ith his arm round her, they ascended to the great hall where
old De la Noue with his son were peering out of the window at the
wonderful spectacle.

"Ah, monsieur," said the old nobleman, with his courtly bow, "I am
indeed rejoiced to see you safe under my roof again, not only for your
own sake, but for that of madame's eyes, which, if she will permit an
old man to say so, are much too pretty to spoil by straining them all
day in the hopes of seeing some one coming out of the forest. You have
done forty miles, Monsieur de Catinat, and are doubtless hungry and
weary. When you are yourself again I must claim my revenge in piquet,
for the cards lay against me the other night."

But Du Lhut had entered at De Catinat's heels with his tidings of
disaster.

"You will have another game to play, Monsieur de Sainte-Marie," said he.
"There are six hundred Iroquois in the woods and they are preparing to
attack."

"Tut, tut, we cannot allow our arrangements to be altered by a handful
of savages," said the seigneur. "I must apologise to you, my dear De
Catinat, that you should be annoyed by such people while you are upon my
estate. As regards the piquet, I cannot but think that your play from
king and knave is more brilliant than safe. Now when I played piquet
last with De Lannes of Poitou--"

"De Lannes of Poitou is dead, and all his people," said Du Lhut.
"The blockhouse is a heap of smoking ashes."

The seigneur raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff, tapping the
lid of his little round gold box.

"I always told him that his fort would be taken unless he cleared away
those maple trees which grew up to the very walls. They are all dead,
you say?"

"Every man."

"And the fort burned?"

"Not a stick was left standing."

"Have you seen these rascals?"

"We saw the trail of a hundred and fifty. Then there were a hundred in
canoes, and a war-party of four hundred passed us under the Flemish
Bastard. Their camp is five miles down the river, and there cannot be
less than six hundred."

"You were fortunate in escaping them."

"But they were not so fortunate in escaping us. We killed Brown Moose
and his son, and we fired the woods so as to drive them out of their
camp."

"Excellent! Excellent!" said the seigneur, clapping gently with his
dainty hands. "You have done very well indeed, Du Lhut! You are, I
presume, very tired?"

"I am not often tired. I am quite ready to do the journey again."

"Then