row from the
Huron, for one that should be aimed with deadlier intent.

For I realized that Pemaou was not doing his best, and, since I had
seen hate in his eyes, this clemency troubled me. I wondered if he
were a decoy, and if some one were coming upon me from the rear, and I
stopped and stared at him with defiance, only to see that he was
looking, not at me, nor at the attentive audience around us, but over
my head at the council fire.

Then, indeed, the truth clapped me in the face, and I could have
laughed aloud to think what a puppet I had been, just when I was
comforting my vanity with my own shrewdness. Of course, Pemaou would
spare me, and so prolong the game. As the son of the leader of the
Hurons, he had more to learn from Longuant's speech than I. We were
playing with the same cards, but his stakes were the larger. I
suddenly realized that I was enjoying myself more than in a long time.

But the test was to come. When Pemaou had heard all he wished, he
would aim the spear at my throat, and so, though I threw negligently, I
watched like a starved cat. I heard the council agree upon a decisive
measure, and I knew that the Huron's moment had arrived. He seized it.
His spear whistled at me like a bullet, but my muscles were braced and
waiting. I caught the weapon, and held it, though the wood ate into my
palms. The savages told the Huron in a derisive roar that the
Frenchman was the better man.

And now it was my turn. So far I had thrown fair, without twist or
trickery, but I knew one turn of the wrist that could do cruel work.
Should I use it? Pemaou had tried to murder me. I looked at his
red-and-white body, and reptile eyes, and hate rushed to my brain like
liquor. I took the spear and snapped it.

"Take your plaything!" I cried, and I tossed the fragments in his face.
"Learn to use it if you care for a whole skin, for I promise you that
we shall meet again." And turning my back on him, I strode out of the
Ottawa camp the richer by some information, and one foe.

CHAPTER V

A DECISION

I found Cadillac in his private room at the fort, and said to myself that
he looked like a man stripped for running. Not that his apparel had
altered since I had met him swaggering upon the beach the day before, but
his bearing had changed. He had dropped superfluities, and was hardened
and sinewed for action.

I expected him to rate me for my tardiness in reporting my interview with
the Engli