governor,—though the sight of Frontenac startled him,—and handed over the letter of his commandant requiring the surrender of Quebec."

"My faith, Monsieur Sainte-Hélène, did the governor blow him out of the room?"

"The man offered his open watch, demanding an answer within the hour. The governor said, 'I do not need so much time. Go back at once to your master and tell him I will answer this insolent message by the mouths of my cannon.'"

"By all the saints, that was a good word!" swore Gaspard, slapping his knee with his wool cap. "Neither the Iroquois nor the Bostonnais will run over us, now that the old governor is back. You heard him say it, monsieur?"

"I heard him, yes; for all his officers stood by. La Hontan was there, too, and that pet of La Hontan's, Baron de Saint-Castin's half-breed son, of Pentegoet."

The martial note in the officer's voice sunk to contempt. Gaspard was diverted from the governor to recognize, with the speechless perception of an untrained mind, that jealousy which men established in the world have of very young men. The male instinct of predominance is fierce even in saints. Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène, though of the purest stock in New France, had no prejudice against a half-breed.

"How is Mademoiselle Clementine?" inquired Gaspard, arriving at the question in natural sequence. "You will see her oftener now than when you had to ride from the fort."

The veins looked black in his visitor's face. "Ask the little Saint-Castin. Boys stand under windows and talk to women now. Men have to be reconnoitering the enemy."

"Monsieur Anselm de Saint-Castin is the son of a good fighter," observed Gaspard. "It is said the New England men hate his very name."

"Anselm de Saint-Castin is barely eighteen years old."

"It is the age of Mademoiselle Clementine."

The old habitant drew his three-legged stool to the hearth corner, and took the liberty of sitting down as the talk was prolonged. He noticed the leaden color which comes of extreme weariness and depression dulling Sainte-Hélène's usually dark and rosy skin. Gaspard had heard that this young man was quickest afoot, readiest with his weapon, most untiring in the dance, and keenest for adventure of all the eight brothers in his noble family. He had done the French arms credit in the expedition to Hudson Bay and many another brush with their enemies. The fire was burning high and clear, lighting rafters and their curious brown tassels of smoked meat, and making the crucifix over the bed shine out the whitest spot in a smoke-stained room.

"Father Gaspard," inquired Sainte-Hélène suddenly, "did you ever hear of such a thing as a loup-garou?"

The old habitant felt terror returning with cold feet up his back and crowding its blackness upon him through the windows. Yet as he rolled his eyes at the questioner he felt piqued at such ignorance of his natural claims.

"Was I not born on the island of Orleans, monsieur?"

Everybody knew that the island of Orleans had been from the time of its discovery the abode of loups-garous, sorcerers, and all those uncanny cattle that run in the twilights of the world. The western point of its wooded ridge, which parts the St. Lawrence for twenty-two miles, from Beauport to Beaupré, lay opposite Gaspard's door.

"Oh, you were born on the island of Orleans?"

"Yes, monsieur," answered Gaspard, with the pride we take in distinction of any kind.

"But you came to live in Beauport parish."

"Does a goat turn to a pig, monsieur, because you carry it to the north shore?"

"Perhaps so: everything changes."

Sainte-Hélène leaned forward, resting his arms on the arms of the chair. He wrinkled his eyelids around central points of fire.

"What is a loup-garou?"

"Does monsieur not know? Monsieur Sainte-Hélène surely knows that a loup-garou is a man-wolf."

"A man-wolf," mused the soldier. "But when a person is so afflicted, is he a man or is he a wolf?"

"It is not an affliction, monsieur; it is sorcery."

"I think you are right. Then the wretched man-wolf is past being prayed for?"

"If one should repent"—

"I don't repent anything," returned Sainte-Hélène; and Gaspard's jaw relaxed, and he had the feeling of pin-feathers in his hair. "Is he a man or is he a wolf?" repeated the questioner.

"The loup-garou is a man, but he takes the form of a wolf."

"Not all the time?"

"No, monsieur, not all the time?"

"Of course not."

Gaspard experienced with us all this paradox: that the older we grow, the more visible becomes the unseen. In childhood the external senses are sharp; but maturity fuses flesh and spirit. He wished for a priest, desiring to feel the arm of the Church around him. It was late October,—a time which might be called the yearly Sabbath of loups-garous.

"And what must a loup-garou do with himself?" pursued Sainte-Hélène. "I should take to the woods, and sit and lick my chaps, and bless my hide that I was for the time no longer a man."

"Saints! monsieur, he goes on a chase. He runs with his tongue lolled out, and his eyes red as blood."

"What color are my eyes, Gaspard?"

The old Frenchman sputtered, "Monsieur, they are very black."

Sainte-Hélène drew his hand across them.

"It must be your firelight that is so red. I have been seeing as through a glass of claret ever since I came in."

Gaspard moved farther into the corner, the stool legs scraping the floor. Though every hair on his body crawled with superstition, he could not suspect Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène. Yet the familiar face altered strangely while he looked at it: the nose sunk with sudden emaciation, and the jaws lengthened to a gaunt muzzle. There was a crouching forward of the shoulders, as if the man were about to drop on his hands and feet. Gaspard had once fallen down unconscious in haying time; and this recalled to him the breaking up and shimmering apart of a solid landscape. The deep cleft mouth parted, lifting first at the corners and showing teeth, then widening to the utterance of a low howl.

Gaspard tumbled over the stool, and, seizing it by a leg, held it between himself and Sainte-Hélène.

"What is the matter, Gaspard?" exclaimed the officer, clattering his scabbard against the chair as he rose, his lace and plumes and ribbons stirring anew. Many a woman in the province had not as fine and sensitive a face as the one confronting the old habitant.

Gaspard stood back against the wall, holding the stool with its legs bristling towards Sainte-Hélène. He shook from head to foot.

"Have I done anything to frighten you? What is the matter with me, Gaspard, that people should treat me as they do? It is unbearable! I take the hardest work, the most dangerous posts; and they are against me—against me."

The soldier lifted his clenched fists, and turned his back on the old man. The fire showed every curve of his magnificent stature. Wind, diving into the chimney, strove against the sides for freedom, and startled the silence with its hollow rumble.

"I forded the St. Charles when the tide was rising, to take you back with me to the fort. I see you dread the New Englanders less than you do me. She told her father she feared you were ill. But every one is well," said Sainte-Hélène, lowering his arms and making for the door. And