"I once had a home in this village," he added. "It stood over there, in the bare spot near the beech tree." His eyes rested on the spot for a moment, then he turned back to the hut.
The little heap of flowers lay where she had dropped them; and, taking them up, she arranged them hastily and held them out. "Won't you take them?"
He looked at her, a little surprised, then held out his hand.
"Why,--thank you. I don't know what I can do with them."
"You must wear some of the daisies, Mademoiselle. They will look well."
She looked down at her torn, stained dress, and laughed softly; but took the white cluster he gave her, and thrust the stems through a tattered bit of lace on her breast.
Menard was plainly relieved by the incident. He had been worn near to despair, facing a difficulty which seemed every moment farther from a solution; and now he turned to her fresh, light mood as to a refuge.
"We must put these in water, Mademoiselle, or they will soon lose their bloom."
"A cup? A woodsman would laugh at your question. There is the spring, here is the birch; what more could you have?"
"We will make a cup,--if you will hold the flowers. They are beautiful, Mademoiselle. No nation has such hills and lakes and flowers as the Iroquois. The Hurons boast of their lake country,--and the Sacs and Foxes, too, though they have a duller eye for the picturesque. See--the valley yonder--" He pointed through a rift in the foliage to the league-long glimpse of green, bound in by the gentle hills that rose beyond--"even to the tired old soldier there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful."
He peeled a long strip of bark from the birch tree, and rolled it into a cup. "Your needle and thread, Mademoiselle,--if they have not taken them."
She got her needle, and under his direction stitched the edges of the bark.
He laughed. "The tree is the Indian's friend, Mademoiselle. Now it is a pine tree that we need. The guards will tell me of one."
He walked over to the little group of warriors still at their game of platter,--the one never-ceasing recreation of the Onondagas, at which they would one day gamble away blankets, furs, homes, even squaws, only to win them back on the next. They looked at him suspiciously when he questioned them; but he was now as light of heart as on the day, a few weeks earlier, when he had leaned on the balcony of the citadel at Quebec, idly watching the river. He smiled at them, and after a parley the maid saw one tall brave point to a tree a few yards farther in the wood. They followed him closely with their eyes until he was back within the space allowed him.