and I was so tired, and you talked to
me--something good--I cannot remember what it was, but I know that you
were good. And I thought that I--that I said words that hurt you,
unkind words. And when I wished and tried to speak as I felt, only the
other words would come. That was a dream, M'sieu, was it not? It has
been troubling me. You have been so kind, and I could not sleep
thinking that--that--"

"Yes," he said, "that was a dream."

She looked at him with relief, but as she looked she seemed to become
more fully awake to what they were saying. Her eyes lowered again, and
the red came over her face.

"I am glad," she said, so low that he hardly heard.

"And now you will rest, Mademoiselle?"

She smiled softly, and drew back within the hut, closing the heavy
door. And Menard turned away, unmindful of the wide-eyed boys who were
staring from a safe distance at him and at the door where the strange
woman had appeared. He sat with his back against the logs of the hut,
and looked at the ants that hurried about over the trampled ground.

The sun was high when he was aroused by Teganouan, who had spent the
greater part of the morning among the people of the village.

"Have you any word, Teganouan?"

"Yes. The warriors have learned of the strength of the Big Buffalo,
and his name frightens them. They bow to the great chief who has
killed the Long Arrow without a hatchet. They say that the Onondagas
should be punished for their treachery."

"Good."

"Teganouan has been talking long with a runner of the Seneca nation."

"Ah, he brings word of the fight?"

"Yes. The Senecas have suffered under the iron hand of the Great
Mountain. A great army takes up the hatchet when he goes on the
war-path, more than all the Senecas and Cayugas and Onondagas together
when every brave who can hold in his hand a bow or a musket has come
to fight with his brothers. There were white warriors so many that the
runner could not have counted them with all the sticks in the Long
House. There were men of the woods in the skins and beads of the
redmen; there were Hurons and Ottawas and Nipissings, and even the
cowardly Illinois and the Kaskaskias and the Miamis from the land
where the Great River flows past the Rock Demons. The Senecas fought
with the strength of the she-bear, but their warriors were killed,
their corn was trampled and cut, their lodges were burned."

"Did the Great Mountain pursue them?"

"He has gone back to his ston