*I have witnessed this.—V. R.
Without the circle the squaws fought and quarrelled over the portion of liquor doled out to them by their lords, and their clamour was worse than the rest.
No sleep came to the two white men lying at the foot of a tree to the west of the camp, with a guard pacing slowly between them and liberty.
Instead, thoughts were seething like dalle's foam in the mind of each.
If only this giant guard might drink deep enough of the libations of the others,—who knew?—there might be the faint chance of escape for which they had watched ceaselessly since leaving Red River.
But, with the irony of fate, this one Indian became the model warrior of the tribe. As the confusion and uproar grew in intensity, one after another joined the dancing circle, until it seemed that every brave in the camp was leaping around the fire. Blue-eyed Indians, Bois-Brules, Nakonkirhirinons, they circled and uttered the monotonous “Ah-a, ah-a,” and in the light could be seen the white lock on the temple of Bois DesCaut.
“I should have killed him long ago,” thought McElroy simply, “as one kills a wolf,—for the good of the settlement.”
As they lay watching the unearthly orgy at the fire a plan slowly took shape in McElroy's mind. They were unbound as they had been for many days, the silent guard proving sufficient surety for their retention, and they were two to one in the wild confusion of the growing excitement. What easier than a swift grapple in the dusk, one man locked in combat with the sentinel and one lost in the forest and the night? It was a desperate chance, but they were desperate men with the post, the hatchet, and the matete before them. As the thought grew it took on proportions of possibility and the factor threw up his head with the old motion, shaking out of his eyes the falling sun-burnt hair.
“M'sieu,” he said, in a low voice, carefully modulated to the careless tone of weary speech which was their habit of nights; “M'sieu, I have a plan.”
The cavalier looked up quickly.