tracks when they find him," said he, "but this
will throw them off, for it is only on running water that an Iroquois
can find no trace. And now we shall lie in this clump until nightfall,
for we are little over a mile from Port Poitou, and it is dangerous to
go forward, for the ground becomes more open."

And so they remained concealed among the alders whilst the shadows
turned from short to long, and the white drifting clouds above them were
tinged with the pink of the setting sun. Du Lhut coiled himself into a
ball with his pipe between his teeth and dropped into a light sleep,
pricking up his ears and starting at the slightest sound from the woods
around them. The two Americans whispered together for a long time,
Ephraim telling some long story about the cruise of the brig _Industry_,
bound to Jamestown for sugar and molasses, but at last the soothing hum
of a gentle breeze through the branches lulled them off also, and they
slept. De Catinat alone remained awake, his nerves still in a tingle
from that strange sudden shadow which had fallen upon his soul. What
could it mean? Not surely that Adele was in danger? He had heard of
such warnings, but had he not left her in safety behind cannons and
stockades? By the next evening at latest he would see her again. As he
lay looking up through the tangle of copper leaves at the sky beyond,
his mind drifted like the clouds above him, and he was back once more in
the jutting window in the Rue St. Martin, sitting on the broad _bancal_,
with its Spanish leather covering, with the gilt wool-bale creaking
outside, and his arm round shrinking, timid Adele, she who had compared
herself to a little mouse in an old house, and who yet had courage to
stay by his side through all this wild journey. And then again he was
back at Versailles. Once more he saw the brown eyes of the king, the
fair bold face of De Montespan, the serene features of De Maintenon--
once more he rode on his midnight mission, was driven by the demon
coachman, and sprang with Amos upon the scaffold to rescue the most
beautiful woman in France. So clear it was and so vivid that it was
with a start that he came suddenly to himself, and found that the night
was creeping on in an American forest, and that Du Lhut had roused
himself and was ready for a start.

"Have you been awake?" asked the pioneer.

"Yes."

"Have you heard anything?"

"Nothing but the hooting of the owl."

"It seemed to me that in m