“Did the Governor have much trouble with the Senecas?”
“Oh, he had to fight for it. He was––My God, Menard, what about the girl? I was so shaken up at meeting you like this that it got away from me. The column had hardly 370 got to the fort on their way up from Montreal before everyone was asking for you. La Grange had a letter from her father saying that she was with you, and he’s been in a bad way. He says that he was to have married her, and that you’ve got away with her. It serves him right, the beast. One night, at La Famine, he was drunk, and he came around to all of us reading that letter at the top of his voice and swearing to kill you the moment he sees you. He’s been talking a good deal about that.”
“She is here, asleep.”
“Thank God.”
“Where is La Grange now?”
“He’s over at Frontenac. He got into trouble before we left La Famine. He’s drinking hard now, you know. He had command of a company that was working on the stockades, and he made such a muss of it that his sergeant had to take hold and handle it to get the work done at all. You can imagine what bad feeling that made in his company. Played the devil with his discipline. Well, he took it like a child. But that night, when he got a little loose on his legs, he hunted up the sergeant and made him fight. The fellow wouldn’t until La Grange came at him with 371 his sword, but then he cracked his head with a musket.”
“Hurt him?”
“Yes. They took him up to Frontenac. He’s in the hospital now, but it’s pretty generally understood that d’Orvilliers won’t let him go out until the Governor gets back from Niagara. He’s well enough already, they say. It’s hard on the sergeant, too; no one blames him.”
Du Peron looked around and saw Teganouan lying near.
“Who’s this Indian?” he asked in a low tone.