Silently, at the steady Indian dog-trot, the pair pressed on. As mile after mile was covered, Gabriel’s strength seemed to renew itself, even, indeed, as that of the young eagle; hope revived within his breast, ministering to his keen vitality; and when at last the Indian paused, and kneeling, examined in ominous silence a bent twig here, a crushed blade of grass there, and finally laid his ear to the ground, Gabriel was inclined to scout Jean Jacques’ fears and his own suspicions. “Feet have passed this way,” muttered Jean Jacques, “feet of red men, with them a white man. Let Wild Deer put his head to the ground, and he will hear them yet. But our trail they have lost. They wander, seeking it.” Striking in the opposite direction, they proceeded cautiously. Then again the Indian stopped and listened after his manner. “They come,” he said, as he once more arose, “many of them. They go to the fort; but they will not go until they find Wild Deer to carry him with them. But Jean Jacques will be his guide, he shall escape them.” At nightfall they crept beneath a pile of brush and leaves, concealing the deserted lair of a gray fox, and Gabriel, worn out now, and happy in the thought of at sunrise being free to abandon the circuitous route and making straight for the fort, but a few miles distant, soon fell asleep. But there is many a slip, etc. It seemed to him that he had slept but five minutes when he was aroused by a flash of light in his eyes, and he opened them to find himself in the grasp of half a dozen Micmacs, behind them Le Loutre. Jean Jacques was nowhere to be seen. Speechless, he looked from one dark face to another; every one of them he knew to be unfriendly, or at least corrupted by French gold. His young heart felt nigh to bursting. So near the goal and to be thwarted thus! So near the new life, in which, in his youthful enthusiasm, he believed he could be true to the highest that was in him, true to his grandfather and Margot, vaguely but ardently hopeful that he could save them. And Jean Jacques? Had he indeed betrayed him? It was one of those moments of discouragement in which even the falsity of an untutored savage can pierce the very soul. “Bind him, and bring him on!” was the priest’s stern command. Bewildered by fatigue, sick with disappointment, Gabriel offered no resistance, uttered no word. He was dragged about a mile and then dropped rudely by the embers of a camp-fire. Waving his “lambs” to a distance, Le Loutre addressed him in accents cold as steel and merciless as the hand that drives it home. “Have I not told thee that thou canst not escape me, I, the chosen instrument of God to bring stragglers back into the fold? My duty is clear. He who will not bend must break.” He paused, but his hearer made no sign. “Thou knowest what is demanded of thee. This day my converts go on a friendly mission to the new fort. Must I instruct thee yet again in thy duty?”