When he approached the corner of Royal, a young man who stood there nudged his companion.
"You know who that is?" he said, indicating Hector.
"No; who?"
"Well, you are an innocent. Why, that's Deroustan, the most notorious gambler in New Orleans."
[1] A term still applied in Louisiana to mulattoes who were never in slavery, and whose families in most instances were themselves slave owners.
[IN SABINE.]
The sight of a human habitation, even if it was a rude log cabin with a mud chimney at one end, was a very gratifying one to Grégoire.
He had come out of Natchitoches parish, and had been riding a great part of the day through the big lonesome parish of Sabine. He was not following the regular Texas road, but, led by his erratic fancy, was pushing toward the Sabine River by circuitous paths through the rolling pine forests.
As he approached the cabin in the clearing, he discerned behind a palisade of pine saplings an old negro man chopping wood.