When Uncle John came, he laughed at Betty. "Why, child, I'm not a temperance lecturer," he protested. "I came up here to hunt deer, not Frenchmen. Besides that, what's the use of my trying to do what you and Aunt Florence couldn't?"
"Aunt Florence didn't half try," answered Betty, "and, of course, I've never tried at all. I wouldn't dare."
Again Uncle John laughed. "If you don't dare venture, Betty, let's give up. What do you say, Billy?"
"I say, let me go hunting with you," replied the boy.
"Hunting the Frenchman?"
"No, hunting deer and bears. Will you take me sometime?"
Betty turned away much troubled. There was no use of talking to Uncle John, she could see that plainly. Betty liked Antoine so well she couldn't understand why every one laughed when anything was said about trying to make him do right. She knew, too, how dearly the Frenchman and his family loved the little Samone, and how kind they were to the child. She also knew what Antoine was beginning to suspect: a number of men in the village who were interested in Samone, and whose decisions were always carried out, were talking of sending the little one to the State School at Coldwater.
Betty said no more about Antoine to Uncle John, but, while the frost fairies painted the maple leaves crimson and brightened the borders of the evergreen woods with many a dash of colour, she listened as eagerly as Billy and Gerald to all he had to say of forest wonders. At the same time, down in her heart, Betty was hoping that Uncle John wouldn't get a deer that season. "If he don't kill a deer," she told herself, "then the Coldwater school don't get Samone. That's my new superstition, though I'll never tell even Billy. Some things you must keep to yourself."
Those were the days when Billy hated bedtime with all his might. It always came in the middle of some tale of adventure, often at the point where Uncle John almost shot a bear.
Evening after evening, Mr. Larzalere, a neighbour, called to see Uncle John, and many a tale of the woods he told that made Gerald stare. Billy often wondered why such great hunters as Mr. Larzalere and his Uncle John could go forth each day, knowing exactly where to find deer, and yet return without one.