aw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him
with his heavy-handled ox-goad.

But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half
stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was
lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied
behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly
down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it
had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice.

Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the
wheel, looked down on his enemy.

The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not
struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in
the Elder's hands.

"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder,
struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was
goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better
folks than me, before now!"

Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the
sound of it kindled his wrath anew.

"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you
like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's
you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish
dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out,"
and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint;
and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at
this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and
terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features.

At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave
the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go.

"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?"
said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be
no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!"

At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face.
What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what
iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications
of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he
besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional
surrender, that