"Only until I succeed in joining some party travelling westward to the Illinois country." "No! is that your aim? 'T is my trip also, if Fate be ever kind enough to bring hither a guide. _Sacre_! there was one here but now, as odd a devil as ever bore rifle, and he hath taken the western trail alone, for he hated me from the start. That was Ol' Burns. Know you him?" "'T was he who brought the message that sent me here; yet he said little of his own journey. But you mention not where you are bound?" "I seek Fort Dearborn, on the Great Lake." "That likewise is to be the end of my journey. You go to explore?" "Explore? Faith, no," and he patted his hand upon the bench most merrily. "There are but two reasons to my mind important enough to lure a French gentleman into such a hole as this, and send him wandering through your backwoods,--either war or love, Monsieur; and I know of no war that calleth me." Love, as he thus spoke of it, was almost an unknown term to me then; and, in truth, I scarcely grasped the full significance of his meaning. "You seek some lady, then, at Fort Dearborn?" I asked, for his tone seemed to invite the inquiry. "Ay!" with quickened enthusiasm; "'tis there Toinette has hidden herself for this year or more,--Toinette, on my word as a French soldier, the fairest maid of Montreal. I have just discovered her whereabouts, yet I shall win her ere I traverse these trails again, or I am not Villiers de Croix." "I travel thither to bring back a little orphan child with me," I explained simply, in response to his look, "and will most gladly aid you where I can." Before he could answer, Hawkins, a gaunt, silent frontiersman, together with Sam, entered the room, bearing between them our evening meal. CHAPTER IV CAPTAIN WELLS OF FORT WAYNE We tarried at the table a considerable time,--not because of any tempting variety in the repast, as the food furnished was of the coarsest, but for the sake of companionship, and because we discovered much of passing interest to converse about. De Croix had travelled widely, and had seen a great variety of life both in camp and court. He proved a vivacious fellow, full of amusing anecdote,--a bottle of rich wine drawn from his own private stock so stimulating his imagination that I had little to do but sit and listen. Yet he contrived to learn from me,--how, I hardly know,--the simple story of my life, and, indeed, assumed a certain air of patronizing superiority, boasting unduly of his wider experience and achievements in a way that somewhat nettled me at last, as I began to comprehend that he was merely showing off his genteel graces the better to exhibit his contempt for my provincial narrowness. I did not permit this really to anger me, for our views upon such matters were totally different, and I could not help feel admiration for the brilliant and audacious fellow.