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Updated: June 1, 2025
He knew, from what Has-se had told him, that Chitta regarded him as an enemy, and he knew also that for his enemies an Indian reserves but one fate, and will kill them if he can. Thus it was with the feeling that he had escaped a mortal peril, and with a long-drawn sigh of relief, that he saw the discussion come to an end, and the strange canoe continue on its course up-stream.
The more he thought of it the more impossible did it seem for him to escape beyond the grim walls and meet Has-se at the appointed time. While he was thus overcome by the difficulties of his position, and as he had about concluded that he had undertaken an impossibility, he was startled by the deep tones of the great bell that hung in the archway of the gate, striking the hour of ten o'clock.
Gliding with wonderful ease and silence amid the dense underbrush, these went, and, at the end of two hours returned. They had discovered Cat-sha's plan of an ambush, and reported that the white men were even then leaving the fort to attack the shell mound. Then Yah-chi-la-ne ordered an advance, and dashed forward, with Réné and Has-se close beside him, and followed by his eager warriors.
Réné was made very happy by the return to the fort, for he said to himself, "It will soon be time for Micco's people to come again to their own hunting-grounds. Then I shall again see Has-se, and mayhap I shall be able to persuade him to go with me some day to France."
All were stripped to the skin, and wore only girdles about their loins and moccasins on their feet; but Has-se, as the son of the chief, had the scarlet feather of a flamingo braided into his dark hair. From the very first Has-se and Chitta easily excelled all their competitors in the contests; but they two were most evenly matched.
Here one of the canoes that had been drawn up on the beach was found to be missing, and search parties had been sent both up and down the river, but as yet they had not returned. As Has-se slowly recovered consciousness, and opened his eyes, his sister bent over him and whispered, "Who dealt thee the cruel blow, oh, my brother?"
As the angry Chitta turned away from the scene of his defeat, his heart was filled with rage at these shouts, and he muttered a deep threat of vengeance upon all who uttered them, those of his own race as well as the pale-faces. So Has-se the Sunbeam became Bow-bearer to his father, the great chief Micco, and Chitta the Snake was disappointed of his ambition.
As he lay there, thoroughly enjoying the feast and the novelty of the scene, Has-se came to him and placed in his hand the Flamingo Feather that had been cut from his hair on the day before by Chitta's arrow. As he did so he said, "This I give to thee, Ta-lah-lo-ko, as a token of friendship forever between us, and for thee to keep in memory of this day.
Now, in addition to the parched corn, he saw fish, oysters, eggs, and a vegetable, all smoking hot, cooked to a nicety, and temptingly spread on some freshly cut palm-leaves. The fish were mullet, that Has-se had speared from the canoe as they swam in the clear water.
It was these two, then, whose traces had so puzzled Has-se as he and Réné de Veaux in turn followed them, and it was their canoe of which the two boys caught a fleeting glimpse in the great swamp. "Look!" exclaimed Has-se, whose keen eye was the first to detect the vanishing canoe. "These are either my own people, whom we have thus overtaken, or those whom we know to be in close pursuit of them.
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