“Upsetting!” Doc said. “They scairt the living tripe out of me!” He groaned and added, “Something’s got to be done—damned quick, too—if we don’t want ’em to spoil all my medical supplies!”

“I know,” Verrieul said. “I’m watching them. There are more things to be considered. They are from the west. I recognize some of their speech, but not all of it. They’re not Hurons or Iroquois. They speak an Algonkian tongue, like Abenaki, but they aren’t Abenakis. The longer I can go without speaking, the more I’ll learn. Also their chief man has gone ahead on a scout, to watch Arnold’s retreat, and it’s best to say nothing until he returns. He’ll be the wisest of them. Two of these that took us are very young: not more than fifteen years old. To speak with them would be a waste of time. They’re not yet possessed of good sense.”

I looked more carefully at the six red men. In the beginning I had been unable to distinguish between them. All seemed equally tall: all of an age: all equally horrible.

Now I saw differences. Because of the black paint and their crested heads, they had a look of uniformity; but two, beneath their paint, were full-skinned, their cheeks smooth and unwrinkled from jawbone to the lower lids of their eyes. They were, I realized, young boys. The others were men of twenty-five or thirty.

While I stared, I was conscious that I myself was stared at. A seventh Indian had come quietly up behind us. His face, too, was black, with three red marks, like scowl marks, drawn across his forehead and centering on the bridge of his nose, which added intentionally to what seemed his naturally murderous expression. His hair was crested, like the others, rising in a stiff red mane above his shaved skull. When I studied him, I saw wrinkles on his upper lip, and depressions under his eyes. He had a little more stomach than the others; and the backs of his hands were wrinkled and bony.

He made an unintelligible grunting sound; then moved around us to stand with the others. He, too, nosed at the odor of the pot, tested the contents with his finger: then picked up a piece of bark, and dusted it on his naked thigh. With it he scooped a sample from the pot, blew upon it to cool it, and gulped it down.

The Indian who had rummaged in the back of Doc’s smock stepped close to the new arrival and exhibited the package containing Doc’s extra asafoetida bags. The two of them stood there, sniffing at it as though it were some rare perfume they had smelled before, but couldn’t quite remember when or where.