t. You were simply going to attack and rob the flatboat."

A second oath, fiercer than the first, escaped the man's lips. "You talk
that way to me! Do you forget that you're in my power?"

"Ah! Do you think so?" cried Maggie, resting her fists on her hips. "Ah,
ha, ha!" That was the first time I ever heard her laugh--and such a laugh!
"Don't you know, my dear sir, that at one turn of my hand this dog will
strangle you like a chicken? Don't you see four of us here armed to the
teeth, and at another signal our comrades yonder ready to join us in an
instant? And besides, this minute they are rolling a little cannon up to
the bow of the boat. Go, meddle with them, you'll see." She lied, but her
lie averted the attack. She quietly sat down again and paid the scoundrel
not the least attention.

"And that's the way you pay us for taking you in, is it? Accuse a man of
crime because he steps out of his own house to look at the weather? Well,
that's all right." While the man spoke he put his gun into a corner,
resumed his seat, and lighted a cob pipe. The son had leaned on his gun
during the colloquy. Now he put it aside and lay down upon the floor to
sleep. The awakened children slept. Maggie sat and smoked. My father,
Joseph, and 'Tino talked in low tones. All at once the old ruffian took
his pipe from his mouth and turned to my father.

"Where do you come from?"

"From New Orleans, sir."

"How long have you been on the way?"

"About a month."

"And where are you going," etc. Joseph, like papa, remained awake, but
like him, like all of us, longed with all his soul for the end of that
night of horror.

At the first crowing of the cock the denizens of the hut were astir. The
father and son took their guns and went into the forest. The fire was
relighted. The woman washed some hominy in a pail and seemed to have
forgotten our presence; but the little girl recognized Alix, who took from
her own neck a bright silk handkerchief and tied it over the child's head,
put a dollar in her hand, and kissed her forehead. Then it was Suzanne's
turn. She covered her with kisses. The little one laughed, and showed the
turban and the silver that "the pretty lady," she said, had given her.
Next, my sister dropped, one by one, upon the pallet ten dollars, amazing
the child with these playthings; and then she took off her red belt and
put it about her little pet's neck.

My father handed me a handful of silver. "They are very poor, my dau