where none had right to penetrate save the subjects of his royal
master. He swore that they would make an end of us, root and
branch; and he laughed when he saw the Indians cutting down the
little ones, and covering their tender bodies with cruel wounds;
nor had he any pity upon the one white woman; and when I raved upon
him and cursed him, he laughed back, and said he had no power to
allay the fury of the savages. Those who would preserve themselves
safe should retire within the bounds of the colony to which they
belong. France would have an end of encroachment, and the Indians
were her friends, and would help her to drive out the common foe!"

Humphrey set his teeth and clinched his hands. The old instinctive
hatred of centuries between French and English, never really dead,
now leaped into life in his breast. He had heard plenty of talk
during his boyhood of France's boundless pretensions with regard to
the great New World of the West, and how she sought, by the simple
process of declaring territory to be hers, to extend her power over
millions of miles of the untrodden plains and forests, which she
could never hope to populate. He had laughed with others at these
claims, and had thought little enough of them when with father and
brother he set out for the western frontier.

There was then peace between the nations. Nor had it entered into
the calculations of the settlers that their white brethren would
stir up the friendly Indians against them, and bring havoc and
destruction to their scattered dwellings. That was a method of
warfare undreamed of a few years back; but it was now becoming a
terrible reality.

"But your life was spared?" said Humphrey at last; "and yet the