ancin' beyant this night, me darlins!"

"Are you sure you'll not run away when they come on?" said Pierre, a
little ironically.

"Is that the word av a frind?" replied Macavoy, a hand fumbling in his
hair.

"Did you never run away when faced?" Pierre asked pitilessly.

"I never turned tail from a man, though, to be sure, it's been more talk
than fight up here: Fort Ste. Anne's been but a graveyard for fun these
years."

"Eh, well," persisted Pierre, "but did you never turn tail from a slip
of a woman?"

The thing was said idly. Macavoy gathered his beard in his mouth,
chewing it confusedly. "You've a keen tongue for a question," was his
reply. "What for should anny man run from a woman?"

"When the furniture flies, an' the woman knows more of the world in
a day than the man does in a year; and the man's a hulking bit of an
Irishman--bien, then things are so and so!"

Macavoy drew back dazed, his big legs trembling. "Come into the shade of
these maples," said Pierre, "for the sun has set you quaking a little,"
and he put out his hand to take Macavoy's arm.

The giant drew away from the hand, but walked on to the trees. His face
seemed to have grown older by years on the moment. "What's this y'are
sayin' to me?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you know av--av that woman?"

"Malahide is a long way off," said Pierre, "but when one travels why
shouldn't the other?"

Macavoy made a helpless motion with his lumbering hand. "Mother o'
saints," he said, "has it come to that, after all these years? Is
she--tell me where she is, me frind, and you'll niver want an arm to
fight for ye, an' the half av a blanket, while I have wan!"

"But you'll run as you did before, if I tell you, an' there'll be no
fighting to-night, accordin' to the word you've given."

"No fightin', did ye say? an' run away, is it? Then this in your eye,
that if ye'll bring an army, I'll fight till the skin is in rags on me
bones, whin it's only men that's before me; but woman--and that wan!
Faith, I'd run, I'm thinkin', as I did, you know when--Don't tell me
that she's here, man; arrah, don't say that!"

There was something pitiful and childlike in the big man's voice, so
much so that Pierre, calculating gamester as he was, and working upon
him as he had been for many weeks, felt a sudden pity, and dropping his
fingers on the other's arm, said: "No, Macavoy, my friend, she is not
here; but she is at Fort Ste. Anne--or was when I left there."

Maca