d to him and crooned over him as
she would over a baby for she saw that he was shaken and half
delirious with pain.

Brom Bones was standing munching twigs where she had left him. He had
never before been asked to carry double and he did not like it. But
the girl pleaded so pitifully and so gently into his silky black ear
that he finally gave in.

When they were mounted, she fastened the white collar of her jacket
into a sling for the boy's broken arm, and with a prayer to the
heathen Brom Bones to go tenderly they were off down the trail.

When they were half way down the trail Jeffrey spoke suddenly:

"Say, Ruth, what's the use trying to save these people? Let's sell
out while we can and take mother and go away."

"Why, Jeff, dear," she said lightly, "this fight hasn't begun yet.
Wait till we get to French Village. You'll say something different.
You'll say just what you said to the Shepherd of the North;
remember?"

Jeffrey said no more. The girl's heart was weak with the pain she knew
he was bearing, but she knew that they must go through with this.

All French Village and the farmers of Little Tupper country were
gathered in front of Arsene Lacomb's store. Rafe Gadbeau was standing
on the steps haranguing them. He had stayed with his prisoner as he
thought up to the last possible moment, so he stammered in his speech
when he saw a big black horse come tearing down the street carrying a
girl and a white-faced, black-headed boy behind her. Rogers, the
railroad lawyer beside him, said:

"Go on, man. What's the matter with you?"

The girl drove the horse right in through the crowd until Jeffrey
Whiting faced Rogers. Then Jeffrey, gritting his teeth on his pain,
took up his fight again.

"Rogers," he shouted, "you did this. You got Rafe Gadbeau and the
others to knock me on the head and put me out of the way, so that you
could spread your lies about me. And you'd have won out, too, if it
hadn't been for this brave girl here.

"Now, Rogers, you liar," he shouted louder, "I dare you, dare you, to
tell these people here that I or any of our people have sold you a
foot of land. I dare you!"

Rogers would have argued, but Rafe Gadbeau pulled him away. Gadbeau
knew that crowd. They were a crowd of Frenchmen, volatile and full of
potential fury. They were already cheering the brave girl. In a few
minutes they would be hunting the life of the man who had lied to them
and nearly ruined them.

A hundred hands re