er he came back breathing out threatenings and slaughter,
strongly flavoured with raw spirits. Prosper was working quietly on the
top of the tower, at the side away from the road. He saw nothing until
Raoul, climbing up by the ladders on the inside, leaped on the platform
and rushed at him like a crazy lynx.

"Now!" he cried, "no hole to hide in here, rat! I'll squeeze the lies
out of you."

He gripped Prosper by the head, thrusting one thumb into his eye, and
pushing him backward on the scaffolding.

Blinded, half maddened by the pain, Prosper thought of nothing but
to get free. He swung his long arm upward and landed a heavy blow on
Raoul's face that dislocated the jaw; then twisting himself downward and
sideways, he fell in toward the wall. Raoul plunged forward, stumbled,
let go his hold, and pitched out from the tower, arms spread, clutching
the air.

Forty feet straight down! A moment--or was it an eternity?--of horrible
silence. Then the body struck the rough stones at the foot of the tower
with a thick, soft dunt, and lay crumpled up among them, without a
groan, without a movement.

When the other men, who had hurried up the ladders in terror, found
Leclere, he was peering over the edge of the scaffold, wiping the blood
from his eyes, trying to see down.

"I have killed him," he muttered, "my friend! He is smashed to death. I
am a murderer. Let me go. I must throw myself down!"

They had hard work to hold him back. As they forced him down the ladders
he trembled like a poplar.

But Vaillantcoeur was not dead. No; it was incredible--to fall forty
feet and not be killed--they talk of it yet all through the valley of
the Lake St. John--it was a miracle! But Vaillantcoeur had broken only
a nose, a collar-bone, and two ribs--for one like him that was but a
bagatelle. A good doctor from Chicoutimi, a few months of nursing, and
he would be on his feet again, almost as good a man as he had ever been.

It was Leclere who put himself in charge of this.

"It is my affair," he said--"my fault! It was not a fair place to fight.
Why did I strike? I must attend to this bad work."

"MAIS, SACRE BLEU!" they answered, "how could you help it? He forced
you. You did not want to be killed. That would be a little too much."

"No," he persisted, "this is my affair. Girard, you know my money is
with the notary. There is plenty. Raoul has not enough, perhaps not any.
But he shall want nothing--you understand--nothing! It i