When day arrived I ate a portion of meal and meat, and made my way
back. It was a long trip, for I had wandered far, and when I reached
the camp the sun was three hours high. A large tent had been made of
skins and tarpaulins, and French and savages were gathered there and
waiting. I was late. The calumet was already passing as I went in.
I halted a moment at the entrance. There was no cheer of welcome at
sight of me. Instead there was a hush,--the hush of suspended
breathing. In two days these savages had come to draw aside from me
for what was in my look. "His face is the face of one dead,"
Outchipouac had said. I knew that I had grown to seem abnormal, alien.
I tried to form my expression to better lines, but it was out of my
power. I took my place as interpreter, and the long conclave opened.
The hours of droning speeches went on and on. Each tribe presented its
claims, and metaphor shouldered metaphor. It sounded trivial as the
bragging of blue-jays, but I interpreted carefully and kept the
different headings in mind. Then I asked Cadillac's permission, and
took it on myself to answer.
Sometimes the Power that rules us, and that shoves us here and there to
play our parts in the game, seems to me nothing but a cold-eyed
justice, remote, indifferent, impartially judicial.
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