In a few minutes, during which the mist was clearing under the rays of the sun, the two canoes together came around a wooded point and beached. The Indians walked silently to the fire. They appeared not to see Danton and the maid. Menard paused to look over his canoe. It was leaking badly, and before joining the group at the fire, he set the canoemen at work making a new patch.
“The Indians walked silently to the fire.”
“Danton,” he said, in a low tone, when he reached the fire, “find the Father.”
Danton hurried away, and Menard turned to the largest of the three Indians, who wore the brightest blanket, and had a peculiar wampum collar, decorated in mosaic-like beadwork.
“You are travellers, like ourselves,” he said, in the Iroquois tongue. “We cannot let you pass without a word of greeting. I see that you are of the Onondagas, my brothers. It may be that you are from the Mission at the Sault St. Francis Xavier?”
The Indian bowed. “We go from Three Rivers to Montreal.”
“I, too, am taking my party to Montreal.” Menard thought it wise to withhold the further facts of his journey. “Have you brothers at Three Rivers?”