at me fully, with no fear in her eyes, but with quick,
intelligent concern. She stood beside me in the dusk, as wife should
stand with husband, and feared for my safety and forgot her own. Yet I
dared not touch her hand. I lifted my sword and slammed it in its
scabbard.

"There is no danger," I said, with stupid brusqueness. "I am
over-anxious. I bid you good-night, madame."

I went to the Malhominis with haste pushing me, for I hoped for news of
Starling. I pressed forward, yet I recoiled. There would be
cross-threads to untangle when I met my wife's cousin.

It was wonderful voyaging to the Malhominis. Their village was near
the mouth of a river, and they were close bound with great rice swamps
that gave them their name. Our low canoe burrowed through a tunnel of
green as we nosed our way up to their camp. Birds fluttered in the
tangle, and fish bubbled to the surface under our paddles. I did not
wonder that I found the tribe as well fed as summer beavers. But I
learned nothing from them. They were a good-natured people, as running
over with talk as idle women, and they assured me that I was the first
white man they had seen since the moon of worms. We talked of the
Huron situation at Michillimackinac, but they said nothing of having
seen a warrior of that tribe, so I made sure that Pemaou had not been
with them. I swallowed relief and disappointment. They said that a
small company of Sacs was encamped to the north, and that Father Nouvel
was with them. So after a few days I went on.

A waft of fetid air on a hot day will bring the smell of that Sac camp
to me even now. The Sacs were a migratory, brutish people, who
snatched at life red-handed and growling, and as I squatted in their
dirty hovels, I lost, like a dropped garment, all sense of the wonder
and freedom of my wilderness life. Suddenly all the forest seemed
squalid, and a longing for the soft ease and cleanliness of
civilization came on me like a wave. But I hid the feeling, and
lingered, though my welcome was but slight. Even my small cask of
brandy failed to buy their smiles, and it was only when I talked of war
that they listened. They were a useless people on the water, for they
could not handle canoes, but land warfare was their meat. So I talked
long.

I found Father Nouvel among them, his delicate old face shining white
and serene amid their grime. I fell upon him eagerly, but he could
tell me nothing. He had left the Po