"Where is friend Hough?" asked the old man sharply, rising and groping like one awakened from sleep. "I saw him rushing into the forest as a man possessed." "His zeal consumes him. I fear me while the madness last he will thrust his sword through that witch and so bring us to trouble with the Indians." "She will escape from him in the forest." "Bear with me," said Penfold brokenly. "To-night I am old. My leg pains me so that I may hardly rest upon it. What is here? See! Whom have we yonder?" The man of Kent came striding through, with the hot question: "Hast seen my son?" As shortly Woodfield answered, and the knight hurried on without a word along the dim trail where the pursued and the pursuers had passed. "I am but a useless hulk this night," groaned Penfold. "Do you follow and bring me word, while I stay to keep company with our George." So Woodfield went. It was but a parting for the hour. He withdrew himself from his tough old captain and fellow villager, without a grasp of the hand, with no word of farewell, nor even a kindly look at the rugged features that he loved, never dreaming that he and Simon Penfold would speak again no more. The knight, more skilled in woodcraft, proceeded faster than the yeoman. The clash of steel reached his ears against the wind, the wild bayings of a dog, and deep French accents mingled with shrill counter-blasts in an English tongue. The shuddering forest became hideous, and the moonbeams came to his eyes red between the branches. Man La Salle feared not at all, but the fangs and glowing eyes of the hound appalled. Any moment the brute might spring upon his back. He could not hope to escape from hunters who covered the ground with the speed of deer and might not be thrown off the scent. He stopped, breathing furiously, and set his back against a smooth trunk; but when his foes swept up, and he beheld the size and innocence of the sword-bearer, he laughed, even as Goliath laughed when young David came out against him armed with a sling and a few smooth pebbles from the brook. "By the five wounds of God, 'tis but a child!" he muttered, as his breath returned. "May it never be said that La Salle ran in fear from a baby and a dog." He smiled with compassion for the white face which became visible when a bar of light crossed it. "I will deal lightly with the child," he said, "but the dog must die, or he shall hunt me through the night." "Down, Blood!" called the young voice; and the brute crouched like a tiger, sweeping the grass madly with his tail. "He bears himself like a veteran," muttered La Salle, with a brave man's admiration for courage. "The pity that he is so young!" "On guard, sir!" shouted Richard, stepping up with the challenge which his father had taught him. "Back, little one," said the priest in his own tongue. "Put up your sword until you become a man, and return to your fishing-lines, and be young while you may."