"It is Harry Beck, yes?" he inquired. Then something about the boots and blanket silenced him. He kept his eyes on them for a full minute, then walked into the lean-to. The blanket also covered Harry Beck's features and there was a stain on it where it outlined the prostrate man's features, making a ridge over the bony nose.
After a moment Quintana looked around at Picquet:
"So. He is dead. Yes?"
Picquet shrugged: "Since noon, mon capitaine."
"Comment?"
"How shall I know. It was the fire, perhaps, — green wood or wet — it is no matter now. … I said to him, `Pay attention, Henri; your wood makes too much smoke.' To me he reply I shall go to hell. … Well, there was too much smoke for me. I arise to search for wood more dry, when, crack! — they begin to shoot out there——" He waved a dirty hand toward the forest.
"`Bon,' said I, `Clinch, he have seen your damn smoke!'
"`What shall I care?' he make reply, Henri Beck, to me. `Clinch he shall shoot and be damn to him. I cook me my dejeuner all the same.'
"I make representations to that Johnbull; he say to me that I am a frog, and other injuries, while he lay yet more wood on his sacre fire.
"Then crack! crack! crack! and zing-gg! — whee-ee! come the big bullets of Clinch and his voyous yonder.