Montlivet. Alice Prescott Smith

don't work."

      The Englishman looked at them and at me. I realized that he was curiously slight and young, and that we seemed hostile. That was hardly just, and I was ready to go to his rescue. But he turned from me to the men.

      "It is true that I work very badly," he said. "I do not know how. But men are born of women, and—well, what a man can do I can learn. Suppose, now, that I go and relieve Pierre at the watch. If you will show me what to do I think you will find me teachable. I shall try to be as little of a burden as possible. Here is my hand on it." And he held out his slim palm for their grasp.

      Again they stared; but the hand won them. They touched it fumblingly and were impressed. They were a slow lot, selected for various purposes other than wit. Their minds moved too sluggishly for swift reactions, and I dismissed anxiety about them from my mind.

      The Englishman turned to me. "Will you conduct me to the shore? I will take Pierre's place."

      It was my turn to stare. "Suppose you conduct yourself," was on my tongue, but I let it escape unsaid. "Come, then," I answered, with a shrug.

      I led the way over logs and under bushes, and the Englishman followed silently; silently at least as to his tongue, but his feet were garrulous. They stepped on twigs, stumbled on slippery lichen, and shouted their passage for rods around.

      "I would rather lead a buffalo in tether," I fretted, and just as I said it he completed the sum of his blundering by catching his toe in a root and plunging head foremost to the ground. I pulled him up by the sleeve of his skin blouse and shook him free from loam and twigs.

      "Now will you stop that?" I cried.

      He looked at me gravely, unabashed, but curious. "I did not fall purposely to irritate you. Gravity, which, I understand, operates alike on the learned and the foolish, had some share in it. Why are you angry?"

      "Why are you reckless? You have crashed through here as careless of noise as a stag with the hounds hot behind."

      He dropped to the ground, and took one slim moccasined foot in his hand. He looked at it soberly. "It seems a small thing, does it not, to cause so much ill-will between us? It has neither weight nor mental force above it, that it should make the earth tremble. No, monsieur, you are searching for excuses for your annoyance with me. You are annoyed all the time. I vex you by my silence, still more by my speech. We are to be some time together, and I do not want to be a constant canker. Is it not possible for you to forget me, to ignore me?"

      I saw he was in earnest. "And so you really do not know what irritated me? Are you so little of a woodsman?"

      "I have never traveled through the woods."

      I gave him a dubious glance. "Yet you were weeks with the Hurons after your capture."

      I saw him set his teeth hard as if at a memory. "We traveled by water ways. I was little on the shore except at night."

      A sudden picture sickened me. The nightly camp and this slender lad with his curious air of daintiness, and the great oily Hurons lounging in the dirt and smoke.

      "Were they cruel to you?" I broke out.

      He shook his head. "No," he said, with the air of justice I had liked in him heretofore; "no, they were not cruel. Indeed they were almost kind, in that they left me a great deal alone. I feared from the clemency they showed me that they were reserving me for torture."

      I eyed him with some skepticism. "It was not the Hurons, but their rivals, the Ottawas, who would have sent you to the stake," I explained curtly. "The Hurons—those of the Baron's band—would have held you as a hostage—perhaps as a deputy."

      He looked up with interested eyes. "You are playing some political game, and these tribes are your counters. I should like to understand."

      I examined his look, but could make nothing of it. "You will pardon me, monsieur," I said with a shrug, "but these are troublous times, and I find it hard to believe you as ignorant as you seem."

      He still met my look. "And if I were not ignorant?" he asked. "Could I, one Englishman, alone and unarmed, accomplish anything that would hurt you? You see that I am harmless. Why not be friends?"

      I shrugged my shoulders.

      "So you are determined that I am a secret ambassador," he meditated. "Well, I must act my part with dignity. And you think we cannot be comrades? I dislike to irritate you as I do."

      I answered him soberly. "We will be partners," I agreed; "friends for the night's bivouac, willing to help and to share."

      "But you will not trust me?"

      I looked away. "What would a truce between us mean? You are English,

       I, French. Be assured that sooner or later the fox eats the hen."

      He laughed. "Who is to be the fox?" He jumped to his feet. "Partners, then, it shall be. A strange creed. A helping hand to-day and a knife in the back to-morrow. But I shall follow you, monsieur."

      "You will follow?"

      "In this path as in others. If you refuse to admit even a truce between us, I agree. I shall keep out of your way as much as possible. Only—I would not have you think me ungrateful."

      I could never forbear a smile when he was serious. "We shall probably think very little about each other," I said comfortably. "Once settled into routine we shall have work to fill our thought. You will learn to do your share. I think you willing."

      "Indeed I am willing, monsieur."

      "Good. So we shall work hard, sleep early, and the months will pass before we know. Let us not talk of trust or friendship, since our ways are divided."

      He bowed. "You are right, monsieur. And I meant only this—I will try not to be an irritation. You will try not to think of me as such. You agree?"

      I smiled again. "Yes. Partners for the night," I reminded him. "I am gratified, Monsieur Starling, that you see the matter so reasonably. There is a gulf between us, and we cannot change it." We did not speak again till we reached Pierre at the shore.