Chapter XVI

We got our bearings, a pair of boots for D'ri, and a hearty meal in the cabin of a settler. The good man was unfamiliar with the upper shore, and we got no help in our mystery. Starting west, in the woods, on our way to the Harbor, we stopped here and there to listen, but heard only wood-thrush and partridge--the fife and drum of nature. That other music had gone out of hearing. We had no compass, but D'ri knew the forest as a crow knows the air. He knew the language of the trees and the brooks. The feel of the bark and what he called "the lean of the timber" told him which way was south. River and stream had a way of telling him whence they had come and where they were going, but he had no understanding of a map. I remember, after we had come to the Harbor at dusk and told our story, the general asked him to indicate our landing-place and our journey home on a big map at headquarters. D'ri studied the map a brief while. There was a look of embarrassment on his sober face.

"Seems so we come ashore 'bout here," said he, dropping the middle finger of his right hand in the vicinity of Quebec. "Then we travelled aw-a-a-ay hellwards over 'n this 'ere direction." With that illuminating remark he had slid his finger over some two hundred leagues of country from Quebec to Michigan.

They met us with honest joy and no little surprise that evening as we came into camp. Ten of our comrades had returned, but as for ourselves, they thought us in for a long stay. We said little of what we had gone through, outside the small office at headquarters, but somehow it began to travel, passing quickly from mouth to mouth, until it got to the newspapers and began to stir the tongue of each raw recruit. General Brown was there that evening, and had for me, as always, the warm heart of a father. He heard our report with a kindly sympathy.

Next morning I rode away to see the Comte de Chaumont at Leraysville. I had my life, and a great reason to be thankful, but there were lives dearer than my own to me, and they were yet in peril. Those dear faces haunted me and filled my sleep with trouble. I rode fast, reaching the chateau at luncheon time. The count was reading in a rustic chair at the big gate. He came running to me, his face red with excitement.

"M'sieur le Capitaine!" he cried, my hand in both of his, "I thought you were dead."

"And so I have been--dead as a cat drowned in a well, that turns up again as lively as ever. Any news of the baroness and the young ladies?"

"A letter," said he. "Come, get off your horse. I shall read to you the letter."

"Tell me--how were they taken?"

I was leading my horse, and we were walking through the deep grove.

"Eh bien, I am not able to tell," said he, shaking his head soberly. "You remember that morning--well, I have twenty men