"The master does not give me time. I came by land. It is a fine land. They raise great squashes. Yes, and grain and vegetables! I have never seen their like in France. If I had a farm here I could have more than I could eat the whole year round."
I took time to curse. I had never heard my giant prate of agriculture; the camp and the tap-room had been his haunts. This appeared to be a method of working toward ill news. I lay back on my rushes and tried to fix his eye.
"Pierre, answer. Where is Labarthe?"
"I told the master"—
"Answer!"
"I don't know."
"Did he escape with you?"
Pierre rubbed his sleeve across his face. "The master will not listen. I do not know about Labarthe. I saw him at camp yesterday morning. The master saw him at the same time. Then the master went to the swamp, and I went, too, with my Indian. But I kept behind. By and by I saw the canoe upside down, and the master's cloak floating on the water; by that I knew that the master was drowned or had got away. I thought he had gone to the Malhominis, and I wanted to go, too. So I killed my Indian, and hid him in the grass. I came by land."
I rose on my elbow, careless of my shoulder. "How could you kill the
Indian? You had no weapon."
Pierre stretched out his arms, knotted like an oak's branches, and illustrated. "I hugged him. Once I broke the ribs of a bear."