The Missourians held council in Daniel's sanctum. To restore the captives to Dupin had been Driscoll's intention from the first. But now it was a question of trading them against Rodrigo. Dupin must know the American offer before he and Rodrigo should attack. Driscoll proposed for himself alone the errand to the Tiger's camp. Rising to his feet, he left his protesting friends without a word further. But he had to pass through the front room first, to get the cape coat hanging there. It was, in fact, his own. The two girls were seated before the fire, Jacqueline still in revery, Berthe nervously agitated from the late racket of battle. Daniel Boone had laid before them a ranchman's supper with tropical garnishing, but it was untouched. Driscoll nodded, crossed the room, took the coat from its nail, and started for the outer door as he drew it on. "Snubbing--an acquaintance," spoke an impersonal little voice, "is cheap." He stopped, waited. "Of a gentleman, I reckon you'd say," he interrupted uneasily. "Maybe not, but a ruffian's got his instincts too. When he's afraid of hurting someone, he hides himself." "I was mistaken," she said gravely, with that quaintest inflection of the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. He mais--but it is just that the complaint. You hurt more by _not_ speaking." "But there's nothing to say," he faltered. "I'm just going to Old Tige's--to Dupin's camp, and get him to come here for you." "Monsieur, monsieur, you fight for your captives only--only to give them up?" "That's not the question. You can overtake the Empress yet. Dupin will----" "But it is not that I want to overtake empresses at all. I--Berthe, would you mind carrying back these supper things?--I," she continued, when they were alone, "have no wish to go back to Paris. I shall return to the City." Again the liaison with Maximilian, he thought bitterly. And Charlotte away! It was infamous. However, he had no right to be concerned. "Very well," he said, "then Dupin can take you to the City, or wherever you wish." "Ma foi, what trouble to be rid of your prisoners, monsieur, and after two battles too!" "That's got nothing to do with it." She meant, though, to have him confess that she had had a great deal to do with it. She was taken with the self-cruel fancy to lay bare and contemplate his love for her, that she might feel more poignantly the happiness she had lost. But he abruptly turned again to leave, and all else was forgotten in terror. "You go to that Tiger!" she cried. "Do you not know that----" She darted between him and the door--"that he recognizes no rules of war? He will shoot you, he will, he will!" Driscoll laughed. "Oh, I'll be safe enough all right, thank you. Dupin holds Rodrigo, we hold you. So it's simply an exchange of prisoners. And he'll not do anything to me, for fear of what might happen to you here. You're not a hostage, sure not, but as long as he thinks so, I'll profit by it."