“You might tell us what brought you our way to-day,” asked the morose farmer of Pitou.
The latter showed some brass wire loops.
“The rabbits over our way are getting shy of me. I am going to lay some snares on your farm, if you do not mind. Yours are so tender from the grain they get.”
“I did not know you had so sweet a tooth.”
“Oh, not for me but for Miss Catherine.”
“Yes, she has no appetite, lately, that is a fact.”
At this moment, Pitou felt a touch to his foot. It was Catherine directing his attention to the window past which a man was making for the door where he entered with the farmer’s gun on his shoulder.
“Father Clovis,” he was hailed by the master.
Clovis was the old soldier who had taught Pitou to drill.
“Yes, Papa Billet, a bargain is a bargain. You paid me to pick out a dozen bullets to suit your rifle and here they are.”