as soon as
the horses were ready. After a hasty breakfast they were again on their
way, and reached the third stage of their journey by eleven o'clock.
Tardif had passed two hours before.

So, for two days they travelled, with no sleep save what they could
catch as the coach rolled on. They were delayed three hours at one inn
because of the trouble in getting horses, since it appeared that Tardif
had taken the only available pair in the place; but a few gold pieces
brought another pair galloping from a farm two miles away, and they were
again on the road. Fifty miles to go, and Tardif with three hours' start
of them! Unless he had an accident there was faint chance of overtaking
him, for at this stage he had taken to the saddle again. As time
had gone on, and the distance between them and Quebec had decreased,
Madelinette had grown paler and stiller. Yet she was considerate of
Madame Marie, and more than once insisted on Havel lying down for a
couple of hours, and herself made him a strengthening bowl of soup at
the kitchen fire of the inn. Meanwhile she inquired whether it might
be possible to get four horses at the next change, and she offered five
gold pieces to a man who would ride on ahead of them and secure the
team.

Some magic seemed to bring her the accomplishment of the impossible, for
even as she made the offer, and the downcast looks of the landlord were
assuring her that her request was futile, there was the rattle of hoofs
without, and a petty Government official rode up. He had come a journey
of three miles only, and his horse was fresh. Agitated, yet ruling
herself to composure, Madelinette approached him and made her proposal
to him. He was suspicious, as became a petty Government official,
and replied sullenly. She offered him money--before the landlord,
unhappily--and his refusal was now unnecessarily bitter. She turned away
sadly, but Madame Marie had been roused by the official's churlishness,
and for once the placid little body spoke in that vulgar tongue which
needs no interpretation. She asked the fellow if he knew to whom he had
been impolite, to whom he had refused a kindly act.

"You--you, a habitant road-watcher, a pound-keeper, a village
tax-collector, or something less!" she said. "You to refuse the great
singer Madelinette Lajeunesse, the wife of the Seigneur of Pontiac, the
greatest patriot in the land; to refuse her whom princes are glad to
serve--" She stopped and gasped her indigna