"In the name of a sacred pig, what was it?" demanded my Frenchman.

"That was what I asked. It was a bear. The men who had been logging in
the camp two months back had left a keg of maple-syrup and a half barrel
of flour, and the bear broke into both--successively--and alternately.
He probably thought he was in bear-heaven for a while, but it must have
gotten irksome. For his head was eighteen inches wide when they found
him, white, with black touches. They soaked him in the river two days,
and sold his skin for twenty dollars. 'Pretty good for devil skin,'
Rafael said."

The Frenchman stared at me a moment and then leaned back in his chair
and shouted laughter. The greedy bear's finish had hit his funny-bone.
And the three others stopped talking and demanded the story told over,
which I did, condensing.

"I like zat Hurong for my soldier," Colonel Raffre stated heartily. "Ze
man what are not afraid of man _or_ of devil--zat is ze man to fight ze
Boches." He was talking English now because Colonel Chichely was
listening. He went on. "Zere is human devils--oh, but plentee--what we
fight in France. I haf not heard of ozzers. But I believe well ze man
who pull me out in sheet would be as your guide Rafael--he also would
crip up wiz his rifle on real devil out of hell. But yes. I haf not told
you how my Indian soldier bring in prisoners--no?"

We all agreed no, and put in a request.

"He brings zem in not one by one always--not always." The colonel
grinned. He went on to tell this tale, which I shift into the vernacular
from his laborious English.

It appears that he had discerned the aptitude of his Hurons for
reconnaissance work. If he needed information out of the dangerous
country lying in front, if he needed a prisoner to question, these men
were eager to go and get either, get anything. The more hazardous the
job the better, and for a long time they came out of it
untouched. In the group one man--nicknamed by the poilus, his
comrades--Hirondelle--the Swallow--supposedly because of his lightness
and swiftness, was easily chief. He had a fault, however, his dislike to
bring in prisoners alive. Four times he had haled a German corpse before
the colonel, seeming not rightly to understand that a dead enemy was
useless for information.

"The Boches are good killing," he had elucidated to his officer. And
finally: "It is well, m'sieur, the colonel. One failed to understand
that the colonel prefers a live Boche to