hair's-breadth of the Indian's head. Both men were dumb with amazement.
Such treachery would have been surprising among the barbarous tribes of
the Athabasca. The Sault was the dividing line between Canada and the
Wilderness, between the east and the west, and there were no hostiles
within a thousand miles of us. Little Fellow would have dragged me
pell-mell back to the beach, but I needed no persuasion. La Robe Noire
tore ahead with the springs of a hunted lynx. Little Fellow loyally kept
between me and a possible pursuer, and we set off at a hard run. That
creature, I fancied, was again coursing along beneath the undergrowth;
for the foliage bent and rose as we ran. Whether it were man or beast,
we were three against one, and could drive it out of hiding.

"See here, Little Fellow!" I cried, "Let's hunt that thing out!" and I
wheeled about so sharply the chunky little man crashed forward, knocking
me off my feet and sending me a man's length farther on.

That fall saved my life. A flat spear point hissed through the air
above my head and stuck fast in the bark of an elm tree. Scrambling up,
I promptly let go two or three shots into the fern brake. We scrutinized
the underbrush, but there was no sign of human being, except the fern
stems broken by my shots. I wrenched the stone spear-head from the tree.
It was curiously ornamented with such a multitude of intricate carvings
I could not decipher any design. Then I discovered that the medley of
colors was produced by inlaying the flint with small bits of a bright
stone; and the bright stones had been carved into a rude likeness of
some birds.

"What are these birds, Little Fellow?" I asked.

He fingered them closely, and with bulging eyes muttered back, "L'Aigle!
L'Aigle!"

"Eagles, are they?" I returned, stupidly missing the possible meaning of
his suppressed excitement. "And the stone?"

"Agate, _Monsieur_."

Agate! Agate! What picture did agate call back to my mind? A big squaw,
with malicious eyes and gaping upper lip and girdle of agates, watching
Louis Laplante and myself at the encampment in the gorge.

"Little Fellow!" I shouted, not suppressing my excitement. "Who is Le
Grand Diable's wife?"

And the Indian answered in a low voice, with a face that showed me he
had already penetrated my discovery, "The daughter of L'Aigle, chief of
the Sioux."

Then I knew for whom those missiles had been intended and from whom they
had come. It was a clever piece