Odd, indeed, was the effect of this tableau on the Indians under the
torches. They had come for one lone canoe,--to find a horde; for one
man and one woman,--to fall upon a brigade.
They halted and the distance widened between.
And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darkness
ahead and a boat came back among them. It passed close to the
fugitives, and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in
it.
When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward
the halted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a
sort of stupid awe.
"What do yez want?" called the tall man sternly, as he swept face to
face with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe.
"Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?"
There was no answer and he roared at them like a lion
"Can yez not shpake, ye haythen?"
Whereat a canoe glided from the back shadows and the voice of Bois
DesCaut came in its broken English,
"A boat,--M'sieu,--we seek a boat that but now escaped from camp with a
murderer aboard,--one who killed in cold blood the chief Negansahima
back at the post of De Seviere. My brothers travel to the Pays d'en
Haut that justice may be done.
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