stood looking
in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time the rapier
was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines close to the young
man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of her exercise, seemed to
concentrate all the glowing rays of her beauty in her face, her eyes
dancing merrily.

"Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half in abject fear;
"please quit--I surrender!"

She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing lightly
backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had fallen over
her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy mass, out of which her face
beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.

Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing
dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder and
he made another movement to go.

"You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing the sword-play;
"sit down on the chair there and make yourself comfortable. You are not
going down yonder to-night; you are going to stay here and talk with me
and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome and you are good company."

A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that broke up
the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying intervals cut
the night air from the direction of the river.

Jean, the hunchback, came in to say that there was a row of some sort;
he had seen men running across the common as if in pursuit of a
fugitive; but the moonlight was so dim that he could not be sure what
it all meant.

Rene picked up his cap and bolted out of the house.

CHAPTER III

THE RAPE OF THE DEMIJOHN

The row down at the river house was more noise than fight, so far as
results seemed to indicate. It was all about a small dame jeanne of
fine brandy, which an Indian by the name of Long-Hair had seized and
run off with at the height of the carousal. He must have been soberer
than his pursuers, or naturally fleeter; for not one of them could
catch him, or even keep long in sight of him. Some pistols were emptied
while the race was on, and two or three of the men swore roundly to
having seen Long-Hair jump sidewise and stagger, as if one of the shots
had taken effect. But, although the moon was shining, he someway
disappeared, they could not understand just how, far down beside the
river below the fort and the church.

It was not a very uncommon thing for an Indian to steal what he wanted,
and in most cases lig