"I have done more than you saw," I said, with my eyes on hers. "I have talked with Onanguisse, and have smoked a full pipe with the old men in council. Thank you for your interest. Thank you, Madame de Montlivet." But she would not look at me bent before her. "That I wish you to do your best, unhampered by me, does not mean that I wish you success," she said, with her head high, and she went to Onanguisse, and curtsied her adieus. Her last words were with Father Nouvel, and she hid her eyes for a moment, while he blessed her and said good-by. Our canoes pointed to the sunset as we rounded the headland and slid outward. On the shore, the Indian women chanted a hymn to Messou,--to Messou, the Maker of Life, and the God of Marriage, to whom, on our behalf, many pipes had been smoked that day. CHAPTER XV I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER Now the great bay on which we were embarked was a water empire, fair to the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie Islands that we had just left well-nigh blocked its mouth, and its southern end was the outlet of a shining stream that was known as the River of the Fox. The bay was thirty leagues long by eight broad, and had tides like the ocean. Five tribes dwelt around it: the Pottawatamies at its mouth, the Malhominis halfway down on its western shore, and the Sacs, the Chippewas, and the Winnebagoes scattered at different points in more transitory camps. To the east the bay was separated from Lake Illinois by a long peninsula that lay like a rough-hewn arrow with its point to the polestar. It was goodly land, I had been told, rich in game, and splashed with ponds, but since it was too small to support the hunting of a tribe it was left comparatively unoccupied. All of the five tribes, and sometimes the Miamis, fished there at intervals; it was neutral ground. I told all this to the woman as our canoes swept toward the sunset. She sat with her back to the west, and the sun, that dazzled my eyes, shone red through her brown hair, and I scorned myself that I should have believed for a moment that such soft, fine abundance ever framed a man's forehead. I talked to her freely; talked of winds and tides and Indians, and was not deterred when she answered me but sparingly. I could not see her face distinctly, because of the light, but there was something in the gentleness and intentness of her listening poise that made me feel that she welcomed the safeguard of my aimless speech, but that for the moment she had no similar weapons of her own.