tter. One had always gone to the club with Josef, or Maxime or
Pierre--certainly M'sieur meant that; one would of course be glad to
go--with Josef or Maxime or Pierre--to get tobacco for M'sieur John. Of
course, the idea slid through the old road in the almost unwrinkled gray
matter, and came safely to headquarters.

"C'est bien, M'sieur," answered the Lizzie smiling brightly.

And with that I knocked the silly little smile into a cocked hat. "You
may start early tomorrow, Aristophe," I said, "and get back by dark,
going light, I can't spare any other men to go with you. But you will
certainly not mind going alone--to get tobacco for M'sieur John."

The poor Tin Lizzie turned red and then white, and his weak mouth fell
open and his eyebrows lifted till the whites of his eyes showed above
the gray irises. And one saw again, through the crystal of his
unexercised brain, the operation of a painful and new thought. M'sieur
John--a day alone in the woods--love, versus fear--which would win. John
and I watched the struggle a bit mercilessly. A grown man gets small
sympathy for being a coward. And yet few forms of suffering are keener.
We watched; and the Tin Lizzie stood and gasped in the play of his
emotions. Nobody had ever given this son of the soil ideals to hold to
through sudden danger; no sense of inherited honor to be guarded came to
help the Lizzie; he had been taught to work hard and save his
skin--little else. The great adoration for John which had swept him off
his commonplace feet--was it going to make good against life-long
selfish caution? We wondered. It was curious to watch the new big
feeling fight the long-established petty one. And it was with a glow of
triumph quite out of drawing that we saw the generous instinct win the
battle.

"Oui, M'sieur," spoke Aristophe, unconscious of subtleties or watching.
"I go tomorrow--alone. _C'est bien, M'sieur_."

It was about the only remark I ever heard him make, that gracious:
"_C'est bien, M'sieur_!" But he made it remarkably well. Almost he
persuaded me to respect him with that hearty response to the call of
duty, that humble and high gift of graciousness. One remembers him as
his dolly face lighted at John's order to go and clean trout or carry in
logs, and one does not forget the absurd, queer little fast trot at
which his powerful young legs would instantaneously swing off to obey
the behest. Such was the Tin Lizzie, the guide who paddled bow in my
canvas ca