ees thinned. I seemed to
be running across the open, the rain driving me forward like a wet
sail, a roar of wind in my ears and the words of M. Radisson ringing
their battle-cry--"Storm and cold--man and beast--powers of darkness
and devil--knaves and fools and his own sins--he must fight them
all!"--"Who?"--"The victor!"

Of a sudden the dripping thicket gave back a glint. Had I run in a
circle and come again on M. Radisson's fire? Behind, a dim glare still
shone against the sky.

Another glint from the rain drip, and I dropped like a deer hit on the
run. Not a gunshot away was a hunter's fire. Against the fire were
three figures. One stood with his face towards me, an Indian dressed
in buckskin, the man who had pursued the deer. The second was hid by
an intervening tree; and as I watched, the third faded into the
phaseless dark. Who were these night-watchers? I liked not that
business of spying--though you may call it scouting, if you will, but I
must either report nothing to M. Radisson, or find out more.

I turned to skirt the group. A pistol-shot rang through the wood. A
sword flashed to light. Before I had time to think, but not--thanks to
M. Picot's lessons long ago--not before I had my own rapier out, an
assassin blade would have taken me unawares.

I was on guard. Steel struck fire in red spots as it clashed against
steel. One thrust, I know, touched home; for the pistol went whirling
out of my adversary's hand, and his sword came through the dark with
the hiss of a serpent. Again I seemed to be in Boston Town; but the
hunting room had become a northland forest, M. Picot, a bearded man
with his back to the fire and his face in the dark, and our slim foils,
naked swords that pressed and parried and thrust in many a foul such as
the French doctor had taught me was a trick of the infamous Blood!
Indeed, I could have sworn that a woman's voice cried out through the
dark; but the rain was in my face and a sword striking red against my
own. Thanks, yes, thanks a thousand times to M. Picot's lessons; for
again and yet again I foiled that lunge of the unscrupulous swordsman
till I heard my adversary swearing, between clinched teeth. He
retreated. I followed. By a dexterous spring he put himself under
cover of the woods, leaving me in the open. My only practice in
swordsmanship had been with M. Picot, and it was not till long years
after that I minded how those lessons seemed to forestall and cou