"I am not the Frenchman," I answered deliberately, vainly hoping his watchful eyes might wander about the lodge long enough to yield me chance for a spring at his throat, "though I was one of his party. I only came here to bring comfort to this poor girl."
"No doubt she needs it," he replied drily, "and your way is surely a good one. Yet I doubt if Little Sauk would approve it, and as his friend, I must speak for him in the matter. Do you say you are also a prisoner? To what chief?"
"To none," I answered shortly, resolved now to venture all in a trial of strength. He read this decision in my eyes, and stepped back warily. At the same instant Toinette flung her arms restrainingly about my neck.
"Don't, John!" she urged, using my name thus for the first time; "the savage has a gun hidden beneath his robe!"
I saw the weapon as she spoke, and saw too the angry glint in the fellow's eye as he thrust the muzzle menacingly forward. As we stood thus, glaring at each other, a sudden remembrance made me pause. "Sau-ga-nash"?—surely it was neither more nor less than a Wyandot expression signifying "Englishman." That broad face was not wholly Indian; could this be the half-breed chief of whom I had so often heard? 'Twas worth the chance to learn.
"You are Sau-ga-nash?" I asked, slowly, Toinette still clinging to me, her face over her shoulder to front the silent savage. "A chief of the Wyandots?"
He moved his head slightly, with a mutter of acquiescence, his eyes expressing wonder at the question.
"The same whom the Americans name Billy Caldwell?"
"'T is the word used by the whites."
I drew a quick breath of relief, which caused Mademoiselle to release her grasp a little, as her anxious eyes sought my face for explanation.