I minded neither of them, but chiefly planned how best I might outwit De Croix and win the prize offered by Mademoiselle.

The promise of dawning day was in the outer air, too dim as yet to render our faces visible.

Suddenly the slight draft of air veered, and swept a tiny breath of smoke into my nostrils.
It came so quickly that I scarcely realized its significance until Burns scrambled to his knees with a growl.
"God! the devils have run us to cover!" he cried, sullenly.

"They have started a fire to smoke us out!" It hardly needed a moment to prove this true; the thin smoke grew more and more dense, filling the narrow entrance until we lay gasping for breath.

De Croix, ever the most impulsive, was the first to act.
"_Parbleu_!" he gasped, pulling himself forward with his hands.
"Better Indians than this foul air! If I die, it shall at least be in the open." To remain longer cooped in that foul hole was indeed madness; and as soon as I could I followed him, rolling out of the entrance to the water's edge, fairly sick with the pressure upon my lungs, and caring so little what the end might be, provided I might first attain one breath of pure air, that before I gained strength to resist I was prisoner to as ill-looking a crew of savages as ever my eyes encountered.