he
others looked on, some laughing, some serious. "And vich citizen are you
since you are ours? You vill please to give me one carrot of tobacco."
And he thrust the scrip under the clerk's nose.

The clerk stared at the uneven lettering on the scrip with disdain.

"Money," he exclaimed scornfully, "she is not money. Piastre--Spanish
dollare--then I give you carrot."

"By God!" shouted Bill Cowan, "ye will take Virginny paper, and Congress
paper, or else I reckon we'll have a drink and tobacey, boys, take or no
take."

"Hooray, Bill, ye're right," cried several of our men.

"Lemme in here," said Cowan. But the frightened Creole blocked the
doorway.

"Sacre'!" he screamed, and then, "Voleurs!"

The excitement drew a number of people from the neighborhood. Nay, it
seemed as if the whole town was ringed about us.

"Bravo, Jules!" they cried, "garde-tu la porte. A bas les Bostonnais! A
bas les voleurs!"

"Damn such monkey talk," said Cowan, facing them suddenly. I knew him
well, and when the giant lost his temper it was gone irrevocably until a
fight was over. "Call a man a squar' name."

"Hey, Frenchy," another of our men put in, stalking up to the clerk, "I
reckon this here store's ourn, ef we've a mind to tek it. I 'low you'll
give us the rum and the 'bacey. Come on, boys!"

In between him and the clerk leaped a little, robin-like man with a red
waistcoat, beside himself with rage. Bill Cowan and his friends stared
at this diminutive Frenchman, open-mouthed, as he poured forth a
veritable torrent of unintelligible words, plentifully mixed with
sacres, which he ripped out like snarls. I would as soon have touched
him as a ball of angry bees or a pair of fighting wildcats. Not so Bill
Cowan. When that worthy recovered from his first surprise he seized hold
of some of the man's twisting arms and legs and lifted him bodily from
the ground, as he would have taken a perverse and struggling child.
There was no question of a fight. Cowan picked him up, I say, and before
any one knew what happened, he flung him on to the hot roof of the store
(the eaves were but two feet above his head), and there the man stuck,
clinging to a loose shingle, purpling and coughing and spitting with
rage. There was a loud gust of guffaws from the woodsmen, and oaths
like whip-cracks from the circle around us, menacing growls as it surged
inward and our men turned to face it. A few citizens pushed through the
outskirts of it and ran away