De Repentigny had honor and truth in him, and could be entirely trusted if he promised to serve a friend. But Bigot dared not name to him a matter of this kind. He would spurn it, drunk as he was. He was still in all his instincts a gentleman and a soldier. He could only be used by Bigot through an abuse of his noblest qualities. He dared not broach such a scheme to Le Gardeur de Repentigny!
Among his associates there was but one who, in spite of his brutal manners and coarse speech, perhaps because of these, Bigot would trust as a friend, to help him in a serious emergency like the present.
Cadet, the Commissary General of New France, was faithful to Bigot as a fierce bull-dog to his master. Cadet was no hypocrite, nay, he may have appeared to be worse than in reality he was. He was bold and outspoken, rapacious of other men's goods, and as prodigal of his own. Clever withal, fearless, and fit for any bold enterprise. He ever allowed himself to be guided by the superior intellect of Bigot, whom he regarded as the prince of good fellows, and swore by him, profanely enough, on all occasions, as the shrewdest head and the quickest hand to turn over money in New France.
Bigot could trust Cadet. He had only to whisper a few words in his ear to see him jump up from the table where he was playing cards, dash his stakes with a sweep of his hand into the lap of his antagonist, a gift or a forfeit, he cared not which, for not finishing the game. In three minutes Cadet was booted, with his heavy riding-whip in his hand ready to mount his horse and accompany Bigot “to Beaumanoir or to hell,” he said, “if he wanted to go there.”
In the short space of time, while the grooms saddled their horses, Bigot drew Cadet aside and explained to him the situation of his affairs, informing him, in a few words, who the lady was who lived in such retirement in the Château, and of his denial of the fact before the Council and Governor. He told him of the letters of the King and of La Pompadour respecting Caroline, and of the necessity of removing her at once far out of reach before the actual search for her was begun.
Cadet's cynical eyes flashed in genuine sympathy with Bigot, and he laid his heavy hand upon his shoulder and uttered a frank exclamation of admiration at his ruse to cheat La Pompadour and La Galissonière both.
“By St. Picot!” said he, “I would rather go without dinner for a month than you should not have asked me, Bigot, to help you out of this scrape. What if you did lie to that fly-catching beggar at the Castle of St. Louis, who has not conscience to take a dishonest stiver from a cheating Albany Dutchman! Where was the harm in it? Better lie to him than tell the truth to La Pompadour about that girl! Egad! Madame Fish would serve you as the Iroquois served my fat clerk at Chouagen—make roast meat of you—if she knew it! Such a pother about a girl! Damn the women, always, I say, Bigot! A man is never out of hot water when he has to do with them!”
Striking Bigot's hand hard with his own, he promised; wet or dry, through flood or fire, to ride with him to Beaumanoir, and take the girl, or lady,—he begged the Intendant's pardon,—and by such ways as he alone knew he would, in two days, place her safely among the Montagnais, and order them at once, without an hour's delay, to pull up stakes and remove their wigwams to the tuque of the St. Maurice, where Satan himself could not find her. And the girl might remain there for seven years without ever being heard tell of by any white person in the Colony.
Bigot and Cadet rode rapidly forward until they came to the dark forest, where the faint outline of road, barely visible, would have perplexed Bigot to have kept it alone in the night. But Cadet was born in Charlebourg; he knew every path, glade, and dingle in the forest of Beaumanoir, and rode on without drawing bridle.
Bigot, in his fiery eagerness, had hitherto ridden foremost. Cadet now led the way, dashing under the boughs of the great trees that overhung the road. The tramp of their horses woke the echoes of the woods. But they were not long in reaching the park of Beaumanoir.