me so sorely with her caprices, her quick change of mood, her odd
mixture of girlish frankness and womanly reserve, that I knew not which
might prove the real Toinette,--the one to trust, or the one to doubt.
So I stood there, clasping her soft hands in mine, my heart throbbing,
yet my tongue hesitating to perform its office. But at last the
halting words came in a sudden, irrepressible rush.

"Toinette!" I cried, "Toinette! I could forget all else,--our danger
here, the horrors of the night just passed, the many dead out
yonder,--all else but you."

She gave a sudden startled cry, her affrighted eyes gazing across my
shoulder. I wheeled, with quick intuition of dangers and there, just
within the entrance of the tepee, the flap of which he had let fall
behind him, in grave silence stood an Indian.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE PLEDGE OF A WYANDOT

A single glance told me who our unwelcome visitor must be. That giant
body, surmounted by the huge broad face, could belong to none other
than the Wyandot, Sau-ga-nash,--him who had spoken for the warriors of
this tribe before the torture-stake. He stood erect and rigid, his
stern, questioning eyes upon us, his lips a thin line of repression.
With a quick movement, I thrust the girl behind me, and faced him,
motionless, but with every muscle strained for action. The Indian
spoke slowly, and used perfect English.

"Ugh!" he said. "Who are you? A prisoner? Surely you cannot be that
same Frenchman we helped entertain last night?"

"I am not the Frenchman," I answered deliberately, vainly hoping his
watchful eyes might wander about the lodge long enough to yield me
chance for a spring at his throat, "though I was one of his party. I
only came here to bring comfort to this poor girl."

"No doubt she needs it," he replied drily, "and your way is surely a
good one. Yet I doubt if Little Sauk would approve it, and as his
friend, I must speak for him in the matter. Do you say you are also a
prisoner? To what chief?"

"To none," I answered shortly, resolved now to venture all in a trial
of strength. He read this decision in my eyes, and stepped back
warily. At the same instant Toinette flung her arms restrainingly
about my neck.

"Don't, John!" she urged, using my name thus for the first time; "the
savage has a gun hidden beneath his robe!"

I saw the weapon as she spoke, and saw too the angry glint in the
fellow's eye as he thrust the muzzle menacingly forwar