run--a Frenchman."

"Prob'bly not, 'less he was pretty quick about it."

She looked up angrily. Of course he must know that he had been splendid,
up there behind the rocks. And now to be unconscious of it! But that was
only a pose, she decided. Yet what made him so stupidly commonplace, and
so dense? She hated to be robbed of her enthusiasm for an artistic
bric-a-brac of emotion; and here he was, like some sordid mechanic who
would not talk shop with a girl.

"I wager one thing," she fretted, "and it is that when you bring men
down to earth you have not even at all--how do you say?--the martial
rage in your eyes?"

"W'y, uh, not's I know of. It might spoil good shooting."

"And your pipe"--her lip curled and smiled at the same time--"the pipe
does not, neither?"

His mouth twitched at the corners. "N-o," he decided soberly, "not in
close range."

She gave him up, he had no pose. Still, she was out of patience with
him. "Helas! monsieur, all may see you are Ameri-can. But there, you
have not to feel sorry. I forgive you, yes, because--it wasn't dull."

"Hadn't we better be----"

"Now what," she persisted, "kept you so long up there, for example?"

Driscoll reddened. He had lingered behind the screen of rock to bandage
his furrowed leg. "S'pose you don't ask," he said abruptly, "there's
plenty other things to be doing."

He turned and invited the little Breton maid to come from the shack. She
was white, and trembled a little yet. "I knew, I knew you would not
leave us, monsieur," she was trying to tell him. "But if you had--oh,
what would madame----"

"Now then," the practical American interrupted, "where's Murgie?"

Jacqueline pointed with the toe of her slipper. There were prostrate
bodies around them, with teeth bared, insolent, silent, horrible. One
couldn't be sorry they were dead, but one didn't like to see them.
Jacqueline's boot pointed to a man lying on his face. A silk hat was
near by in the dust. A rusty black wig was loosened from his head. The
girl invoked him solemnly. "Arise, Ancient Black Crow, and live another
thousand years."

Driscoll lifted the shrunken bundle of a man, held him at arm's length,
looked him over, and stood him on his feet. The withered face was more
than ever like a death's head, and the eyes were glassy, senseless. But
as to hurt or scratch, there was none. The beady orbs started slowly in
their sockets, rolling from side to side. The lips opened, and formed
words. "K