w our commander. For we had not gone
far ere, timidly, a door opened and a mild-visaged man, in the simple
workaday smock that the French wore, stood, hesitating, on the steps.
The odd thing was that he should have bowed to Clark, who was dressed no
differently from Bowman and Harrod and Duff; and the man's voice trembled
piteously as he spoke. It needed not John Duff to tell us that he was
pleading for the lives of his family.

"He will sell himself as a slave if your Excellency will spare them,"
said Duff, translating.

But Clark stared at the man sternly.

"I will tell them my plans at the proper time," he said and when Duff had
translated this the man turned and went silently into his house again,
closing the door behind him. And before we had traversed the village the
same thing had happened many times. We gained the fort again, I
wondering greatly why he had not reassured these simple people. It was
Bowman who asked this question, he being closer to Clark than any of the
other captains. Clark said nothing then, and began to give out directions
for the day. But presently he called the Captain aside.

"Bowman," I heard him say, "we have one hundred and fifty men to hold a
province bigger than the whole of France, and filled with treacherous
tribes in the King's pay. I must work out the problem for myself."

Bowman was silent. Clark, with that touch which made men love him and
die for him, laid his hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Have the men called in by detachments," he said, "and fed. God knows
they must be hungry,--and you."

Suddenly I remembered that he himself had had nothing. Running around
the commandant's house to the kitchen door, I came unexpectedly upon
Swein Poulsson, who was face to face with the linsey-woolsey-clad figure
of Monsieur Rocheblave's negro cook. The early sun cast long shadows of
them on the ground.

"By tam," my friend was saying, "so I vill eat. I am choost like an ox
for three days, und chew grass. Prairie grass, is it?"

"Mo pas capab', Michie," said the cook, with a terrified roll of his
white eyes.

"Herr Gott!" cried Swein Poulsson, "I am red face. Aber Herr Gott, I
thank thee I am not a nigger. Und my hair is bristles, yes. Davy"
(spying me), "I thank Herr Gott it is not vool. Let us in the kitchen
go."

"I am come to get something for the Colonel's breakfast," said I, pushing
past the slave, through the open doorway. Swein Poulsson followed, and
here I struck anot