and Lake St. Sacrament. There we
should be close by the headwaters of the Hudson."

"It is a dangerous road," said De Catinat, who understood the
conversation of his companions, even when he was unable to join in it.
"We should need to skirt the country of the Mohawks."

"It's the only way, I guess. It's that or nothing."

"And I have a friend upon the Richelieu River who, I am sure, would help
us on our way," said De Catinat with a smile. "Adele, you have heard me
talk of Charles de la Noue, seigneur de Sainte Marie?"

"He whom you used to call the Canadian duke, Amory?"

"Precisely. His seigneury lies on the Richelieu, a little south of Fort
St. Louis, and I am sure that he would speed us upon our way."

"Good!" cried Amos. "If we have a friend there we shall do well.
That clenches it then, and we shall hold fast by the river. Let's get
to our paddles then, for that friar will make mischief for us if he
can."

And so for a long week the little party toiled up the great waterway,
keeping ever to the southern bank, where there were fewer clearings.
On both sides of the stream the woods were thick, but every here and
there they would curve away, and a narrow strip of cultivated land would
skirt the bank, with the yellow stubble to mark where the wheat had
grown. Adele looked with interest at the wooden houses with their
jutting stories and quaint gable-ends, at the solid, stone-built
manor-houses of the seigneurs, and at the mills in every hamlet, which
served the double purpose of grinding flour and of a loop-holed place of
retreat in case of attack. Horrible experience had taught the Canadians
what the English settlers had yet to learn, that in a land of savages it
is a folly to place isolated farmhouses in the centre of their own
fields. The clearings then radiated out from the villages, and every
cottage was built with an eye to the military necessities of the whole,
so that the defence might make a stand at all points, and might finally
centre upon the stone manor-house and the mill. Now at every bluff and
hill near the villages might be seen the gleam of the muskets of the
watchers, for it was known that the scalping parties of the Five Nations
were out, and none could tell where the blow would fall, save that it
must come where they were least prepared to meet it.

Indeed, at every step in this country, whether the traveller were on the
St. Lawrence, or west upon the lakes, or down upon the bank