“How learned you that?”
“By talking with him in Quebec. He even sketched me a map of the route he traveled with La Salle. You knew it not?”
“’Twas of no moment, for my orders bid me go by St. Ignace. Yet it might be well to question him 98 and the chief also.” He turned to the nearest soldier. “Tell the Algonquin, Altudah, to come here, and Sieur de Artigny.”
They approached together, two specimens of the frontier as different as could be pictured, and stood silent, fronting Cassion who looked at them frowning, and in no pleasant humor. The eyes of the younger man sought my face for an instant, and the swift glance gave harsher note to the Commissaire’s voice.
“We will reload the canoes here for the long voyage,” he said brusquely. “The sergeant will have charge of that, but both of you will be in the leading boat, and will keep well in advance of the others. Our course is by way of the Ottawa. You know that stream, Altudah?”
The Indian bowed his head gravely, and extended one hand beneath the scarlet fold of his blanket.
“Five time, Monsieur.”
“How far to the west, Chief?”
“To place call Green Bay.”
Cassion turned his eyes on De Artigny, a slight sneer curling his lips.