“These St. Martins without stomachs, how is a man to hit them?—pouf!” said Charle', and Étienne felt on his tender spot the cruel allusion to his brother Alexis, whose stomach had been made public property. He began to shed tears of wrath.
“I will take your scalp for that! As for the black feather, I trample it under my foot!”
“Let me see you trample it. And my head is not so easily scalped as your brother's stomach.”
All the time they were dancing around each other in graceful and menacing feints. But now they clinched, and Charle' Charette, when the struggle had lasted two or three minutes, took his antagonist like a puppy and flung him revolving to the ground. He hitched his belt and glanced up towards the sally-port as he stood back laughing.
Étienne was on foot with a tiger's bound. He had no chance with the wearer of the black feather, as everybody in the yard knew, and usually a beaten antagonist was ready to shake hands after a few trials of strength. But he seized one of the knives used in opening packs and struck at the victor's side. As soon as he had struck and the bloody knife came back in his hand he crouched and rolled his eyes around in apology. No man was afraid of shedding blood in those days, but he felt he had gone too far—that his quarrel was not sufficiently grounded. He heard a woman's scream, and the sharp checking exclamation of his master, and felt himself seized on each side. There was much confusion in his mind and in the yard, but he knew 'Tite Laboise flew through the gate and past him, and he tried to propitiate her by a look.
“Pig!” she projected at him like a missile, and he sat down on the ground between the guards who were trying to hold him up and wept copiously.
“I didn't want to have trouble with that Charle' Charette and that 'Tite Laboise,” explained Étienne. “And I don't want any black feather. It was my brother's stomach. On account of my brother's stomach I have to fight. If they do not let my brother's stomach alone, I will have to kill the whole brigade.”
But Charle' Charette walked into the Fur Company's building feeling nothing but disdain for the puny stock of St. Martin, as he held out his arm and let the blood drip from a little wound that stained his calico shirt-sleeve. The very neips around his ankles seemed to tingle with desire to kick poor Étienne.
It was not necessary to send for the surgeon of the fort. Robert Stuart dressed the wound, salving it with the rebukes which he knew discipline demanded, and making them as strong as his own enjoyment had been. He promised to break the head of every voyageur in the yard with a board if another quarrel occurred. And he pretended not to see the culprit's trembling wife, that little besom whose caprices had set the men by the ears ever since she was old enough to know the figures of a dance, yet for whom he and Mrs. Stuart had a warm corner in their hearts. She had caused the first fracas of the season, moreover. He went out and slammed the office door, ordering the men away from it.
“Bring me yon Étienne St. Martin,” commanded Mr. Stuart, preparing his arsenal of strong language. “I'll have a word with yon carl for this.”