ter Father Claude had gone, watched the Captain for a long
time through the open door. The conversation with the Long Arrow, on
the night of their capture, had been burned into her memory; and now,
as she looked at Menard's drawn face and weary eyes, the picture came
to her again of the Long Arrow sitting by the river in the dim light
of the stars,--and of the white man who had fought for her, lying
before him, gazing upward and speaking with a calm voice to the stern
chief who wished to kill him. Then, in spite of the excitement, the
danger, and exhaustion of the fight, it had seemed that the Captain
could not long be held by this savage. His stern manner, his command,
had given her a confidence which had, until this moment, strengthened
her. But now, of a sudden, she saw in his eyes the look of a man who
sees no way ahead. This quarrel with the Long Arrow was no matter of
open warfare, even of race against race; it was an eye for an eye, the
demand of a crazed father for the life of the slayer of his son. That
she could do nothing, that she must sit feebly while he went to his
death, came to her with a dead sense of pain.

With a restless spirit she went out of doors, passing him with a
little smile; but he did not look up. A group of passing youths
stopped and jeered at him, but he did not give them a glance. She
shrank back against the building until they had gone on.

"Do not mind them, Mademoiselle," said Menard, quietly. "They will not
harm you."

She hesitated by his side, half in mind to speak to him, to tell him
that she knew his trouble, and had faith in him, but his bowed head
was forbidding in its solitude. All about the hut, under the spreading
trees, was a stretch of coarse green sod, dotted with tiny yellow
flowers and black-centred daisies. She wandered over the grass,
gathering them until her hands were full. Two red boys came by, and
paused to cry at her, taunting her as if she, too, were to meet the
fate of a war captive. The thought made her shudder, but then, on an
impulse, she called to them in their own language. They looked at each
other in surprise. She walked toward them, laying down the flowers,
and holding out her hand. A little later, when Menard looked up, he
saw her sitting beneath a gnarled oak, a boy on either side eagerly
watching her. She was talking and laughing with them, and teaching
them to make a screeching pipe with grass-blades held between the
thumbs. He envied her her elas