to the river; and all the
rest of the way river-water and trout; and at this season birds' eggs in
the reeds and a turtlelike terrapin, and Brodeia roots and wild onion,
and young sassafras--a child could do it. Eat that...." he tossed me
with his fingers a split, sputtering, piping hot trout....

We spent the rest of that day and the night following by the stream.
Farallone was in a riotous good-humor, and the fear of him grew less in
us until we felt at ease and could take an unmixed pleasure in the
loafing.

Early the next morning he was astir, and began to prepare himself for
further marching, but for the rest of us he said there would be one day
more of rest.

"Who knows," he said, "but this is Sunday?"

"Where are you going?" asked the bride politely.

"Me?" said Farallone, and he laughed. "I'm going house-hunting--not for
a house, of course, but for a site. It's not so easy to pick out just
the place where you want to spend the balance of your days. The
neighborhood's easy, but the exact spot's hard." He spoke now directly
to the bride, and as if her opinion was law to him. "There must be sun
and shade, mustn't there? Spring-water?--running water? A hill handy to
take the view from? An easterly slope to be out of the trades? A big
tree or two.... I'll find 'em all before dark. I'll be back by dark or
at late moonrise, and you rest yourselves, because to-morrow or the next
day we go at house-raising."

Had he left us then and there, I think that we would have waited for
him. He had us, so to speak, abjectly under his thumbs. His word had
come to be our law, since it was but child's play for him to enforce it.
But it so happened that he now took a step which was to call into life
and action that last vestige of manhood and independence that flickered
in the groom and me. For suddenly, and not till after a moment of
consideration, he took a step toward the bride, caught her around the
waist, crushed her to his breast, and kissed her on the mouth.

But she must have bitten him, for the tender passion changed in him to
an unmanly fury.

"You damned cat!" he cried; and he struck her heavily upon the face with
his open palm. Not once only, but twice, three, four times, till she
fell at his feet.

By that the groom and I, poor, helpless atoms, had made shift to grapple
with him. I heard his giant laugh. I had one glimpse of the groom's face
rushing at mine--and then it was as if showers of stars fell about me.