ncient enemy of man was barracked about
by men's bodies. It was Joan who, at last, as dawn drew up, discovered
the hollow between two great rocks where the treasure lay. A few
minutes' fierce digging, and the kegs of gold were disclosed, showing
through the ribs of two skeletons. Joan shrank back, but the two men
tossed aside the rattling bones, and presently the kegs were standing
between them on the open shore. Bissonnette's eyes were hungry--he knew
now the wherefore of the quest. He laughed outright, a silly, loud,
hysterical laugh. Tarboe's eyes shifted from the sky to the river, from
the river to the kegs, from the kegs to Bissonnette. On him they stayed
a moment. Bissonnette shrank back. Tarboe was feeling for the first time
in his life the deadly suspicion which comes with ill-gotten wealth.
This passed as his eyes and Joan's met, for she had caught the
melodrama, the overstrain; Bissonnette's laugh had pointed the
situation; and her sense of humour had prevailed. "La, la," she said,
with a whimsical quirk of the head, and no apparent relevancy:

"Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, and your children all gone."

The remedy was good. Tarboe's eyes came again to their natural
liveliness, and Bissonnette said:

"My throat's like a piece of sand-paper."

Tarboe handed over a brandy flask, after taking a pull himself, and then
sitting down on one of the kegs, he said: "It is as you see, and now
Angel Point very quick. To get it there safe, that's the thing!" Then,
scanning the sky closely: "It's for a handsome day, and the wind goes
to bear us up fine. Good! Well, for you, Bissonnette, there shall be a
thousand dollars, you shall have the Belle Chatelaine Inn and the little
lady at Point Pierrot. For the rest, you shall keep a quiet tongue, eh?
If not, my Bissonnette, we shall be the best of strangers, and you shall
not be happy. Hein?"

Bissonnette's eyes flashed. "The Belle Chatelaine? Good! That is enough.
My tongue is tied; I cannot speak; it is fastened with a thousand pegs."

"Very good, a thousand gold pegs, and you shall never pull them. The
little lady will have you with them, not without; and unless you stand
by me, no one shall have you at any price--by God!"

He stood up, but Joan put out her hand. "You have been speaking, now it
is my turn. Don't cry cook till you have the venison home. What is
more, I gave my word to Gobal, and I will keep it. I will be captain.