not for any arguments that
you two could muster. But we will go there."

"How far is it?" I asked, thinking of Monsieur Gratiot.

"About a mile," said Colonel Chouteau, "a pleasant walk."

We stepped out, Hippolyte and Gaspard running in front, the Colonel and
Monsieur Gratiot and myself following; and a snicker which burst out now
and then told us that Benjy was in the rear. On any other errand I
should have thought the way beautiful, for the country road, rutted by
wooden wheels, wound in and out through pleasant vales and over gentle
rises, whence we caught glimpses from time to time of the Mississippi
gleaming like molten gold to the eastward. Here and there, nestling
against the gentle slopes of the hillside clearing, was a low-thatched
farmhouse among its orchards. As we walked, Nick's escapade, instead of
angering Monsieur Gratiot, seemed to present itself to him in a more and
more ridiculous aspect, and twice he nudged me to call my attention to
the two vengefully triumphant figures silhouetted against the moon ahead
of us. From time to time also I saw Colonel Chouteau shaking with
laughter. As for me, it was impossible to be angry at Nick for any
space. Nobody else would have carried off a girl in the face of her
rivals for a moonlight row on a pond a mile away.

At length we began to go down into the valley where Chouteau's pond was,
and we caught glimpses of the shimmering of its waters through the trees,
ay, and presently heard them tumbling lightly over the mill-dam. The
spot was made for romance,--a sequestered vale, clad with forest trees,
cleared a little by the water-side, where Monsieur Lenoir raised his
maize and his vegetables. Below the mill, so Monsieur Gratiot told me,
where the creek lay in pools on its limestone bed, the village washing
was done; and every Monday morning bare-legged negresses strode up this
road, the bundles of clothes balanced on their heads, the paddles in
their hands, followed by a stream of black urchins who tempted Providence
to drown them.

Down in the valley we came to a path that branched from the road and led
under the oaks and hickories towards the pond, and we had not taken
twenty paces in it before the notes of a guitar and the sound of a voice
reached our ears. And then, when the six of us stood huddled in the rank
growth at the water's edge, we saw a boat floating idly in the forest
shadow on the far side.

I put my hand to my mouth.

"Nick!" I shouted.