Montlivet | Page 6

race. I
followed him and listened, storing away metaphors even as I carried
beads in my cargo. I should need all the eloquence at my command
before the close of the summer, and my own tongue was always too
direct of speech.
Cadillac felt me at his elbow, and when he saw my listening face he
stopped to give me a slow wink. "Will monsieur turn pupil to learn
swaggering?" he asked, with an upward cock of the eye. "I had thought
him too old for a school."
I bowed, and hated myself for my lagging wits that would not furnish a
retort. "Never too old to sit at your feet," I assured him, and I went
away knowing that I had been slow, and that the honors were with him,
but knowing, also, that somehow I liked the man, and that I should
drink his health when I opened my next tierce of canary.
I went to find my men, and it was time that I bestirred myself. License
was in order, and the revel assaulted eyes, ears, and nose, till a white
man was wise if he forsook his dignity, and ran like a fox to cover. The
air was surfeiting with the steam of food. Dog-meat bubbled in great
caldrons, and maize cakes crackled on hot stones. A bear had been
brought in, and was being hacked in pieces to add to the broth. The
women did this, and as I passed them they stopped, with their hands
dripping red, and shook their wampum necklaces at me, and pointed
meaningly toward a neighboring hut, where I had been told that rum
could be bought if you were discreet in choosing your occasion. I
tossed them a handful of small coins, and warned them in Huron that if
they molested my men I should report them to the commandant. I felt
yet more haste to see my canoes under way.
I was plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my
sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled,
and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine. It was an old
face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and gray, but
never have I met a look that showed more fire and unconquerable will.
"The commandant wishes you," he went on. "He asked me to fetch you.
I should not have complied--it is I who should ask services of him--but

I wished to speak to you on my own account. Monsieur, do you know
these men that you have in your employ?"
I nodded. "As well as I know my own heart. They are my habitants."
"Your habitants! Then you have a seigniory? Why do you not stay there
as the king wishes?"
I shook my head at him. "We use large words in this new land, father.
Yes, I have a seigniory. That is, I own some barren acres near Montreal
that I can occupy only at risk of my scalp. As to the king, I think he
wishes me to trade,--at least I carry his license to that effect. But what
are my men doing?"
The Jesuit's thin old hands clutched each other. "They are turning this
place into a Sodom," he said passionately. "They are drinking and
carousing with the Indian women. You traders are our ruin. But we will
shut you out of the country yet. Mark my words. Those twenty-five
licenses will be revoked before the season ends, and you will have to
find other excuses to bring your rabble here to debauch our missions."
In view of what I had just seen, I felt impatient. "You do my handful of
stolid peasants too much honor," I said dryly. "They would need more
wit and ingenuity than I have ever seen in them to be able to teach
outlawry to anything that they find here. But I am looking for them
now. You will pardon me if I hasten."
But his hand pulled at me. "Is one of your men lipped like a bull-moose
and red as Rufus?"
"Pierre Boudin to the life," I chuckled. "What deviltry is he at now?"
The priest's face lost its flame. He looked suddenly the old man worn
out in the service of a savage people. "He is with an Ottawa girl," he
said sadly; "a girl the Indians call Singing Arrow for her wit and her
laughter. She is not a convert, but she is a good girl. I wish you would
get your man away."

I felt shame for my man and myself. "I will go at once," I promised
soberly. "I will be westward bound by afternoon."
The old priest looked at me with friendly eyes. "There will be trouble
before sundown," he said