The quiet, the lapping of the waves, and perhaps a little fatigue overcame her at length. She dropped back against the Indian's knee, and her soft breath rose and fell peacefully. He drew the blanket up over her.
"Ugh! ugh!" he ejaculated, but she heard it not. "The tide is good, we shall make the Point before dawn."
The others nodded. They lighted their pipes, and presently the Indian at the paddle changed with one of his comrades and they stole on and on, both wind and tide in their favor. Several times their charge stirred but did not wake. Youth and health had overcome even anxiety.
There was dawn in the eastern sky. Jeanne roused.
"Oh, where am I?" she cried in piercing accents; and endeavored to spring up.
"Thou art safe enough and naught has harmed thee," was the reply. "Keep quiet, that is all."
"Oh, where do you mean to take me? I am stiff and cold. Oh, let me change a little!"
She straightened herself and pulled the blanket over her. The same stolid faces that had refused any satisfaction last night met her gaze again in blankness.
There was a broad, open space of water, no longer the river. She glanced about. A sudden arrow of gold gleamed swiftly across it--then another, and it was a sea of flame with dancing crimson lights.
"It is the lake," she said. "Lake Huron." She had been up the picturesque shores of the St. Clair river.
"You are going north?" A great terror overwhelmed her like a sudden revelation.
There was a refusal in the shake of the head.
Jeanne Angelot at that moment could have leaped from the boat. Yet she knew it would be of no avail. A chill went through every pulse and turned it to the ice of apprehension.
The canoe made a turn and ran up an inlet. A great clump of trees hid a wigwam until they were in sight of it There was a smoke issuing from the rude chimney, and a savory smell permeated the air. Two squaws had been squatted before the blaze of the stone-built fireplace. They both rose and came down the narrow strip of beach. They were short, the older one had a squat, ungainly figure of great breadth for the height, and a most forbidding face. The other was much younger.
Jeanne did not understand the language, but from a few words she guessed it was Huron. It seemed at first as if there was fierce upbraiding from some cause, but it settled satisfactorily it would seem. She was helped out of the canoe. Oh, how good it was to stand free on the ground again!