“Yes, monsieur; was he among these Senecas?”
“The Senecas are his tribe of the Iroquois, mademoiselle. He was among them; but he has left his people for my sake. These Indians have visions and obey them. He said the time had come for him to follow me.”
“Sanomp was then the Indian I saw creeping toward your tent. Did he fight against his own people?”
“No, mademoiselle. While Du Lhut and I flew to rouse the camp, he sat doggedly down where he found me. This was a last chance for the Senecas. We are so near Fort St. Louis, and almost within shouting distance of our Miamis on Buffalo Rock. Such security makes sentinels careless. Sanomp crept ahead of the others and whispered in my ear, taking his chance of being brained before I understood him. He has proved himself my friend and brother, mademoiselle, to do this for me, and moreover to bear the shame of sitting crouched like a squaw through a fray.”
“Everybody loves and fears Monsieur de Tonty,”[20] observed Barbe, with sedate accent.
Tonty breathed deeply.
“Am I an object of fear to you, mademoiselle? Doubtless I have grown like a buffalo,” he ruminated. “Perhaps you feel a natural aversion toward a man bearing a hand of iron.”
“On the contrary, it seemed a great convenience among the Indians,” murmured Barbe, and Tonty laughed and stood silent.
The camp was again settling to rest, and fewer swarming figures peopled the darkness. Winding and aspiring through new fuel the camp-fire once more began to lift its impalpable pavilion, and groups sat around it beneath that canopy of tremulous light, with rapid talk and gesture repeating to each other their impressions of the Senecas’ attack.