I wonder what that fool of a D'Herouville was
doing this morning with those dissatisfied colonists and that man
Pauquet? I will watch. Something is going on, and it will not harm to
know what." He laughed silently.
Before the women entered the wilderness to create currents and eddies
in the sluggish stream which flowed over the colonists, Victor began to
compile a book on Indian lore. He took up the work the very first
night of his arrival; took it up as eagerly as if it were a gift from
the gods, as indeed it was, promising as it did to while away many a
long night. He depended wholly upon Father Chaumonot's knowledge of
the tongue and the legends; and daring the first three nights he and
Chaumonot divided a table between them, the one to scribble his lore
and the other to add a page to those remarkable memoirs, the Jesuit
Relations. The Chevalier watched them both from a corner where he sat
and gravely smoked a wooden pipe.
And then the manuscript of the poet was put aside.
"Why?" asked Chaumonot one night. He had been greatly interested in
the poet's work.
Victor flushed guiltily. "Perhaps it may be of no value.
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