ace of the money was important. It was better that it should
be deposited in the most unlikely place, and with some unofficial person
who might not be supposed to have it in charge.

"I have it!" said the Seigneur. "The money shall be placed in old Louis
Trudel's safe in the wall of the tailor-shop."

It was so arranged, after Charley's protests of unwillingness, and
counter-appeals from the others. That evening at sundown thirty-three
thousand dollars was deposited in the safe in the old stone wall of the
tailorshop, and the lock was sealed with the parish seal.

But the Notary's wife had wormed the secret from her husband, and she
found it hard to keep. She told it to Maximilian Cour, and he kept it.
She told it to her cousin, the wife of Filion Lacasse, and she did not
keep it. Before twenty-four hours went round, a dozen people knew it.

The evening of the second day, another two thousand dollars was added
to the treasure, and the lock was again sealed--with the utmost secrecy.
Charley and Jo Portugais, the infidel and the murderer, were thus
the sentries to the peace of a parish, the bankers of its gifts, the
security for the future of the church of Chaudiere. Their weapons of
defence were two old pistols belonging to the Seigneur.

"Money is the master of the unexpected," the Seigneur had said as he
handed them over. He chuckled for hours afterwards as he thought of his
epigram. That night, as he turned over in bed for the third time, as was
his custom before going to sleep, another epigram came to him--"Money is
the only fox hunted night and day." He kept repeating it over and over
again with vain pride.

The truth of M. Rossignol's aphorisms had been demonstrated several days
before. On his return from Quebec with the twenty thousand dollars
of the Seigneur's money, M. Dauphin had dwelt with great pride on
the discretion and energy he and the steward had shown; had told
dramatically of the skill which had enabled them to make a journey of
such importance so secretly and safely; had covered himself with blushes
for his own coolness and intrepidity. Fortune had, however, favoured his
reputation and his intrepidity, for he had been pursued from the hour he
and his companion left Quebec. A taste for the picturesque had impelled
him to arrange for two relays of horses, and this fact saved him and the
twenty thousand dollars he carried. Two hours after he had left Quebec,
four determined men had got upon his trai