After a long while the voice of Mount recalled me to myself; he had drawn poor Renard to a seat on the rotting steps of the porch.
"Now do you know me, Cade?" asked Mount, again and again.
The Weasel folded his withered hands in his lap and looked up, solemnly.
"Cade? Cade, old friend?" persisted Mount, piteously, drawing his great arm about the Weasel's stooping shoulders.
The Weasel's solemn eyes met his in silence.
Mount forced a cheerful laugh that rang false in the darkness.
"What! Forget the highway, Cade? The King's highway, old friend? The moon at the cross-roads? Eh? You remember? Say you remember, Cade."
The blank eyes of the Weasel were fixed on Mount.
"The forest? Eh, Cade? Ho!—lad! The rank smell o' the moss, and the stench of rotting logs? The quiet in the woods, the hermit-bird piping in the pines? Say you remember, old friend!" he begged; "tell me you remember! Ho! lad, have you forgot the tune the war-arrow sings?"