bound for a shindy
over a corpse," continued Jowett after a moment.

"Can the Monseigneur cast a spell over them all?" remarked the Ry
ironically, for he had little faith in priests, though he had for this
particular one great respect.

"He's a big man, that preelate," answered Jowett quickly and forcibly.
"He kept the Crees quiet when they was going to rise. If they'd got up,
there'd have been hundreds of settlers massacreed. He risked his life
to do that--went right into the camp in face of levelled rifles, and
sat down and begun to talk. A minute afterwards all the chiefs was
squatting, too. Then the tussle begun between a man with a soul and
a heathen gang that eat dog, kill their old folks, their cripples and
their deformed children, and run sticks of wood through their bleeding
chests, just to show that they're heathens. But he won out, this
Jesueete friend o' man. That's why I'm putting my horses and my land
and my pants and my shirt and the buff that's underneath on the little
preelate."

Gabriel Druse's face did not indicate the same confidence. "It is not an
age of miracles; the priest is not enough," he said sceptically.

By twos, by threes, by tens, men from Manitou came sauntering across the
bridge into Lebanon, until a goodly number were scattered at different
points through the town. They seemed to distribute themselves by a
preconceived plan, and they were all habitants. There were no Russians,
Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, or Germans among them. They were low-browed,
sturdy men, dressed in red or blue serge shirts, some with sashes around
their waists, some with ear-rings in their ears, some in knee-boots, and
some with the heavy spiked boots of the river-driver. None appeared
to carry any weapon that would shoot, yet in their belts was the
sheath-knife, the invariable equipment of their class. It would have
seemed more suspicious if they had not carried them. The railwaymen,
miners, carters, mill-hands, however, appeared to carry nothing save
their strong arms and hairy hands, and some were as hairy as animals.
These backwoodsmen also could, without weapons, turn a town into a
general hospital. In battle they fought not only with hands but also
with teeth and hoofs like wild stallions. Teeth tore off an ear or
sliced away a nose, hands smote like hammers or gouged out eyes,
and their nailed boots were weapons of as savage a kind as could be
invented. They could spring and strike an opponent with one