ounded over the fire and
struck him with all my strength full in the face. At that, instead of
knifing me as an Indian ordinarily would, he broke into hyena shrieks of
laughter. He, who has heard that sound, need hear it only once to have
the echo ring forever in his ears; and I have heard it oft and know it
well.

"Spy! Sneak!" I muttered, rushing upon him. But he sprang back into the
forest and vanished. In dodging me, he let fall his fowling-piece, which
went off with a bang into the fire.

"Hulloo! What's wrong out there?" bawled the trader's voice from the
tent.

"Nothing--false alarm!" I called reassuringly. Then there caught my eyes
what startled me out of all presence of mind. There, reflecting the
glare of the firelight was the Indian's fowling-piece, richly mounted in
burnished silver and chased in the rare design of Eric Hamilton's family
crest. The morose canoeman was Le Grand Diable.

* * * * *

A few hours later, I was in the thick of a confused re-embarking. Le
Grand Diable took a place in another boat; and a fresh hand was assigned
to my canoe. Of that I was glad; I could sleep sounder and he, safer.
The _Bourgeois_ complained that too much rum had been given out.

"Keep a stiffer hand on your men, boy, or they'll ride over your head,"
one of the chief traders remarked to me.

CHAPTER VI

A GIRDLE OF AGATES RECALLED

To unravel a ball of yarn, with which kittens have been making cobwebs,
has always seemed to me a much easier task than to unknot the tangled
skein of confused influences, that trip up our feet at every step in
life's path. Here was I, who but a month ago had a supreme contempt for
guile and a lofty confidence in uprightness and downrightness,
transformed into a crafty trader with all the villainous tricks of the
bargain-maker at my finger-tips. We had befooled Louis into a betrayal
of his associates but how much reliance could be placed on that
betrayal? Had he incriminated Diable to save himself? Then, why had
Diable rescued his betrayer? Where was Louis in hiding? Was the Sioux
wife with her white slave really in the north country, or was she near,
and did that explain my morose Iroquois' all-night vigils? We had
cheated Laplante; but had he in turn cheated us? Would I be justified in
taking Diable prisoner, and would my company consent to the
demoralization of their crews by such a step? Ah, if life were only made
up of simple right and