So I left her and climbed across the bags and went down toward the stream.
But before I had reached it a dark figure slipped from among the shadows of the rocks and came toward me; and by the faint starlight I saw the face of Pierre Caribou!
I was bewildered, for Pierre seemed like one of those dream figures of the past; he might have come into my life long ago, but not to-day, nor yesterday.
He stopped me and held me by both shoulders, and he drew me into the recesses of the rocks and bent his wizened old face forward toward mine.
"Ah, monsieur, so you did not obey old Pierre Caribou and stay in the cave," he said.
"Pierre, I did not know that you would return," I answered. "I thought that we could find the same road that you had taken."
"Never mind," the Indian answered, looking at me strangely. "All finish now. Diable take Leroux. His time come. Diable show me!"
"How?" I answered, startled.
"All finish," said Pierre inexorably, and, as I watched him, a superstitious fear crept over me. He, who had cringed, even when he gave the command, now cringed no longer, and there was a look on his old face that I had only seen on one man's before—on my father's, the night he died.
"Pierre, where is Leroux?" I whispered.