"Speak, Follet," he urged. "Take a long breath and you'll get it out. Something's tried your nerves!"
"Ah!" gasped the Fool between his chattering teeth. "I have been frightened. I have been frightened." He crossed himself a score of times and shut out an imaginary vision by holding claw-like fingers before his great, staring eyes.
"Speak out," ordered Dunvegan sternly. "Where have you been all day? I haven't seen you since Pierre Lazard put you out of the Mission House this morning."
"In the Black Forest," answered the dwarf. "I went in a canoe to be alone, for they put me out of the chapel. Who was it? Oh, yes, old Pierre. I will remember that. I went in a canoe and I saw a devil."
"What was it?" asked Bruce, smiling.
"I—I forget." Gaspard beat his forehead in a vain attempt at recollection.
The chief trader was well acquainted with the Fool's frequent pilgrimages here and there, his harmless adventures, his constant lapses of memory. Where others sometimes doubted, he believed Follet's imbecility was genuine. Else why was it kept up?
"You had better do your wandering within the stockades," he advised. "The woods aren't altogether safe for pleasure jaunts."
"Who would harm a silly head?" mumbled Gaspard.
"That's no protection. Your head might be taken off first and its sanity inquired into afterwards. That's a peculiar habit these roaming Nor'westers have."