is speculations concerning
the cravat as spoil stripped from some slain officer of rank.

The two women met in the open space, with the rifles of how many
keen-sighted, capricious savages leveled toward the spot Demere hardly
dared to think, as he watched Odalie in a sort of agony of terror that
he might have felt had she been a cherished sister. They stood talking
for a time in the attitudes and the manner of their age, which was near
the same, swinging a little apart now and then, and coming together with
suddenly renewed interest, and again, with free, casual gestures, and
graceful, unconstrained pose, they both laughed, and seemed to take a
congenial pleasure in their meeting. They sat down for a time on a bit
of grass,--the sward springing anew, since it was so little trodden in
these days, and with a richness that blood might have added to its
vigor. Odalie answered, with apparent unsuspiciousness, certain shrewd
questions concerning the armament of the fort, the store of ammunition,
the quantity of provisions, the manner in which Stuart and Demere
continued to bear themselves, the expectation held out to the garrison
of relief from any quarter,--questions which she was sure had never
originated in the brain of Choo-qualee-qualoo, but had been prompted by
the craft of Willinawaugh. Odalie, too, had been carefully prompted, and
Stuart's anticipatory answers were very definitely delivered, as of her
own volition. Then they passed to casual chatting, to the presentation
of a bauble which Odalie had brought, and which seemed to touch
Choo-qualee-qualoo to the point of detailing as gossip the fact that
the attack on the white people had been intended to begin at MacLeod
Station, Willinawaugh retaining so much resentment against the Scotchman
to whom he had granted safe-conduct, thinking him French, when he only
had a French squaw as a captive. Savanukah, who really spoke French, had
made capital of it, and had rendered Willinawaugh's pretensions
ridiculous in the eyes of the nation, for Willinawaugh had always
boasted, to Savanukah at least, that he understood French, although it
was beneath his dignity to speak it. This was done to reduce Savanukah's
linguistic achievements, and to put him in the position of a mere
interpreter of such people, when Savanukah was a great warrior, and yet
could speak many languages, like the famous Baron Des Johnnes. And what
was there now at MacLeod Station? Nothing: stockade, houses, fi