"Lie down," I commanded; and we dropped on the sand, and strained our ears for sound of pursuit. For a time we heard nothing. Our burst of speed had carried us some distance, and I had begun to think that we had shaken off our pursuer, when again came the beat, beat, beat of the distant oar. We lay close as alligators on a bank, and waited. The strokes came nearer, and at last we saw a sliding shape. As well as we could make out, there was but one canoe, and it was passing us a little to the northward. It would miss the jut of land where we were hiding, and land on the main shore of the peninsula. We could hear but one paddle, so judged that there was but one person in the canoe. Still we did not know. It was growing near moonrise, and there was nothing to be done. I told the men to lie near together, and sleep till I called them. Then I cut boughs and laid a couple of blankets on them for the woman's couch. She had sat quiet all these hours, and now, as I bade her good-night, she asked her first question. "Are you willing to tell me why you fear pursuit, monsieur?" I hesitated. "We grow like animals in the wilderness," I parried, "and so suspect every sound as coming from a foe." "Then you do not know who it is in the canoe?" I could have answered "no," but I would not. "Yes, I think that I know," I replied. "I think that it is Pemaou, a Huron. An Indian whom you have never seen." She read the hate in my voice. "Do you know what he wants, monsieur?" And now I could answer truthfully, and with a laugh. "I suspect that he wants, or has been sent to get, something that I have determined to keep,--at least for the present," I told her. "Good-night, madame." I told my inner self that I must sleep soundly, and wake just before dawn; and so that was what happened. The horizon was flushing when I rose and looked around. My company was asleep. The woman lay on her bright blankets, and I looked at her a moment to make sure that all was well. She was smiling as if her dreams were pleasant, and her face wore such a look of peace, that I turned to the east, ready to begin the day, and to thank God that I had not done everything entirely wrong. I took the lighter of the canoes, carried it to the water, and dipping a cautious paddle, crept off along the shore. If I wake in the woods every dawn for a year, I can never grow stale to the miracle of it. I was on no pleasant errand, yet I could not help tingling at the cleanness of the air and at the smell of the mint that our canoes had crushed. I hugged the shore like a shadow, and rounded a little bend. It was as I had thought. We had landed on the western side of a small island, and before me, not a quarter hour's paddling away, stretched the shore line of the peninsula.