g of his gun with a
tightened lip and a gleaming eye, while Amos Green, without a word,
began to cast round in circles in search of a trail.

But Du Lhut was on his feet again in a moment, and running up and down
like a sleuth-hound, noting a hundred things which even Amos would have
overlooked. He circled round the bodies again and again. Then he ran a
little way towards the edge of the woods, and then came back to the
charred ruins of the blockhouse, from some of which a thin reek of smoke
was still rising.

"There is no sign of the women and children," said he.

"My God! There were women and children?"

"They are keeping the children to burn at their leisure in their
villages. The women they may torture or may adopt as the humour takes
them. But what does the old man want?"

"I want you to ask him, Amos," said the seaman, "why we are yawing and
tacking here when we should be cracking on all sail to stand after
them?"

Du Lhut smiled and shook his head. "Your friend is a brave man," said
he, "if he thinks that with four men we can follow a hundred and fifty."

"Tell him, Amos, that the Lord will bear us up," said the other
excitedly. "Say that He will be with us against the children of
Jeroboam, and we will cut them off utterly, and they shall be destroyed.
What is the French for 'slay and spare not'? I had as soon go about
with my jaw braced up, as with folk who cannot understand a plain
language."

But Du Lhut waved aside the seaman's suggestions. "We must have a care
now," said he, "or we shall lose our own scalps, and be the cause of
those at Sainte Marie losing theirs as well."

"Sainte Marie!" cried De Catinat. "Is there then danger at Sainte
Marie?"

"Ay, they are in the wolf's mouth now. This business was done last
night. The place was stormed by a war-party of a hundred and fifty men.
This morning they left and went north upon foot. They have been
_cached_ among the woods all day between Poitou and Sainte Marie."

"Then we have come through them?"

"Yes, we have come through them. They would keep their camp to-day and
send out scouts. Brown Moose and his son were among them and struck our
trail. To-night--"

"To-night they will attack Sainte Marie?"

"It is possible. And yet with so small a party I should scarce have
thought that they would have dared. Well, we can but hasten back as
quickly as we can, and give them warning of what is hanging over them."

And so they tur