The boy half turned his head.
“You will stay here and play the man. You will go on with your duties; though, if the old 107 arrangement be too hard, I will be your master in the Iroquois study, leaving Mademoiselle to Father Claude. And now you must return to the camp and get what sleep you can. Heaven knows we may have little enough between here and Frontenac. Come.”
He got up, and walked to the camp, without looking around. Danton lingered until the Captain’s tall figure was blending with the shadows of the forest, then he went after.
During the following day they got as far as the group of islands at the head of Lake St. Francis. Wherever possible Menard was now selecting islands or narrow points for the camp, where, in case of a night attack, defence would be a simple problem for his few men. Also, each night, he had the men spread a circle of cut boughs around the camp at a little distance, so that none could approach without some slight noise. Another night saw the party at the foot of Petit Chesneaux, just above Pointe Maligne.
While Perrot was preparing the supper, and Danton, with the voyageurs, was unpacking the bales, Menard took his musket and strode off into the forest. There was seldom a morning now that the maid did not have for her breakfast 108 a morsel of game which the Captain’s musket had brought down.
Note.––By this picture-writing the Long Arrow (of the clan of the Beaver) tells the Beaver (of the same clan) that he has taken up the hatchet against the party in the canoe, and he asks the Beaver to assist him. The parallel zigzag lines under the long arrow tell that he is travelling by the river, and the two straight lines under these that he has two warriors with him. The attack is to be made in either three or four sleeps, or days, as indicated by the three finished huts and one unfinished.
The Beaver has seen this sign, as shown by his signature at the bottom. The seventeen slanting lines under the foot mean that he has seventeen warriors and they are travelling on foot, southward, as shown by the fact that the lines slope toward the sun.
That the figures in the canoe are French is shown by their hats. The priest has no paddle, the maid is represented with long hair.
In half an hour he returned, and sought Father Claude; and after a few low words the two set off. Menard led the way through thicket and timber growth, over a low hill, and down into a hollow, where a well-defined Indian trail crossed a brook. Here was a large sugar maple tree standing in a narrow opening in the thicket. Menard struck a light, and held up a torch so that the priest could make out a blaze-mark on the tree.
“See,” said Menard. “It is on the old trail. I saw it by the merest chance.”
Father Claude bent forward, with his eyes 109 close to the inscription that had been painted on the white inner bark, with charcoal and bear’s grease.