e skipper asked impatiently. "What has she to do with
it?"

"They are her people," the Colonel answered simply--"or they should be.
If she says yea, it is yea; and if she says nay, it is nay. Or, so it
should be--as far as a league beyond Morristown."

Augustin waited for no more. He was still in a fog, but he saw a ray of
hope; this was the Chatelaine, it seemed. He bundled over the side.

Alas! he ventured too late. As his feet touched the slippery stones of
the jetty, the girl wheeled her horse about with an angry exclamation,
shook her whip at O'Sullivan Og--who winked the moment her back was
turned--and cantered away up the hill. On the instant the men picked up
the kegs they had dropped, a shrill cry passed down the line, and the
work was resumed.

But the big man remained; and the skipper, with the Colonel at his
elbow, made for him through the half-naked kernes. He saw them coming,
however, guessed their errand, and, with the plain intention of
avoiding them, he turned his horse's head.

But the skipper, springing forward, was in time to seize his stirrup.
"Sir," he cried, "this is robbery! _Nom de Dieu_, it is thievery!"

The big man looked down at him with temper. "Oh, by G--d, you must pay
your dues!" he said. "Oh yes, you must pay your dues!"

"But this is robbery."

"Sure it's not that you must be saying!"

The Colonel put the skipper on one side. "By your leave," he cried,
"one word! You don't know, sir, who I am, but----"

"I know you must pay your dues!" Uncle Ulick answered, parrot-like. "Oh
yes, you must pay your dues!" He was clearly ashamed of his _role_,
however; for as he spoke he shook off the Colonel's hold with a pettish
gesture, struck his horse with his stick, and cantered away over the
hill. In a twinkling he was lost to sight.

"_Vaurien!_" cried Captain Augustin, shaking his fist after him. But he
might as well have sworn at the moon.

CHAPTER II

MORRISTOWN

It was not until the Colonel had passed over the shoulder above the
stone-walled house that he escaped from the jabber of the crowd and the
jeers of the younger members of this savage tribe, who, noting
something abnormal in the fashion of the stranger's clothes, followed
him a space. On descending the farther slope, however, he found himself
alone in the silence of the waste. Choosing without hesitation one of
two tracks, ill-trodden, but such as in that district and at that
period passed for roads, he took h