Territory. If I were a boy, Pierre Menard, I would do something with
him."

"What would you do?"

"I would shoot him. He has duels."

"But my father might punish me for that."

"Very well, chicken-heart. Let Mademoiselle Saucier go, then. But I will
tell you this: there is no one else in Kaskaskia that I will have for a
second mother."

"Yes, we have all chosen her," owned Pierre, "but it seems to me papa
ought to make the marriage."

"But she would not know we children were willing to have her. If you did
something to stop Monsieur Zhone's courtship, she would then know."

"Why do you not go out on the gallery now and tell her we want her?"
exclaimed Pierre. "The colonel says it is best to be straightforward in
any matter of business."

"Pierre, it is plain to be seen that you do not know how to deal with
young ladies. They like best to be fought over. It is not proper to
_tell_ her we are willing to have her. The way to do is to drive off the
other suitors."

"But there are so many. Tante Isidore says all the young men in
Kaskaskia and the officers left at Fort Chartres are her suitors.
Monsieur Reece Zhone is the worst one, though. I might ask him to go out
to papa's office with me to-night, but we shall be sent to bed directly
after supper. Besides, here sits his sister who was carried out
fainting."

"While he is in our house we are obliged to be polite to him," said
Odile. "But if I were a boy, I would, some time, get on my pony and ride
into Kaskaskia"--The conspiring went on in whispers. The children's
heads bobbed nearer each other, so Peggy overheard no more.

It was the very next evening, the evening of St. John's Day, that young
Pierre rode into Kaskaskia beside his father to see the yearly bonfire
lighted. Though many of the old French customs had perished in a mixing
of nationalities, St. John's Day was yet observed; the Latin race
drawing the Saxon out to participate in the festival, as so often
happens wherever they dwell.

The bonfire stood in the middle of the street fronting the church. It
was an octagonal pyramid, seven or eight feet high, built of dry oak and
pecan limbs and logs, with straw at all the corners.

The earth yet held a red horizon rim around its dusky surface. Some
half-distinct swallows were swarming into the church belfry, as silent
as bats; but people swarming on the ground below made a cheerful noise,
like a fair. The St. John bonfire was not a religious ceremony,