eed been far. He
has followed the track of the forest wolf that stole the child of the
Onondagas. He has found the bold, the brave white warrior, who stole
away in the night, robbing Tegakwita of what is dearer to him than the
beating of his heart."

The maid stood again in the doorway, resting a hand on the post, and
leaning forward with startled eyes.

"He has found--he has found him--" she faltered.

The Indian did not look at her. He drew something from the breast of
his shirt, and threw it on the ground at Menard's feet. Then, with
broken-hearted dignity, he strode away and disappeared in the night.

Father Claude stooped, and picked up the object. Dimly in the
firelight they could see it,--two warm human scalps, the one of brown
hair knotted to the other of black. Menard took them in his hand.

"Poor boy!" he said, over and over. "Poor boy!"

He looked toward the door, but the maid had gone inside.

CHAPTER X.

A NIGHT COUNCIL.

The night crept by, as had the day, wearily.

The two men sat in the doorway or walked slowly back and forth across
the front of the hut, saying little. The Captain was calling to mind
every incident of their capture, and of the original trouble between
La Grange and the hunting party. He went over the conversation with
Major Provost at Quebec word by word, until he felt sure in his
authority as the Governor's representative; although the written
orders in the leather bag that hung from his neck were concerned only
with his duties in preparing Fort Frontenac for the advancing
column,--duties that he had not fulfilled.

A plan was forming in his mind which would make strong demands on the
good faith of Major Provost and the Governor. He knew, as every old
soldier knows, that governments and rulers are thankless, that even
written authority is none too binding, if to make it good should
inconvenience those who so easily give it. He knew further that if he
should succeed now in staying the Onondagas and Cayugas by pledges
which, perchance, it might not please Governor Denonville to observe,
the last frail ties that held the Iroquois to the French would be
broken, and England would reign from the Hudson to the river of the
Illinois. And he sighed, as he had sighed many times before, for the
old days under Frontenac, under the only Governor of New France who
could hold these slippery redskins to their obligations.

"Father," he said finally, "I begin to see a way."

"Th