ket over and then fell on it. The burning
pain inside him made him snap and growl and fall to
worrying the unfortunate bucket.

As for Pepin, he evinced the liveliest joy. He threw the
harness from him, leapt from the bench, and seizing his
long stick, danced out on the floor in front of the bear.
The good old dame stood with clasped hands in a far corner
of the room, looking with considerable apprehension upon
this fresh domestic development.

"Aha, Antoine, _mon enfant!_" cried the dwarf, "and so
my supper you will steal, will you? And how you like it,
_mon ami?_ Now, for to digest it, a dance, that is good.
So--get up, get up and dance, my sweet innocence! Houp-la!"

But just at that moment there came a knock at the door.
It was pushed open, and the unstable breed, Bastien
Lagrange, entered. Antoine, beside himself with internal
discomfort and rage, eyed the intruder with a fiery,
ominous light in his eyes. Here surely was a heaven-sent
opportunity for letting off steam. Before his master
could prevent him he had rushed open-mouthed at Lagrange
and thrown him upon his back. Quicker than it takes to
write it, he had ripped the clothing from his body with
his great claws and was at his victim's throat. The dwarf,
with a strange, hoarse cry, threw himself upon the bear.
With his powerful arms and huge hands he caught it by
the throat, and compressed the windpipe, until the
astonished animal loosed its hold and opened its mouth
to gasp for breath. Then, bracing himself, Pepin threw
it backwards with as much seeming ease as when, on one
occasion, he had strangled a young cinnamon in the woods.
Bastien Lagrange lay back with the blood oozing from his
mouth, the whites of his eyes turned upwards. He tried
to speak, but the words came indistinctly from his lips.
He put one hand to his breast, and a small packet fell
to the ground.

"From the daughter of Douglas," he gasped. And then he
lay still.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEPARTURE OF PEPIN

After all, Bastien Lagrange had been more frightened than
hurt by Antoine the bear. When Pepin Quesnelle had
satisfied himself that there were no bones broken, and
that the wound from which the blood flowed was a mere
scratch, he, as usual, became ashamed of his late display
of feeling and concern, and again assumed his old truculent
attitude. He gave the breed time to recover his breath,
then roughly asked him whom he thought he was that he
should make such a noisy and