implications left him thoughtful.
“My brother, I will tell you what I know,” said the Mohegan gravely. “It is now more than thirty winters since my father Metaminens went among the Iowa and the Dacotah nations. There he met this Star Woman, who saved his life. What passed between them, I do not know. My father Metaminens saw her only once or twice, yet he has often spoken of her. My brother, there are two roads open to every man, of which the one ends always, soon or late, at the grave; but Metaminens has never followed that road. Does my brother understand?”