der that they felt arrogant and unassailable. Now was indeed
our time.

Our ranks were formed, and I looked them over man by man. Each savage
carried a bag with ten pounds of maize flour, a light covering, a bow
and arrows, or a fusee. The Winnebagoes I had put well in the lead,
for they were protected by great shields of dried buffalo skin. I
tried one of the skin shields and found it like iron. It would turn a
hatchet.

Cadillac's bugler sounded the call and we started. The late sun was
unclouded and warm, and the smell of paint and breath and unwashed
bodies filled my lungs. The stench was hot and brutish in my nostrils,
and it was the smell of war.

So long as daylight lasted we moved with some regularity in spite of
the rough ground. Then, knowing we were drawing nearer the Senecas, we
began to slip from tree to tree. The Indians did this like phantoms,
and the French troops imitated. Three hundred men went through the
forest, and sometimes a twig cracked. There was no other sound. We
went for some time. We heard owls hoot around us, and knew they might
be watch cries. Still we went on. We went till I felt the ground rise
steadily under my groping feet. The Seneca stronghold was on an
eminence. I gave the signal to drop where we were and wait for day.

We melted into the shadows, and lay rigid while the stars looked down.
The savage next me slept. His war club lay by his side and I felt of
it in the dark. It was made of a deer's horn, shaped like a cutlass;
it had a large ball at the end. The ball was heavy and jagged, and
would crush a skull.

There were hundreds of such clubs. In a few hours they would be in
use. And the woman was in camp.

My right arm was free from the sling and I dug my hands together. I
could feel the blood running in my palms, and I checked myself. If I
injured my hands how could I save the woman?

But nothing could save the woman.

I had given commands to spare all whites and to torture no one. But
Pierre was right. I was a fool to have pretended, even to myself, that
I thought the savages listened.

A fool can do harm enough, but a cowardly, soft-hearted man is the most
dangerous of knaves. I might have killed Pemaou when I threw the spear
at him; I might have killed him the night before my wedding in the
Pottawatamie camp. I had withheld my hand because it was disagreeable
to me to kill. And now the woman's life was to pay the forfeit of my
lax sof