lles?" I asked.

"Exactly," he said. "War is a rude guest for poor folk."

Disgusted with the cowardice of the hamlet of Trois-Feuilles, I passed
on without noticing the man's sneer. In a moment, however, he repassed
me swiftly, going in the same direction as were we, toward La Trappe.

"Wait a bit!" I called out. "What is your business in that
direction, monsieur the notary?"

He looked around, muttered indistinctly about having forgotten
something, and started on ahead of us, but at a sharp "Stop!" from me
he halted quickly enough.

"Your road lies the other way," I observed, and, as he began to
protest, I cut him short.

"You change your direction too quickly to suit me," I said. "Come,
my friend the weather-cock, turn your nose east and follow it or I may
ask you some questions that might frighten you."

And so I left him also staring after us, and I had half a mind to go
back and examine his portfolio to see what a snipe-faced notary might
be carrying about with him.

When I looked up at my turkey-girl, she was sitting more easily in the
saddle, head bent thoughtfully.

"You see, mademoiselle, I take no chances of not finding my friends
at home," I said.

"What friends, monsieur?"

"My friends at La Trappe."

"Oh! And ... you think that the notary we passed might have desired
to prepare them for your visit, monsieur?"

"Possibly. The notary of Trois-Feuilles and the Chateau de la Trappe
may not be unknown to each other. Perhaps even mademoiselle the
turkey-girl may number the learned Trappists among her friends."

"Perhaps," she said.

Walking on along the muddy road beside her, arm resting on my horse's
neck, I thought over again of the chances of catching Buckhurst, and
they seemed slim, especially as after my visit the house at La Trappe
would be vacant and the colony scattered, or at least out of French
jurisdiction, and probably settled across the Belgian frontier.

Of course, if the government ordered the expulsion of these people,
the people must go; but I for one found the order a foolish one,
because it removed a bait that might attract Buckhurst back where we
stood a chance of trapping him.

But in a foreign country he could visit his friends freely, and
whatever movement he might ultimately contemplate against the French
government could easily be directed from that paradise of anarchists,
Belgium, without the necessity of his exposing himself to any
considerable danger.

I was s