Montlivet Part 12

He gave a wave of the hand. "It was my question," he reminded. "I asked if you knew him."

I could not but be amused. How he liked to play at mystery! I would copy his brevity. "Yes," I replied.

He looked up with much interest. "So you knew him. Tell me, monsieur, was he mountebank and freebooter, or a gallant gentleman much maligned?"

I removed my hat. "He was neither. He was an ambition incarnate; an ambition so vast there were few to understand it, for it had no personal side. You said the other night that but few motives rule men.

La Salle has been misunderstood because the usual motives--greed, the love of woman, and the desire for fame--did not touch him. He was the slave of one great idea, and so he was lonely and men feared him." I finished with some defiance. I knew that the blood had risen in my cheeks as I spoke, for some subjects touch me as if I were a woman.

The Englishman was watching me, and I disliked to have him see what I felt was weakness. But he did not scoff. His own cheeks flushed somewhat, and he looked off at the water.

"La Salle had more than a great idea," he said meditatively. "He had great opportunity. He desired to found an empire in the west, did he not, monsieur? Well, he failed, but, perhaps, that was accident. He might have succeeded. It is not often in the history of the world that such an opportunity comes to any person, man or woman. La Salle, at least, tried to live up to his full stature. Monsieur, how pitiable it would be, yes, more, how terrible it would be, to have such an opportunity thrown in your way and know that you were too weak to seize it."

His voice rose to some earnestness, but I was ashamed of my own emotion, and so threw pebbles at the water and kept my mood cold. I suspected that through all this random philosophizing I was being probed,--probed by an Englishman who ate my rations, and wore a squaw's dress. I grew angry.

"Who are you?" I demanded roughly. "Who are you, that you know of La Salle and of his plans, and use the French speech. Can you, for once, answer me fairly, or is there no sound core of honesty in you?"

He rose. But he replied, not to what I had said, but to what I had thought. "It is true that I share your food and your escort, and that I requite you but poorly. Yet I must remind you again, I share it under compulsion. I cannot be entirely open with you,--are you open with me?--but I will tell you all that it is necessary for you to know, all that touches you in any way. I said that I was a colonist. It was the truth, but I had been but a year in the Colonies at the time of my capture. I was born in England, and I have pa.s.sed some time in France.

As to La Salle, I know nothing of him save what any man might hear. Is it strange that I should be interested in him now that I find myself following in his steps? Why do you always see a double meaning in my words, monsieur?"

I filled my pipe, and answered truthfully, "I do not know."

But here he began to laugh. "Monsieur, forgive me, but truly I forget at times that I am a spy, that you distrust me. You are kind and I am interested, and so I grow careless of the fact that I am in a land where no speech is idle, where every glance is weighed. This life must unfit one for court talk, monsieur."

What was he after? I eyed him over my pipe bowl, but said nothing. I was minded to tell him to clean the whitefish for our supper, but reflected in time that he would undoubtedly do it badly, so I spoke to Francois instead. But when I would have gone away the Englishman followed. He clapped me lightly on the shoulder, a familiarity he had not ventured before, and he put his head on one side with a little bantam swagger.

"If I am an enemy, I am an enemy," he bowed. "Yet one question, please, and I swear in the name of our joint father Noah that I ask it with the fairest motives in mind. Tell me something of what we are going to do. Is today a sample?"

I could not hold my ill-temper. He must have led a psalm-singing youth that every attempt at rakishness should make him as piquant as a figure at a masque.

"Yes," I replied. "To-day is a sample except that we have been indolent this afternoon. I made this a semi-holiday as a sop to the men for the added burden I have laid on them. I wish to do some exploring along the coast here, and we shall have to spend some time hunting. If you show yourself capable I shall leave you in charge of the camp while we are away."

This time he bowed gravely. "Thank you, monsieur. I have not been blind to the way you have spared me hardship, but when I said that I would do whatever you would teach me, I meant it. I think that I shall make a good woodsman in time."

But I laughed. "You wash yourself too much ever to make a good woodsman," I told him, and I set him to measuring the meal for our supper, for indeed his hands were well kept, and it was pleasant to see him handle the food.

CHAPTER X

I WAKE A SLEEPER

What enchantment came upon the weather for the next week I do not know.

May is often somewhat sour of visage, but now she smiled from dawn till starlight. We paddled and hunted and slept, well fed and fire-warmed.

It was more like junketing than business, and we were as amiable as fat-bellied puppies. Even the Englishman looked content. We left him in camp when we went to hunt, and on our return he had a boiling pot and hot coals ready for our venison. I saw that he had won favor with the men. Yet he kept aloof from all of us, as he had promised.

This had gone on for a week, when one day, after we had placed the Englishman on guard and were tramping back into the timber to see what our eyes and muskets could find, Pierre pointed to a bent tree. "It looks like a cow's back," he ruminated. "Trees are queer. Today, where we made camp, I saw a tree that looked like a Huron with his topknot."

I stopped. "Where?"

"I told the master. Near the camp."

"You think it was a tree?"

Pierre shuffled. "There are no Hurons here. This is the Pottawatamie country. But I have thought about it all day. It was a queer tree.

Shall I go back and see?"

I shook my head. I pointed to a stale bear print, and set the men upon it. Then I turned and slipped back to camp.

I walked with uneasiness in my throat. Why did a Huron dog us in this fashion? Was he alone? Did he mean mischief to the Englishman? Was the Englishman in league with him? Too many questions for a slow man.

I felt entrapped and befogged. I must see for myself. And so I crept to the camp to spy upon it.

I have never seen sweeter spot for an anchorage than we had found that day. We had not camped on the open coast as had been our custom, but in a sun-warmed meadow a few paces inland, where there were birds, and ta.s.seling gra.s.ses, and all kinds of glancing lights and odors to steal into a man's blood. I parted the trees. The blur of gray ashes from our fire was undisturbed; our canoes lay, bottom upwards, waiting to have the seams newly pitched, and the cargo was piled, untouched, against a tree. All was as we left it. And there, in the shade of a maple, lay the Englishman, asleep on his scarlet blanket.

I went softly, and looked down at him. I ought to have waked him, and rated him for sleeping at his post, but I could not. It was balm to find him here safe. He was twisted like a kitten with his head in his arm, and I noticed that his dark hair, which he kept roughly cut, was curly. He must have been wandering in the woods, for he had a bunch of pink blossoms, very waxy and odorous, shut tight in his hand. I looked at him till I suddenly wanted him to wake and look at me. I picked a gra.s.s stalk, and, leaning over, brushed it against his lips.

He woke as a child does, not alert at once, but with drowsy stirrings, and finally with open eyes so sleep-filled that they were as expressionless as a fawn's. He stared as if trying to remember who I was.

I sat beside him. "I am the owner of that cargo you are guarding," I supplied to aid his memory, and then laughed to see the red flood his face when he came to himself and realized what he had done. But I was not at ease. He had shivered and drawn back when he first opened his eyes. Could he be afraid of me? I should not wish that. I tried to be crafty.

"Who did you think I was when you first woke?" I asked, taking my pipe and preparing to be comfortable.

He pushed back his hair. "Benjamin," he answered vaguely. He was still half asleep.

"But you told me your name was Benjamin!" I put down my flint and tinder.

He met my look. "I have a cousin Benjamin, as well," he rejoined. "I was dreaming of him. Monsieur, I am humiliated to think that I went to sleep. I have never done so before."

My pipe drew well, and I did not feel like chiding. "It does not matter," I said, with a yawn. "You must not take it amiss, monsieur, if I confess that, as a guard, I have never considered you much more seriously than I would that brown thrush above you. What is your posy?" and I leaned over and took the flowers from his hand.

He smiled at me drowsily. "The arbutus," he explained, with a lingering touch of his finger upon the blossoms. "Smell them, monsieur. I found them in Connecticut last spring. Are they not well suited to be the first flowers of this wild land? Repellent without,--see how rough the leaves are to your finger,--but fragrant and beautiful under its harsh coating. Life in the Colonies grew to seem to me much the same."

I turned the flowers over, and considered his philosophy. "You are less cynical than your wont, monsieur." I reflected. "May I say that I like it better in you? Cynicism is a court exotic. It should not grow under these pines."

He put out his hand to brush a twig from my doublet. "Cynicism is often the flower of bitterness. Monsieur, you have been very good to me. I cannot keep in mind my constant bitterness against life when I think of the thoughtfulness and justice you have shown me."

I jerked away. "Sufficient! Sufficient! Let us be comfortable," I expostulated, and I turned my back, and gave myself to my pipe and silence.

The birds sang softly as if wearied, and the earth was warm to the hand. I held the flowers in my fingers, and they smelled, somehow, like the roses on our terrace at home on moonlight evenings when I had been young and thought myself in love. I watched a drift of white b.u.t.terflies hang over an opening red blossom. Such moments pay for hours of famine. It disturbed me to have the Englishman rise and go away.

"Why do you go?" I demanded.

He came back at once. "What can I do for you, monsieur?"

His gentleness shamed my shortness of speech. "It was nothing," I replied. "The truth is, it was pleasant to have you here beside me."

I laughed at my own folly. "Starling, I will put you in man's dress to-morrow!" I cried.

He turned away. "As you like, monsieur. I think myself it would be best. Will you get out the clothes to-night?"