cried a third, finding only two crowns in the pockets
of the body he was stripping, "a cheat!"

"But he's got a fine pair of shoes!" said a soldier, beginning to pull
them off.

"You can't have them unless they fall to your share," said the Fougeres
man, dragging the dead feet away and flinging the boots on a heap of
clothing already collected.

Another Chouan took charge of the money, so that lots might be drawn as
soon as the troops were all assembled. When Hulot returned with Gudin,
whose last attempt to overtake the Gars was useless as well as perilous,
he found about a score of his own men and thirty of the contingent
standing around eleven of the enemy, whose naked bodies were thrown into
a ditch at the foot of the bank.

"Soldiers!" cried Hulot, sternly. "I forbid you to share that clothing.
Form in line, quick!"

"Commandant," said a soldier, pointing to his shoes, at the points of
which five bare toes could be seen on each foot, "all right about the
money, but those boots," motioning to a pair of hobnailed boots with the
butt of his gun, "would fit me like a glove."

"Do you want to put English shoes on your feet?" retorted Hulot.

"But," said one of the Fougeres men, respectfully, "we've divided the
booty all through the war."

"I don't prevent you civilians from following your own ways," replied
Hulot, roughly.

"Here, Gudin, here's a purse with three louis," said the officer who
was distributing the money. "You have run hard and the commandant won't
prevent your taking it."

Hulot looked askance at Gudin, and saw that he turned pale.

"It's my uncle's purse!" exclaimed the young man.

Exhausted as he was with his run, he sprang to the mound of bodies, and
the first that met his eyes was that of his uncle. But he had hardly
recognized the rubicund face now furrowed with blue lines, and seen
the stiffened arms and the gunshot wound before he gave a stifled cry,
exclaiming, "Let us be off, commandant."

The Blues started. Hulot gave his arm to his young friend.

"God's thunder!" he cried. "Never mind, it is no great matter."

"But he is dead," said Gudin, "dead! He was my only relation, and though
he cursed me, still he loved me. If the king returns, the neighborhood
will want my head, and my poor uncle would have saved it."

"What a fool Gudin is," said one of the men who had stayed behind to
share the spoils; "his uncle was rich, and he hasn't had time to make a
will and disinherit him."