"Woman's at best a contradiction still."

Yorke had reached the picnic-ground just long enough ahead of us to create pandemonium. He had reported both mademoiselle and me as killed and scalped by this time, and a band of a hundred savages, with the chevalier at their head, on their way to the picnic.

The massacre of 1780 was still fresh enough in the memory of St. Louis folk to make this seem no improbable tale, and the utmost confusion ensued. Some of the young men, with Josef Papin and Gabriel CerrÉ at their head, were for going at once to our rescue; but the maidens implored, and Yorke averred it was too late, and reported the savages in such numbers as would make such an undertaking only foolhardy. (And by this you must not judge Yorke a villain and a coward; he would have been the first to volunteer and the loudest to urge on the others, but he had heard Fatima's hoofs behind him, and knew we were safe, and, rascal that he was, could not resist his practical joke nor his negro love of producing a great effect.)

Into this wild pandemonium of women screaming unintelligible cries to each other as they hastily got together their belongings and packed them into charrettes and saddle-bags, amid sobbings and wailings, and men shouting hoarsely to mustang and pony as they struggled with bit and bridle, mademoiselle and I rode; and their joy at seeing us alive, and our hair still on our heads, knew no bounds.

I told them the true state of the case—that there were not more than a dozen or twenty of the savages at the most, and I hardly thought the chevalier would bring them down upon us. Yet, knowing that he might be in a mood for risking everything to recapture mademoiselle, I recommended that the men form themselves into two bands to ride in the front and in the rear, with the maidens between the two, and to start at once. We could go no faster, of course, than the charrettes could go, and the savages could easily overtake us if they desired; but I did not believe they would dare, for our numbers were greater than theirs, and the young men were all well armed.

Mademoiselle had recovered from her fainting, but was still white and weak. And because I did not believe she was able to sit La Bette, I recommended that she ride in Josef Papin's charrette with Mademoiselle Chouteau and let Josef ride her horse. We two, young Papin and I, brought up the rear; and I did not see mademoiselle again except once, for a moment, when we were crossing La Petite RiviÈre, and I rode up by her side to see that the charrette went steadily through the water. Her head was on Mademoiselle Chouteau's shoulder, who was supporting her with her arm. Her eyes were closed, and Mademoiselle Chouteau whispered to me, "She is asleep!" but at that she opened her eyes quickly and looked up at me. She tried to smile, but I think the terror of it all was still strongly with her. She said:

"I have not thanked you, monsieur; but I know I owe you my liberty, if not my life, and I am not ungrateful."

It was very sweetly said, but there was a horrible fear at my heart that she would rather have been captured by the redskins, and gone away with the Chevalier Le Moyne, than to have been rescued by me.

Just at the stockade we met a party of horsemen. Dr. Saugrain and my captain were in the lead with Black Hawk, who had reported Red Jean with a band of Osages lurking in the woods, and they were on their way to clear them out, lest they molest the picnic or the village. Amid a babble of excitement, every one trying to talk at once, our tale was told. And as Dr. Saugrain and my captain thought it was best to go on and try to capture the chevalier and his band, and as our escort was no longer needed for the maidens, I turned my horse and rode back with them to find the chevalier.

I confess it would have done me good to bring him in a captive, but I was doomed to disappointment. We scoured the woods, and the only traces we found of him and his band were the prints of horses' hoofs going south,—a dozen horses, I should think,—and, just where Rock Spring bubbles up in a silver fountain, a torn and bloody lace handkerchief. I gave the good doctor a full account of the conversation I had listened to, and he ground his teeth with rage at the chevalier's duplicity. He was much touched at Pelagie's chivalrous defense of him; yet, as delicately as I could, I tried to tell him that at the very last I feared the chevalier had succeeded in insinuating some seeds of doubt and suspicion in mademoiselle's mind. The doctor and my captain both agreed that it was time to tell Pelagie the full truth of the matter. She should know all about herself and her expectations, and who were her friends and who her foes.

I was curious to see what effect the revelation would have upon her; or it could hardly be called a revelation, since the chevalier had already revealed it—rather the confirmation of his tale. But in that, too, I was doomed to disappointment. She was ill for several days and confined to her room,—the effect of the excitement she had passed through,—and before she was well enough to be about again, my captain and I had set off, with Black Hawk as guide and Yorke as factotum, to make a visit to Daniel Boone at his home on the Missouri River.

We found the grand old man as happy as a child in the beautiful home he had at last made for himself and his family at the very outposts of civilization. We were gone four weeks, exploring the woods and mountains and rolling prairies of the beautiful country, and coming home on a great flatboat down the swiftly rolling Missouri, past Fort Bellefontaine, where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi (where we were royally entertained by the Spanish commandant), and so at last by the Mississippi back to St. Louis.

I found myself trembling with a mingling of fearful and pleasant anticipations as I rode up the steep bluff on Fatima's back, and we took the Rue de l'Église to Dr. Saugrain's house.

It was the day before Christmas, and I had not remembered it; but as we passed the church in the rear of Auguste Chouteau's place, through the open doors we could see young men and maidens winding long garlands of Christmas greens and festooning them over doors and windows, while shouts of merry laughter floated out to us. I was for drawing rein and going in to help with the trimming; but my captain (who, I believe, was shy of the maidens) insisted we must first pay our respects to our host.

The little doctor met us at the gate with a beaming face, and when Narcisse and Yorke had led away our horses we entered once more the long, low room we had first entered nearly two months before. The windows were no longer open, looking out into cool green foliage, with white muslin curtains stirring in the breeze, and there was no maiden in a white robe, with the blue ribbon of a guitar across her shoulders, singing creole love-songs. Instead, crimson damask curtains were falling over the white ones, and a great fire of logs was blazing in one end of the room, looking cozy and cheery enough on this crisp December day.

Yet, in spite of its coziness, I thought it had a dreary look. Leon was lying before the fire, and though he looked at me a little doubtfully, as he slowly rose and shook himself, I felt a rush of friendliness toward him, and showed it so plainly, as I called him to me, that at last he capitulated, and we have ever since been the best of friends.

Then Madame Saugrain came running in, flushed and rosy from the kitchen, where she had been superintending the baking of Christmas tarts and croquecignolles, and bringing with her appetizing whiffs of roasting and frying. My captain laughingly told her that the good smells made him hungry.

"You shall come and see," she said; and led us into the great kitchen, where, on tables as white as snow, were piled heaps of golden-brown croquecignolles, cut in curious patterns, and the big black cook was dropping still more into the kettle of boiling fat, and bringing out puffy and wondrously shaped birds and beasts. Narcisse, on his knees on the hearth, was turning two great fowls suspended before the fire, from which oozed such rich and savory gravy as made one smack his lips. On another table a huge venison pasty and tarts and cakes of many kinds were temptingly arrayed, and madame's pride in her housewifely preparations for the Christmas feasting was pretty to see. She would have us taste her croquecignolles and little cakes, and had a glass of gooseberry wine brought out of the store-room for each of us, and we drank it standing in the kitchen, and helping ourselves from the pile of croquecignolles.

But kind and charming as was madame, and toothsome as were her cakes, and much as her gooseberry wine tickled our palates, I was yet on nettles to be gone and join the young people at the church. Whether madame guessed it or whether it was just one of her kindly thoughts, she said in her motherly way:

"But, my son, you should be at the church. The maidens will be vexed with me if I keep you talking to an old woman, when they might be having your help with the wreaths."

"If you think they need me?" and I tried to look as if only a stern sense of duty could induce me to go.

Madame Saugrain laughed, with the merry twinkle in her eye that made her as captivating as a young maiden.

"Allons donc!" she said. "Quel garÇon!" And with my best bow to her and a salute to my captain and the good doctor, I whistled to Leon to accompany me and strode quickly down the road toward the little church.

But as I neared it I slackened my pace, and but for very shame I would have turned and fled again to the shelter of madame's motherly smile. I had not seen Mademoiselle Pelagie since the day of the picnic, and I was much in doubt whether she regarded me as her rescuer to be esteemed with grateful and friendly feeling, or as the cause of the loss of a dear friend, perhaps a lover. I felt very sure I would be able to tell at our first meeting in which light I was held, and, screwing up all my courage, I made a bold dash for the church door.

Scarcely had my shadow darkened the doorway when I was surrounded by an eager group, saluting me with every form of friendly welcome back to St. Louis; but the face I looked for was not among them. Mademoiselle Chouteau and Mademoiselle Papin seized me, one by either arm, and led me to a great pile of greens, and would have set me at once to work in tying them to long ropes. But I begged them to permit me first to pay my respects to the rest of my friends; for over in a dark corner I had seen Pelagie at work, with two or three young men around her, supplying her with greens for her nimble fingers to weave into garlands, and she had not come with the others to greet me. I thought at least that little courtesy was due me, for, whether she liked or resented my rescuing her, I had risked much in the doing of it.

I was filled with bitterness toward her, but could have no more kept away from her than the moth from the flame. My bitterness now gave me courage, and I sauntered up to her with what I flattered myself was quite as grand an air as the chevalier's might have been. Hand on the hilt of my sword, hat doffed, with its plume sweeping the ground, I bowed low.

"If mademoiselle has not forgotten an old acquaintance, will she permit me respectfully to salute her?"

She had been seated on a low seat with the side of her face toward me, and may or may not have been aware of my approach. As I spoke, she rose quickly and turned toward me, the rich blood rushing over her face and neck for a minute, and receding and leaving her almost as white as when I had held her in my arms and she had thought the chevalier killed.

She did not speak, but she held out her hand, and I bowed low over it, and barely touched it with my lips. The young men (among whom was of course Josef Papin) crowded around me with friendly greetings, and for a few minutes we talked fast, they asking and I answering many questions about Daniel Boone and our adventures in the far West.

I did not look at mademoiselle as we talked, but—it is a way I have—I saw her all the time. I think it must be because I am so much taller than most people that I can see all that goes on around me (or, perhaps more truly, beneath me) without seeming to look. I saw mademoiselle regard me with a strange glance, as if she were looking at some one she did not know, and was trying to explain him to herself. Then she sat down and quietly went on with her work, her head bent, and not looking at me again.

I talked on for a few minutes, and then turned to make my adieus to mademoiselle. She looked up at me with a friendly smile and I saw, what I had not noticed before, that she was paler and thinner than when I had seen her last, and there was a look in her dark eyes as of hidden trouble.

"Will you not stay and help us, monsieur?" she said in that voice which, from the first time I had heard it, had always seemed to me the sweetest in the world. Of course it set my silly pulses to beating faster, but I answered steadily and with an air of cold courtesy:

"I regret that I cannot accept mademoiselle's invitation; I have promised my services elsewhere"; and with another low bow I turned on my heel and, holding my head high, went back to weave garlands with Mademoiselle Chouteau and Marguerite Papin.

And because I was so big and they were so petite, they delighted in ordering me around (and I delighted in obeying), and they made me mount to the highest beams to suspend garlands, and applauded me when I arranged them to suit their fancy, and laughed at me or scolded me when I was awkward and stupid, until my back ached and my heart grew light; for I forgot for a time that mademoiselle, for whom I had risked my life, had not even cared to give me a friendly welcome back to St. Louis.

The last garland was fastened in its place, the last stray bit of evergreen and rubbish swept from the doors, the church garnished and beautiful to behold. There was the noisy bustle of preparing for departure and the calling back and forth:

"Be sure you are at midnight mass, Gabriel."

"Au revoir at midnight mass, Pelagie."

"I will see you at midnight mass, monsieur."

And for me there was a moment of embarrassment. Was it my duty to offer myself as escort to any of the maidens? For though the hour was early it was already dark. Or, since I was going direct to mademoiselle's house, would I be expected to accompany her? I glanced over to her corner; she had already left the church. I looked through the open doorway; she was walking down the Rue de l'Église with Josef Papin.

"Mademoiselle Chouteau," I said, "may I have the pleasure of walking home with you?"

But all the way up the Rue de l'Église and down the steep incline of the Rue Bonhomme, and up the Rue Royale to the great barred gate that led into the stone-walled inclosure of Pierre Chouteau, while Mademoiselle Chouteau, with her nimble tongue, was flitting from one bit of village gossip to another, like a butterfly among the flowers, I was saying bitterly to myself:

"And she had even the discourtesy to walk away without waiting to see whether the guest of her house was going home or not."

It was a long mile and a half from Pierre Chouteau's house to Dr. Saugrain's, and it was a frosty December evening. It was only five o'clock, but the stars were out, and through the leafless trees I could see lights twinkling from the houses as I passed. Faster and faster I walked, as my thoughts grew more and more bitter toward mademoiselle, and by the time I had reached the cheery living-room, with its blazing lightwood fire, I was in such a glow from exercise and indignation as made the fire all unwelcome.

I had quite made up my mind, on my long walk, that mademoiselle should find me as cool as herself; and through the evening meal I scarce looked at her. But if I had fancied mademoiselle suffering from some secret trouble, I changed my mind at supper. She sat between my captain and her guardian, and was in such merry mood that she had my captain alternately laughing uproariously at her wit, and making fine speeches about her beauty, in a fashion that quite amazed me, for I had ever considered him a sober-minded fellow, above all such light ways.

Nor did she refrain from a slight stab at me whenever it was possible to get it in. I took no more notice of these than I could help, yet I felt my cheeks, already burning from my frosty walk, grow hotter and hotter, until the very tips of my ears were on fire; and I felt it the unkindest cut of all when she said, with her pretty accent and air of polite condescension to a very young boy:

"'Tis a long walk from Mademoiselle Chouteau's, monsieur, but it has given you une grande couleur. What would not our St. Louis belles give for such roses!"

I turned toward her just long enough to say gravely, "I thank you, mademoiselle," and then renewed at once my conversation with madame. But I could see from the tail of my eye that she had the grace to blush also, and to be ashamed of her petty persecutions, for she left me to myself the remainder of the meal.