hideous, angry face of a big squaw, who was glaring at me.
The creature was one to command attention. She might have been a great,
bronze statue, a type of some ancient goddess, a symbol of fury, or
cruelty. Her eyes fastened themselves on mine and held me, whether I
would or no, while her whole face darkened.

"The lady evidently objects to having her place usurped, Louis," I
remarked, for he was watching the silent duel between the native woman's
questioning eyes and mine.

"The gentleman wants to know if the lady objects to having her place
usurped?" called Louis to the squaw.

At that the woman flinched and looked to Laplante. Of course, she did
not understand our words; but I think she was suspicious we were
laughing at her. There was a vindictive flash across her face, then the
usual impenetrable expression of the Indian came over her features. I
noticed that her cheeks and forehead were scarred, and a cut had laid
open her upper lip from nose to teeth.

"You must know that the lady is the daughter of a chief and a fighter,"
whispered Louis in my ear.

I might have known she was above common rank from the extraordinary
number of trinkets she wore. Pendants hung from her ears like the
pendulum of a clock. She had a double necklace of polished bear's claws
and around her waist was a girdle of agates, which to me proclaimed that
she was of a far-western tribe. In the girdle was an ivory-handled
knife, which had doubtless given as many scars as its owner displayed.

"What tribe, Louis?" I asked.

"I'll be hanged, now, if I'm not jealous," he began. "You'll stare the
lady out of countenance----" But at this moment the Indian who had come
up the bank behind us came round and interrupted Laplante's merriment by
tossing a piece of bethumbed paper between my comrade's knees.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Louis, bulging his tongue into one cheek and
glancing at me with a queer, quizzical look as he unfolded and read the
paper.

If he had not spoken I might not have turned; but having turned I could
not but notice two things. Louis jerked back from me, as if I might try
to read the soiled note in his hand, and in raising the paper displayed
on the back the stamp of the commissariat department from Quebec
Citadel.

Neither Laplante's suppressed surprise, nor my observations of his
movement, escaped the big squaw. She came quickly round the fire to us
both.

"Give me that," she commanded, holding out her hand to the Fr