, all mud
and water and weapons, touching the side of his cap with the edge of
his palm and asking in French, with an amused smile forcing its way
about his lips:--

"Can fifteen of us get something to eat, and feed our horses?"

Chaouache gave a vacant stare, and silently started toward the
holsters that hung from the bedpost; but the stranger's right hand
flashed around to his own belt, and, with a repeater half drawn, he
cried:

"Halt!" And then, more quietly, "Look out of the door, look out the
window."

Father and son looked. The house was surrounded.

Chaouache turned upon his wife one look of silent despair. Wife and
children threw themselves upon his neck, weeping and wailing. 'Thanase
bore the sight a moment, maybe a full minute; then drew near, pressed
the children with kind firmness aside, pushed between his father and
mother, took her tenderly by the shoulders, and said in their antique
dialect, with his own eyes brimming:--

"Hush! hush! he will not have to go."

* * * * *

At a gentle trot the short column of horsemen moves again, but with
its head the other way. The wind and rain buffet and pelt horse and
rider from behind. Chaouache's door is still open. He stands in it
with his red-eyed wife beside him and the children around them, all
gazing mutely, with drooping heads and many a slow tear, after the
departing cavalcade.

None of the horsemen look back. Why should they? To see a barefoot man
beside a woman in dingy _volante_ and _casaquin_, with two or three
lads of ten or twelve in front, whose feet have known sunburn and
frost but never a shoe, and a damsel or two in cotton homespun dress
made of one piece from collar to hem, and pantalettes of the same
reaching to the ankles--all standing and looking the picture of
witless incapacity, and making no plea against tyranny! Is that a
thing worth while to turn and look back upon? If the blow fell upon
ourselves or our set, that would be different; but these illiterate
and lowly ones--they are--you don't know--so dull and insensible. Yes,
it may be true that it is only _some_ of them who feel less acutely
than _some_ of us--we admit that generously; but when you insinuate
that when we overlook parental and fraternal anguish tearing at such
hearts the dulness and insensibility are ours, you make those people
extremely offensive to us, whereas you should not estrange them from
our tolerance.

Ah, poor unpitied m