“Ha, Madeleine, you look so solemn, doubtless, because of your dear Marc! Well, why did you send him to the monks to have a scholar made out of him? You know how I despise these long-faced readers of musty books, yet you must thwart me in this way. I’ll not forgive you nor him. I had no fault to find in the old days--then he was a good lad enough, and a true De la Carre. But I tell you now, as I told you two years ago when you talked of sending him to Quebec, that I’ll have no bookman for a nephew. So you’ve only yourself to blame if he be set aside. But you were always obstinate.” “Ah, almost as obstinate as you, Antoine. But I’ll not trouble about Marc; if you’ll not help him, there are others that will. In these stirring times a boy like him is not forgotten.” After a pause he burst out again: “What folly it was! Has a lad here, in our rugged New France, any need of court manners and monk’s learning? If you had sent him to learn war it would have been different. But to a monastery! When a boy in old France, I was made to read Latin and dig into musty manuscripts till they nearly made a philosopher of me. But I had the good sense to turn soldier, and since then I’ve had no liking for monks and their learning. Madeleine, you knew all this, and remember now--” He was interrupted by a crash. The door was burst open and half a dozen Indians sprang into the room. Before Antoine could draw his dagger they had leaped upon him, seized his arms, and smothered his shouts. Madame Larocque was quickly and securely bound hand and foot and gagged. The Iroquois--for by their paint and dress the old man thought his captors to belong to the dreaded tribes of the Five Nations--worked noiselessly and swiftly; in less than five minutes from the bursting in of the door they led out Antoine de la Carre, his hands tied behind his back, and a piece of leather so fastened over his mouth that he could make no sound. The guards that should have been watching were nowhere to be seen, and the Indians, with their prisoner, quickly scaled the stockade, crept across a cleared space to the woods, hurried to the river, and were soon on the smooth, wind-swept ice and moving rapidly westward. “Where were those young rascals of my company when I needed them?--drinking in the storehouse or dancing in one of the cabins, most like!” growled old Antoine to himself. He was as strong as an old bear, but his joints were stiffened with age, and he had difficulty in keeping up with the rapid pace of the Indians. “What sinews these Iroquois have!” he thought, as he struggled on. “No Algonquin could hold his own with them; they run as well as our own young _coureurs des bois_!”