nd her red hands.

"_Allons! allons!_" he exclaimed with heat, still at a loss for his
words.

With her woman's instinct she brushed past him and started to pick up
the bundle, but he was too quick for her and drew her roughly back,
gripping her waist so sharply that he felt her wince.

"It does not pass like that!" he cried sharply. "_Eh ben!_ listen to me.
I'm too old a rat to be made a fool of--to be tricked like that!"

"Tricked!" she laughed back--"No, my old one--it is as simple as
_bonjour_, and since it is thine thou wilt keep it. Thou'lt--keep what
thou--"

The pent-up rage within him leaped to his throat:

"It does not pass like that!" he roared. With his clenched fist he
struck her squarely across the mouth. He saw her sink limp to the
ground, bleeding, her head buried between her knees. Then he picked up
the child and started with it across the plank that spanned the fork of
the stream. A moment later, still dizzy from the blow, she saw him
dimly, making rapidly across the marsh toward a bend in the stream. Then
the love of a mother welled up within her and she got to her feet and
followed him.

"Stay where thou art!" he shouted back threateningly.

The child in his arms was screaming. She saw his hand cover its
throat--the next moment she had reached him and her two hands were about
his own in a grip that sent him choking to his knees. The child rolled
from his arms still screaming, and the woman who was strangling Garron
into obedience now sank her knee in his back until she felt him give up.

"_Assez!_" he grunted out when he could breathe.

"_Eh ben!_ I am like _that_ when I don't like a thing!" she cried,
savagely repeating her old words. He looked up and saw a dangerous gleam
in her eyes. "_Ah, mais oui alors!_" she shouted defiantly. "Since it is
thine thou wilt keep it!"

Garron did not reply. She knew the fight was out of him and picked up
the still screaming baby, which she hugged to her breast, crooning over
it while Garron got lamely to his feet. Without another word she started
back to the hut, Garron following his mate and his son in silence.

* * * * *

Years passed and the boy grew up on the marsh, tolerated by Garron and
idolized and spoiled by Julie--years that transformed the black-eyed
baby into a wiry, reckless young rascal of sixteen with all the vagabond
nature of his father--straight and slim, with the clear-cut features of
a gypsy. A yea