Montlivet | Page 2

had been rude,
and I repented it, and more than that, there was something in the man
that tempted me to offer him flattery even as I desire to give sweets to
an engaging child.
But this cajolery 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
sagamité 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