Marie made a helpless gesture, “Oh, Joseph, don’t you understand you can’t, in a moment’s time, deliver a judgment on your sister’s health? You’ve been away for months. We’ve been with her all those months, and we know the poor child isn’t well.”

She came forward to place a caressing hand on Ellen’s shoulder, and there seemed to be genuine tenderness in her voice. “The poor child isn’t right in her head. She thinks we want to harm her! We, of all people! That’s why she’s dressed as you see her: so she can’t run away! That’s why we have her watched! She might go running alone into the wilderness!” Marie smiled sadly at Ellen’s downcast head. “Think what it would mean, Joseph: wolves, mosquitoes, bad soldiers! She’d never be heard of again!”

“That true, what she say?” Joseph asked Ellen.

Nathaniel spoke up eagerly. “It doesn’t do a bit of good to ask her, Joseph! Of course she says it’s not true! She doesn’t know!”

Ellen said nothing.

Joseph spoke to her again. “What they say true? You sick?”

“No,” Ellen said. “No.”

Marie de Sabrevois made a little fluttering, appealing gesture. “You see?”

Joseph Phipps grunted. “Ellen, how you like go live with Indian women in Indian camp?”

Ellen rose quickly. So large was the buckskin jerkin in which she was clothed that it almost slipped from her shoulders.

“Indian women would be kind,” she said. “Can you take me there?”

Marie de Sabrevois made a sound of exasperation. “You can’t do it!” she told Joseph. “Every person of importance in the British army knows Ellen is sick! General Burgoyne himself knows, and wishes her to be treated by the best army doctors. Ellen remains where I can watch over her and be certain she’s cared for properly.”

Joseph’s painted face was malignant; and she added hastily, “Another thing you’ve forgotten: white Indians are under suspicion in this army. Even if I permitted it, you wouldn’t be allowed to take Ellen away from here! You may think your paint makes you an Indian, but those who know enough to look at the palms of your hands must see the truth.”

Involuntarily I clenched my fists. I would have stopped the movement, once I had begun it, but it was too late. In the same moment I saw Doc Means haughtily fold his arms, so that his own palms were hidden.

Marie de Sabrevois’s eyes flashed from Doc’s face to mine. Without a word she moved quickly and lightly to the closed tent flap. I saw that she, too, had recognized me at last. More than that, I saw that if she went from the tent before we did, our chances of escape were gone.