o hit them?--pouf!"
said Charle', and Etienne felt on his tender spot the cruel allusion
to his brother Alexis, whose stomach had been made public property. He
began to shed tears of wrath.

"I will take your scalp for that! As for the black feather, I trample it
under my foot!"

"Let me see you trample it. And my head is not so easily scalped as your
brother's stomach."

All the time they were dancing around each other in graceful and
menacing feints. But now they clinched, and Charle' Charette, when the
struggle had lasted two or three minutes, took his antagonist like a
puppy and flung him revolving to the ground. He hitched his belt and
glanced up towards the sally-port as he stood back laughing.

Etienne was on foot with a tiger's bound. He had no chance with the
wearer of the black feather, as everybody in the yard knew, and usually
a beaten antagonist was ready to shake hands after a few trials of
strength. But he seized one of the knives used in opening packs and
struck at the victor's side. As soon as he had struck and the bloody
knife came back in his hand he crouched and rolled his eyes around in
apology. No man was afraid of shedding blood in those days, but he felt
he had gone too far--that his quarrel was not sufficiently grounded.
He heard a woman's scream, and the sharp checking exclamation of his
master, and felt himself seized on each side. There was much confusion
in his mind and in the yard, but he knew 'Tite Laboise flew through the
gate and past him, and he tried to propitiate her by a look.

"Pig!" she projected at him like a missile, and he sat down on the
ground between the guards who were trying to hold him up and wept
copiously.

"I didn't want to have trouble with that Charle' Charette and that 'Tite
Laboise," explained Etienne. "And I don't want any black feather. It
was my brother's stomach. On account of my brother's stomach I have to
fight. If they do not let my brother's stomach alone, I will have to
kill the whole brigade."

But Charle' Charette walked into the Fur Company's building feeling
nothing but disdain for the puny stock of St. Martin, as he held out his
arm and let the blood drip from a little wound that stained his calico
shirt-sleeve. The very neips around his ankles seemed to tingle with
desire to kick poor Etienne.

It was not necessary to send for the surgeon of the fort. Robert Stuart
dressed the wound, salving it with the rebukes which he knew discipline
dema