. His great wig, of a fashion
years gone by, was pulled grotesquely aside, showing the high forehead and
shaven crown beneath; his laced coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled
shirt were torn and foul with mud and mould, but the man himself made to
be forgotten the absurdity of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his
captors, his accomplice, the spectator in gold and russet; to Haward,
also, sitting very cold, very quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone.
He was angered, and in the mood to give rein after his own fashion to that
anger. MacLean and the master of Westover, the overseer and the
schoolmaster, were forgotten, and he and Hugon met alone as they might
have met in the forest. Between them, and without a spoken word, the two
made this fact to be recognized by the other occupants of the
drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, who had been standing with his hand upon the
table, moved backward until he joined MacLean beside the closed door:
Saunderson drew near to the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was
left to the would-be murderer and the victim that had escaped him.

"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward.

Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his
arms.

Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the
white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white
father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead
leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried
it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?"

"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"--

"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I,
dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay
a snare and hide a trail."

The trader, gasping with passion, leaned across the table until his eyes
were within a foot of Haward's unmoved face. "Who showed you the trail and
told you of the snare?" he whispered. "Tell me that, you
Englishman,--tell me that!"

"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his
Monacans, and sent it."

"Was it Audrey?"

Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself
fallen into the pit which you digged."

From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you
show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm
bird? Can you whistle it before a just