gens_, were glad to
see de Mezy rebuked and hoped that he would be punished; others, the
following of Bigot, Cadet, Pean and their corrupt crowd, were eager to
see the Bostonnais suffer for his insolence to one of their number. But
most of them, both the French of old France and the French of Canada,
chivalric of heart, were resolved to see fair play.

Monsieur Berryer shrugged his shoulders, but made no protest. The affair
to his mind managed itself very well. There had been none of the
violence that he had apprehended. The quarrel evidently was one of
gentlemen, carried out in due fashion, and the shedding of blood would
occur in the proper place and not in his inn. And yet it would be an
advertisement. Men would come to point out where de Mezy had sat, and
where the young Bostonnais had sat, and to recount the words that each
had said. And then the red wine and the white wine would flow freely.
Oh, yes, the affair was managing itself very well indeed, and the
thrifty Monsieur Berryer rubbed his hands together with satisfaction.

"We have beds here at the Inn of the Eagle," said Robert coolly--he was
growing more and more the master of speech; "you can send your seconds
this evening to see mine, and they will arrange everything, although I
tell you now that I choose small swords. I hope my choice suits you."

"It is what I would have selected myself," said de Mezy, giving his
antagonist a stare of curiosity. Such coolness, such effrontery, as he
would have called it, was not customary in one so young, and in an
American too, because Americans did not give much attention to the study
of the sword. New thoughts raced through his head. Could it be possible
that here, where one least expected it, was some marvelous swordsman, a
phenomenon? Did that account for his indifference? A slight shudder
passed over the frame of Jean de Mezy, who loved his dissolute life. But
such thoughts vanished quickly. It could not be possible. The confidence
of the young Bostonnais came from ignorance.

Robert had seen de Mezy's face fall, and he was confirmed in the course
that he had chosen already.

"_Gusgaesata_," he said to Tayoga in Iroquois.

"Ah, the deer buttons!" the Onondaga said in English, then repeating it
in French.

"You will pardon us," said Robert carelessly to de Mezy, "but Tayoga,
who by the way is of the most ancient blood of the Onondagas, and I
often play a game of ours after dinner."

His manner was that of d