A look passed between the two men. Walker turned to his companion but did not speak. The Oneida, his face like stone, returned his gaze.

He wants their scalps, Quade realized; the image this conjured up, usually unpalatable, took on a more pleasing dimension. To Walker, he said, “Won’t the weather hamper your men, Captain?”

“Not by much.” Walker grinned. “Always a track to follow, if you know what to look for.”

“And if they manage to cross the border? Will your men continue the pursuit?”

Walker waved a dismissive hand at the map. “What border? Oneida don’t recognize borders, Major. Their ancestors have hunted this land for a thousand years. Hell, longer than that. Didn’t need no maps then; don’t follow them now. A line on a piece of paper don’t mean shit to them. So, don’t you worry none about borders – they won’t.”

“It’s not their reaching the border that bothers me,” Pearce snapped. “It’s two spies passing on word about our flotilla.”

Walker nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. Getting to the border ain’t the same as reaching the lines. They’d have a ways to go before they do that. Not far, but it’ll give us more time to catch them.”

Pearce looked pensive.

“They’ll be trying for Île aux Noix?” Quade said.

The island lay in the middle of the Richelieu River, which flowed out of Champlain and ran due north all the way to its confluence with the St Lawrence, some forty miles above Montreal. Like so many strategic fortifications in the region, it had changed hands over the years. The French had built the ramparts, the British had captured them and the Americans had taken them during the Revolution, losing them a year later following their retreat from Quebec, at which point they had returned to British hands. Since then, the original fortifications had been extended and a shipyard added and it had become the Crown’s main frontier post in the region.

Pearce and Walker exchanged glances. It was Walker who spoke. “That’s the nearest garrison of any size. But it ain’t the closest outpost.”

Turning to the map, the captain pointed to a spot in the hinterland west of the Richelieu and north of the borderline, where there was a small drawn symbol half the size of the captain’s fingernail and shaped like a squat, square-sided mushroom. “That is.”

At the end of the captain’s gnarled fingertip was a dot marked Lacolle.

“Goddamn it to hell,” Pearce said.