. Blood of the
Madonna! What calibre! You might kill better game than boars with it!"

Orso answered, coldly, that his gun was of English make, and carried
"the lead" a long distance. The friends embraced, and took their
different ways.

Our travellers were drawing quite close to Pietranera, when, at the
entrance of a little gorge, through which they had to pass, they beheld
seven or eight men, armed with guns, some sitting on stones, others
lying on the grass, others standing up, and seemingly on the lookout.
Their horses were grazing a little way off. Colomba looked at them for
a moment, through a spy-glass which she took out of one of the large
leathern pockets all Corsicans wear when on a journey.

"Those are our men!" she cried, with a well-pleased air. "Pieruccio had
done his errand well!"

"What men?" inquired Orso.

"Our herdsmen," she replied. "I sent Pieruccio off yesterday evening
to call the good fellows together, so that they may attend you home. It
would not do for you to enter Pietranera without an escort, and besides,
you must know the Barricini are capable of anything!"

"Colomba," said Orso, and his tone was severe, "I have asked you,
over and over again, not to mention the Barricini and your groundless
suspicions to me. I shall certainly not make myself ridiculous by riding
home with all these loafers behind me, and I am very angry with you for
having sent for them without telling me."

"Brother, you have forgotten the ways of your own country. It is my
business to protect you, when your own imprudence exposes you to danger.
It was my duty to do what I have done."

Just at that moment the herdsmen, who had caught sight of them, hastened
to their horses, and galloped down the hill to meet them.

"Evvviva Ors' Anton'!" shouted a brawny, white-bearded old fellow,
wrapped, despite the heat, in a hooded cloak of Corsican cloth, thicker
than the skins of his own goats. "The image of his father, only taller
and stronger! What a splendid gun! There'll be talk about that gun, Ors'
Anton'!"

"Evvviva Ors' Anton'!" chorused the herdsmen. "We were sure you'd come
back, at last!"

"Ah! Ors' Anton'!" cried a tall fellow, with a skin tanned brick red.
"How happy your father would be, if he were here to welcome you! The
dear, good man! You would have seen him now, if he would have listened
to me--if he would have let me settle Guidice's business! . . . But he
wouldn't listen to me, poor fellow! He knows