Montlivet | Page 2

he swept away with a fling of his heavy arm. "The key to an empire!" he echoed contemptuously. "They are fine words, and the mischief is that they are true. Yet food in my stomach, and money in my pocket, would mean more to me just now. I must speak to this Indian. Will you wait for me, monsieur? I have business with you."
I bowed, and resumed my walk. "The key to an empire!" I said my own words over, and could have blushed for their tone of bombast. They were true, but they sounded false, I looked at my surroundings, and marveled that a situation that was of real dignity could wear so mean a garb. The sandy cove where I stood was on the mainland, and sheltered four settlements. Behind lay the forest; in front stretched Lake Huron, a waterway that was our only link with the men and nations we had left behind. The settlements were contiguous in body, but even my twenty-four hours' acquaintance had shown me that they were leagues apart in mind. There were a French fort, a Jesuit convent, a village of Ottawas, and, barred by the aristocracy of a palisade, a village of Hurons. The scale of precedence was plain to read. The huts of the savages were wattled, interlaced of poles and bark; the French buildings were of wood, but roofed with rough cedar; the only houses with board roofs were those of the Jesuits. In later times when I found Father Carheil hard to understand, I used to say to myself that he was not to be held too strictly to account for his contradictions, for though one learns to think great thoughts in the wilderness, it is not done easily when there is sawed lumber to shut away the sky.
Cadillac came back to me in a few moments. He had lost his swelling port, and was frowning with thought. "I saw you in the Huron camp, Montlivet," he said. "Do you understand their speech?"
Now this was a question that I thought it as well to put by. "Would you call it speech?" I demurred. "It sounded more like snarling."
"Then you do understand it?"
I kicked at the dogs at my feet. "Frowns are a common language. I could understand them, at least. The camp is restless. Are they hungry?"
Cadillac shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly. But it is not hunger that sagamit�� or maize cakes can reach. Would a taste of Iroquois broth put them in better condition, do you think?"
I turned away somewhat sickened. "It is a savage remedy," I broke out. "And a good cook will catch his hare before he talks of putting it in the pot. Where is your Iroquois hare, Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac?"
The commandant shook his head. "My hare is still at large," he confessed. "Though just now---- Come, Monsieur de Montlivet, let us to plain speech. We are talking as slantingly as savages. I have a Huron messenger at my quarters. Come with me, and interpret."
"A messenger from your own camp?"
"Is it my own camp?" he queried soberly. "I do not know. I have reason to think that many of my Hurons are ripe for English bribes,--or even for the Iroquois. It is a strange menagerie that I rule over here, and the Hurons are the foxes,--when they are not trying to be lions. You say that their camp is restless. I do not speak their language, but I can tell you more. They are in two factions. Those who follow old Kondiaronk, the Rat, are fairly loyal, but the faction under the Baron would sell us to the English for the price of a cask of rum. Truly our scalps sit lightly on our heads here in this garrison."
I hesitated. I did not like this situation, and prudence whispered that I had best cut the conversation here, and make my way as swiftly as possible to the west. But curiosity urged me to one more question. I asked it with my lips pursing to a whistle, that I might seem indifferent. "Is the messenger from the Baron?"
Cadillac nodded contentedly. "So you have decided to help me," he said, with a smile that read my indecision perfectly, and I felt, with a rush of blood to my face, much less sure of myself, and more respect for him. "I wish that I had inducements to keep you here," he went on, "for I hear from Montreal that you have wonderful command of Indian dialects. But I will take what you are willing to give, and be thankful. As to this messenger,--this is the tale. Some months ago a small band of Hurons left here for the south. Hunting, or war, or diplomacy, how shall I say what was their errand? But I mistrust them, for