I
remembered a roundelay that we had sung in camp. I whistled it,
picking, in the meantime, at the bone the Indian had brought. I
whistled the tune once, twice, several times. Then I fitted words to
it.
"Where is the woman? Where is the Englishman? Tell me." I sang the
words boldly, but in bastard French with clipped accents. I feared
that among all these Senecas there might be one or more who had some
smattering of the French tongue.
Labarthe did not answer at once nor look around, so I went on singing.
Nonsense words now, with no coherence or meaning, and all in French
that a cowherd would have been ashamed to own.
I worked at last to a crescendo of sound that gave Labarthe his cue.
He turned and laughed, as if noticing me for the first time. He cocked
his head like a game bird, planted his legs apart, and joined the song.
He had the biggest voice from Montreal to Chambly, and he sung with
full lung power and at breathless speed. It was a torrent of sound; my
ears were strained to follow it.
"Five large canoes left this morning," he warbled. "They carried
madame, the Englishman, Pemaou, and his Hurons, and a detachment of the
Senecas,--some seventy-five in all. They went to Michillimackinac.
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