“Into the hut with it, and the others, there. If a chance does come,––well, it may be that we shall yet be reduced to holding the hut. These will serve to barricade the door.”
They were not disturbed while they rolled the short logs within and piled them at one side of the door, where they could not be seen from the path.
“Quietly, Father,” whispered the Captain. He knew that the maid lay sleeping, back among the shadows. “And the presents,––you have packed them away?”
“In my bundle, M’sieu. They will not be harmed.”
They returned to the open air, and looked about anxiously for signs of a movement toward the hut; but the irregular street was silent. Here and there, from the opening in the roof of some low building of bark and logs, rose a light smoke.
“They are all at the dance,” said Menard. His memory supplied the picture: the great fire, now sunk to heaps of gray ashes, spread over the ground by the feet of those younger braves who had wished to show their hardihood by treading barefoot on the embers; the 215 circle of grunting figures, leaning forward, hatchet and musket in hand, moving slowly around the fire with a shuffling, hopping step; the outer circle of sitting or lying figures, men, women, and children, drunken, wanton, quarrelsome, dreaming of the blood that should be let before the sun had gone; and at one side the little group of old men, beating their drums of wood and skin with a rhythm that never slackened.
The song grew louder, and broke at short intervals into shouts and cries, punctuated with musket-shots.
“They are coming, M’sieu.”
The head of the line, still stepping in the slow movement of the dance, appeared at some distance up the path. The Long Arrow was in front, in full war-paint, and wearing the collar of wampum beads. Beside him was the Beaver. The line advanced, two and two, steadily toward the lodge of the white men.
Menard leaned against the door-post and watched them. His figure was relaxed, his face composed.