"And you sit here doing nothing!" she cried, quite as a white girl
might have done.
I pushed her down on the sand. "Stop!" I said. "I knew you would seek
me here. Now answer briefly. Pemaou and his men would not let you get
near the window?"
"No."
"They had seen you with me," I explained. "I feared it. Did Longuant
and his men come?"
"Like bees," she answered, with a fling of her arms. "They are
everywhere. We can do nothing;" and she dropped her head in her arms
and cried.
Now what indeed could be her motive? "Never mind, Singing Arrow," I
said experimentally. "What is it to you, after all?"
She wriggled her head to throw me a wrathful look. "I always win at a
game," she mumbled.
She was as hard to read as a purring cat, but that did not matter.
"We've not lost yet," I said, as slowly and coolly as if I did not see
the disk of the moon looking at me. "I sent Longuant there. I was
sure that Pemaou would keep you away, and I am playing for time. So
long as the Ottawas and Hurons are squabbling with one another,
Cadillac will not deliver the prisoner. But we must get them farther
away. Singing Arrow, I have brandy in my cargo. I have drawn off two
large flasks.
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