Massawippa therefore sat on the floor with the sack’s mouth spread in her lap, and Claire leaned forward from her seat on the boat. “There were the cups and the candle and one rope and the tinder that we have taken out,” said Massawippa. She did not explain that she despised the promiscuous use of pewter cups, and would not use one in common with the Queen of France. Out of the bag, jostled by every step of the day’s journey, came unsorted a loaf of bread, some cured eels, a second rope,--“I brought ropes for rafts,” observed Massawippa,--a lump of salt, a piece of loaf sugar,--“For you, madame,”--more bread, more eels, another length of rope,--“I dared not buy all we needed at one place or at two places,” explained Massawippa,--the tinder-box, a hatchet, and, last, half a louis in coin, which Massawippa now returned to Claire. “Be my purse-bearer still,” said Claire, pushing it back. “If there be things we need to buy in the wilderness, you will know how to select them.” “We will keep it for the walking woman above Carillon,” said the half-breed girl, sagely; and she put it in the careful bank of her tinder-box, bestowing this in the safest part of her dress. They ate a hearty supper of eels and bread, and breaking the sugar in bits nibbled it afterwards, talking and looking at the coals on Jouaneaux’s hearth. Massawippa put their candle out. Their low voices echoed from the sides of the underground house and made a booming in their heads, but all sound of the river’s wash so near them, or of the organ murmur of the forest trees, was shut away. They cast stealthy occasional looks up at the trapdoor, but neither said to the other that she dreaded to see a painted face peering there, or even apprehended the nuns’ man. While night and day were yet blended they turned the canoe over, and propped it in a secure position with the help of the paddle. Claire brought her cloak out of her packet, and this they made their cushion in the canoe. The half-breed took the European’s head upon her childish shoulder, wrapping the older dependent well with her own blanket. Of all her experiences Claire thought this the strangest--that she should be resting like a sister on the breast of a little Indian maid in an underground chamber of the wilderness. “If it were not for you, madame,” spoke Massawippa, “I would put this canoe to soak in the water to-night. We must lose time to do it to-morrow. It has lain so long out of water it will scarcely be safe for us to venture across in.” “Massawippa, I thought we could take this boat and go directly up the Ottawa in it.” “Madame, you know nothing about the current. And at Carillon, above Two Mountains Lake, there is a place so swift that I could not paddle against it. We should have to carry around hard places. And there is the danger of meeting the Iroquois or being overtaken by some.”