musket which he is cleaning--gracious, but it
will kick when it fires, it is so old!"

She sank to the floor. "Why does he clean the musket?" she asked;
fear, and something wicked too, in her eye. Her fingers ran forgetfully
through the hair on her forehead, pushing it back, and the marks of
small-pox showed. The contrast with her smooth cheeks gave her a weird
look. Parpon got quickly on the table again and sat like a Turk, with
a furtive eye on her. "Who can tell!" he said at last. "That musket
has not been fired for years. It would not kill a bird; the shot would
scatter: but it might kill a man--a man is bigger."

"Kill a man!" She showed her white teeth with a savage little smile.

"Of course it is all guess. I asked Farette what he would shoot, and he
said, 'Nothing good to eat.' I said I would eat what he killed. Then
he got pretty mad, and said I couldn't eat my own head. Holy! that was
funny for Farette. Then I told him there was no good going to the Bois
Noir, for there would be nothing to shoot. Well, did I speak true,
Madame Julie?"

She was conscious of something new in Parpon. She could not define it.
Presently she got to her feet and said: "I don't believe you--you're a
monkey."

"A monkey can climb a tree quick; a man has to take the shot as it
comes." He stretched up his powerful arms, with a swift motion as of
climbing, laughed, and added: "Madame Julie, Farette has poor eyes; he
could not see a hole in a ladder. But he has a kink in his head about
the Bois Noir. People have talked--"

"Pshaw!" Julie said, crumpling her apron and throwing it out; "he is a
child and a coward. He should not play with a gun; it might go off and
hit him."

Parpon hopped down and trotted to the door. Then he turned and said,
with a sly gurgle: "Farette keeps at that gun. What is the good! There
will be nobody at the Bois Noir any more. I will go and tell him."

She rushed at him with fury, but seeing Annette Benoit in the road, she
stood still and beat her foot angrily on the doorstep. She was ripe for
a quarrel, and she would say something hateful to Annette; for she never
forgot that Farette had asked Annette to be his wife before herself was
considered. She smoothed out her wrinkled apron and waited.

"Good day, Annette," she said loftily.

"Good day, Julie," was the quiet reply.

"Will you come in?"

"I am going to the mill for flax-seed. Benoit has rheumatism."

"Poor Benoit!" said Julie, with a meaning