"I know him, I know him well. There's no greater scoundrel between Quebec and Athabasca."
"My devil, or yours?"
"Yours, lad. Let your laughter be turned to mourning! Beware of him! I've known more than one murder of his doing. Eh! But he's cunning, so cunning! We can't trip him up with proofs; and his body's as slippery as an eel or we might——"
But a loon flapped up from the rushes, brushing the priest's face with its wings.
"Holy Mary save us!" he ejaculated panting to keep up with our guide. "Faith! I thought 'twas the devil himself!"
"Do you really mean it? Would it be right to get hold of Le Grand Diable?" I asked. Frances Sutherland had slackened her pace and we were all three walking abreast. A dry cane crushed noisily under foot and my head ducked down as if more arrows had hissed past.
"Mane it?" he cried, "mane it? If ye knew all the evil he's done ye'd know whether I mane it." It was his custom when in banter to drop from English to his native brogue like a merry-andrew.
"But, Father Holland, I had him in my power. I struck him, but I didn't kill him, more's the pity!"
"An' who's talking of killin', ye young cut-throat? I say get howld of his body and when ye've got howld of his body, I'd further advise gettin' howld of the butt end of a saplin'——"
"But, Father, he was my canoeman. I had him in my power."