owards the Seigniory above the slope, now towards the river bank
where a couple of tall Etchemin Indians stood guard beside a canoe,
and across the broad flood to the woods on the farther shore
stretching away southward in a haze of blue. Down in the south
there, far beyond the blue horizon, a battle had been fought and a
great victory won.

Jo Lagasse edged away towards Corporal Chretien, who kept watch,
musket in hand, on the western fringe of the clearing. Harvests at
Boisveyrac had been gathered under arms since time out of mind, with
sentries posted far up the shore and in the windmill behind the
Seigniory, to give warning of the Iroquois. To-day the corporal and
his men were specially alert, and at an alarm the workers would have
plenty of time to take shelter within the gateway of the Chateau.

"Well, it seems that we may all lift up our hearts. The English are
done for, and next season there is to be a big stamping-out of the
Iroquois."

"Who told you that, Jo Lagasse?"

"Everyone is saying it. Pierre Courteau has even some tale that two
thousand of them were slaughtered after the battle yonder--
Onnontagues and Agniers for the most part. At this rate you idlers
will soon be using your bayonets to turn the corn with the rest of
us."

"Yes; that's right--call us idlers! And the Iroquois known to be
within a dozen miles! You would sing to another tune, my friend, if
we idlers offered to march off and leave you just now." The corporal
swung round on his thin legs and peered into the belt of trees.

Jo Lagasse grinned.

"No, no, corporal; I was jesting only. To think of me undervaluing
the military! Why often and often, as a single man with no ties,
I have fancied myself enlisting. But now it will be too late."

"If M. de Montcalm has really swallowed the English," answered the
other drily, "it will be too late, as you say."

"But these English, now--I have always had a curiosity to see them.
Is it true, corporal, that they have faces like devils, and that he
who has the misfortune to be killed by one will assuredly rise the
third day? The priests say so."

Corporal Chretien had never actually confronted his country's foes.
"Much would depend," he answered cautiously, "upon circumstances, and
upon what you mean by a devil."

While Jo Lagasse scratched his head over this, the wicket opened in
the great gate of the Seigniory, and Father Launoy came forth with a
troop of children at his heel