e?"

"My master Sainte-Helene, are you alone?"

"Quite alone, except for my horse tied to your apple-tree. Let me in."

The command was not to be slighted. Gaspard got down and admitted
his visitor. More than once had Sainte-Helene come to this hearth. He
appreciated the large fire, and sat down on a chair with heavy legs
which were joined by bars resting on the floor.

"My hands tingle. The dust on these, flint roads is cold."

"But Monsieur Sainte-Helene never walked with his hands in the dust,"
protested Gaspard. The erect figure, bright with all the military
finery of that period, checked even his superstition by imposing
another kind of awe.

"The New England men expect to make us bite it yet," responded
Sainte-Helene. "Saint-Denis is anxious about you, old man. Why don't
you go to the fort?"

"I will go to-morrow," promised Gaspard, relaxing sheepishly from
terror. "These New Englanders have not yet landed, and one's own bed
is very comfortable in the cool nights."

"I am used to sleeping anywhere."

"Yes, monsieur, for you are young."

"It would make you young again, Gaspard, to see Count Frontenac. I
wish all New France had seen him yesterday when he defied Phips
and sent the envoy back to the fleet. The officer was sweating; our
mischievous fellows had blinded him at the water's edge, and dragged
him, to the damage of his shins, over all the barricades of Mountain
Street. He took breath and courage when they turned him loose before
the governor,--though the sight of Frontenac startled him,--and handed
over the letter of his commandant requiring the surrender of Quebec."

"My faith, Monsieur Sainte-Helene, did the governor blow him out of
the room?"

"The man offered his open watch, demanding an answer within the hour.
The governor said, 'I do not need so much time. Go back at once to
your master and tell him I will answer this insolent message by the
mouths of my cannon.'"

"By all the saints, that was a good word!" swore Gaspard, slapping his
knee with his wool cap. "Neither the Iroquois nor the Bostonnais will
run over us, now that the old governor is back. You heard him say it,
monsieur?"

"I heard him, yes; for all his officers stood by. La Hontan was there,
too, and that pet of La Hontan's, Baron de Saint-Castin's half-breed
son, of Pentegoet."

The martial note in the officer's voice sunk to contempt. Gaspard
was diverted from the governor to recognize, with the speechless
perception