Pani was too much exhausted and too dazed to oppose anything. Once or twice she started feebly and said she must go home, but dropped back again on the pine needle couch covered with a blanket. Between waking and sleep strange dreams came to her that made her start and cry out, and Wenonah soothed her as one would a child. All the next day they waited. The town was stirred with the event, and the sympathy was universal. The pretty Jeanne Angelot, who had been left so mysteriously, had awakened romantic interest anew. A few years ago this would have been a common incident, but why one should want to carry off a girl of no special value,--though a ransom would be raised readily enough if such a thing could save her. On the second day the company returned home. No trace of any marauding party had been found. There had been no fires kindled, no signs of any struggle, and no Indian trails in the circuit they had made. The party might have had a canoe on Little river and paddled out to Lake St. Clair; if so, they were beyond reach. The tidings utterly crushed Pani. For a fortnight she lay in Wenonah's cabin, paying no attention to anything and would have refused sustenance if Wenonah had not fed her as a child. Then one day she seemed to wake as out of a trance. "They have not found her--my little one?" she said. Wenonah shook her head. "Some evil spirit of the woods has taken her." "Can you listen and think, Pani?" and she chafed the cold hand she held. "I have had many strange thoughts and Touchas, you know, has seen visions. The white man has changed everything and driven away the children of the air who used to run to and fro in the times of our fathers. In her youth she called them, but the Church has it they are demons, and to look at the future is a wicked thing. It is said in some places they have put people to death for doing it." Pani's dark eyes gave a glance of mute inquiry. "But I asked Touchas. At first she said the great Manitou had taken the power from her. But the night the moon described the full circle and one could discern strange shapes in it, she came to me, and we went and sat under the oak tree where the child first came to thee. There was great disturbance in Touchas' mind, and her eyes seemed to traverse space beyond the stars. Presently, like one in a dream, she said:--