diated. For
my part, I have always thanked God for that leveling influence of the
west. It pulls the fools from high places and awards only one
crown--merit.

It was Little Fellow who had brought Father Holland, wounded and
insensible, from the Sioux camp.

"What of Louis Laplante's body, Little Fellow?" I asked, as soon as I
had seen all the others set out for the settlement with Father Holland
lying unconscious in the bottom of the canoe.

"The white man, I buried in the earth as the white men do--deep in the
clay to the roots of the willow, so I buried the Frenchman," answered
the Indian. "And the squaw, I weighted with stones at her feet; for they
trod on the captives. And with stones I weighted her throat, which was
marked like the deer's when the mountain cat springs. With the stones at
her throat and her feet, the squaw, I rolled into the water."

"What, Little Fellow," I cried, remembering how I had seen him roll over
and over through the camp-fire, with his hands locked on the Sioux
woman's throat, "did you kill the daughter of L'Aigle?"

"Non, _Monsieur_; Little Fellow no bad Indian. But the squaw threw a
flint and the flint was poison, and my hands were on her throat, and the
squaw fell into the ashes, and when Little Fellow arose she was dead.
Did she not slay La Robe Noire? Did she not slay the white man before
Monsieur's eyes? Did she not bind the white woman? Did she not drag me
over the ground like a dead stag? So my fingers caught hard in her
throat, and when I arose she lay dead in the ashes. So I fled and hid
till the tribe left. So I shoved her into the water and pushed her
under, and she sank like a heavy rock. Then I found the priest."

I had no reproaches to offer Little Fellow. He had only obeyed the
savage instincts of a savage race, exacting satisfaction after his own
fashion.

"The squaw threw a flint. The flint was poison. Also the squaw threw
this at Little Fellow, white man's paper with signs which are magic,"
and the Indian handed me the sheet, which had fallen from the woman's
pocket as she hurled her last weapon.

Without fear of the magic so terrifying to him, I took the dirty,
crumpled missive and unfolded it. The superscription of Quebec citadel
was at the top. With overwhelming revulsion came memory of poor Louis
Laplante lying at the camp-fire in the gorge tossing a crumpled piece of
paper wide of the flames, where the Sioux squaw surreptitiously picked
it up. The paper wa