“Ah!” he said; “a plan? Of what,—conduct at the stake? The etiquette of the ceremony of the Feast of Flame?”
“Peace!” replied McElroy sternly; “you jest, M'sieu. We are in sore straits and a drowning man snatches at straws. It is this. The fire of liquor is rising out there. Hear it in the rising note of the blended voices. How long, think you, will they be content with the dance and the chanting, the tom-toms and the empty fire? How long before we are dragged in, to be the centre of affairs? In this plan of mine there is room for one of us, a bare chance of escape. This guard behind,—he is a powerful man, but, with every warrior wild in the circling mass yonder, he might be engaged for the moment needed for one to dart into the darkness and take to the river. Once there, the mercy of night and bending bushes might aid him. What think you?”
“Truly 'tis worth the try. My blood answers the risk. At the most it would but hasten things. But give the word and we'll at it.”
“Nay,—we must understand each other, lest we bungle. As the plan was mine, I take the choice of parts. There is a stain upon my conscience, M'sieu.” McElroy spoke simply from his heart, as was his wont. “Throughout this long journey it has lain heavy. Though I hold against you one grave offence, yet I grieve deeply that it was through my hasty anger you were brought to such sorry plight. As I am at fault, so would I heal that fault. This the way I find given me. When I spring for our friend of the painted feather, do you, M'sieu, waiting for nothing, take to the bush with all the speed there is in you. And before we part know that, were we free, I would punish you as man to man for that moment before the gate of De Seviere with all pleasure.”
“Ah! You refer to Ma'amselle Le Moyne? By what right?”
“By the right of love, whose advances were more than half-reciprocated before the advent of your accursed red flowers,—the right of man to fight for his woman.”
“Nom de Dieu!” De Courtenay threw back his head and laughed, the flecks of light from the fire flittering across his handsome features. “You speak a lost cause, my friend! She was mine since that first morning by your well when the high head bent to my hand. What a woman she is,—Maid of the Long Trail, Spirit of the Woods and Lakes! A lioness with a dove's heart! I have seen the Queen of the World in this God-forsaken wilderness; therefore is it worth while.”
“Stop!” cried McElroy sharply; “let the old wound be. Only make ready to act at once.”
“Aye,—I am ready now.”
“Then rise with me,—swiftly as possible,—when I count to three. One—”