"Would to heaven she had shot at the white one, who was tenfold more of a fiend! But he shall not escape--he shall not escape! I shall know his face when I see it next. And I will not go down to the grave till he and I have stood face to face once more, when I am not bound and helpless, but a free man with weapons in my hand. That day will come; I read it in the book of fate. The Lord God, unto whom vengeance belongeth, He will cause it to come to pass!" Humphrey was afraid of these wild outbursts, as likely to bring on fever; and yet he could not but desire to know more. "A white man? Nay, brother; that is scarce to be believed. A white man to league himself to such deeds as these!" "A white man--a Frenchman. For I called upon him in our tongue, and he answered me in the same, but with that halting accent which I know belongs to the sons of France. Moreover, he made no secret of it. He called us dogs of English, who were robbers of the soil where none had right to penetrate save the subjects of his royal master. He swore that they would make an end of us, root and branch; and he laughed when he saw the Indians cutting down the little ones, and covering their tender bodies with cruel wounds; nor had he any pity upon the one white woman; and when I raved upon him and cursed him, he laughed back, and said he had no power to allay the fury of the savages. Those who would preserve themselves safe should retire within the bounds of the colony to which they belong. France would have an end of encroachment, and the Indians were her friends, and would help her to drive out the common foe!" Humphrey set his teeth and clinched his hands. The old instinctive hatred of centuries between French and English, never really dead, now leaped into life in his breast. He had heard plenty of talk during his boyhood of France's boundless pretensions with regard to the great New World of the West, and how she sought, by the simple process of declaring territory to be hers, to extend her power over millions of miles of the untrodden plains and forests, which she could never hope to populate. He had laughed with others at these claims, and had thought little enough of them when with father and brother he set out for the western frontier. There was then peace between the nations. Nor had it entered into the calculations of the settlers that their white brethren would stir up the friendly Indians against them, and bring havoc and destruction to their scattered dwellings. That was a method of warfare undreamed of a few years back; but it was now becoming a terrible reality. "But your life was spared?" said Humphrey at last; "and yet the scalping-knife came very close to doing its horrid work."