eside old Fox, fretting and chafing in the harness, but
without thought of any violent objection. In the afternoon the colt
was put through her morning experience, with the variation that the
stone-boat was piled up with a fairly heavy load of earth and stone. And
about noon the day following, Lisette was turning her furrow with all
the steadiness of a horse twice her age.

Before two weeks were over, Yankee, with the horses, and Ranald, with
the oxen, had finished the plowing, and in another ten days the fields
lay smooth and black, with the seed harrowed safely in, waiting for the
rain.

Yankee's visit had been a godsend, not only to Ranald with his work,
but also to Macdonald Dubh. He would talk to the grim, silent man by the
hour, after the day's work was done, far into the night, till at length
he managed to draw from him the secret of his misery.

"I will never be a man again," he said, bitterly, to Yankee. "And there
is the farm all to pay for. I have put it off too long and now it is too
late, and it is all because of that--that--brute beast of a Frenchman."

"Mean cuss!" ejaculated Yankee.

"And I am saying," continued Macdonald Dubh, opening his heart still
further, "I am saying, it was no fair fight, whatever. I could whip him
with one hand. It was when I was pulling out Big Mack, poor fellow, from
under the heap, that he took me unawares."

"That's so," assented Yankee. "Blamed lowdown trick."

"And, oh, I will be praying God to give me strength just to meet him!
I will ask no more. But," he added, in bitter despair, "there is no use
for me to pray. Strength will come to me no more."

"Well," said Yankee, brightly, "needn't worry about that varmint. He
ain't worth it, anyhow."

"Aye, he is not worth it, indeed, and that is the man who has brought me
to this." That was the bitter part to Macdonald Dubh. A man he despised
had beaten him.

"Now look here," said Yankee, "course I ain't much good at this, but
if you will just quit worryin', I'll undertake to settle this little
account with Mr. LeNware."

"And what good would that be to me?" said Macdonald Dubh. "It is myself
that wants to meet him." It was not so much the destruction of LeNoir
that he desired as that he should have the destroying of him. While
he cherished this feeling in his heart, it was not strange that the
minister in his visits found Black Hugh unapproachable, and concluded
that he was in a state of settled "hardness of heart."