As Pierre approached the smoldering ruins of his home, an English soldier, standing on guard before the tents in the orchard, ordered him to halt. Pierre didn't understand the word, but he comprehended the tone in which it was uttered. He saw his beloved oxen standing with bowed heads by the water trough, and he tried to make the soldier understand that he had come for those oxen, which belonged to him. On this point Pierre spoke very emphatically, as if to make his French more intelligible to the Englishman. But his struggles were all in vain. The soldier looked first puzzled, then vacuously wise; then he knit his brows and looked at the oxen. Finally he laughed, took Pierre by the elbow, and led him toward one of the tents. At this moment a pleasant-faced young officer came out of the tent, and, taking in the situation at a glance, addressed Pierre in French:
"Well, my boy," said he, kindly, "what are you doing here so early?"
Pierre became polite at once; so surely does courtesy find courtesy.
"Sir," said he, taking off his hat, "I have come after my father's oxen, those beasts yonder, which strayed back here in the night. This was our home yesterday."
Pierre's voice quivered as he spoke these last words.
The officer looked very much interested.
"Certainly," said he, "you shall have your oxen. We don't take anything that doesn't belong to us. But tell me, why is not this your home to-day? Why have you all burnt down your houses and run away? We are the true friends of all the Acadians. What had you to fear?"
"We didn't do it!" replied the boy. "It was monsieur the abbé and his Indians; and they threatened to scalp us all if we didn't leave before you came!"
The young officer's face grew very stern at the mention of the abbé, whom he knew to mean Le Loutre.
"Ah!" he muttered, "I see it all now! We might have expected as much from that snake! But tell me," he continued to Pierre, "what is going on over on the hill this morning? They are not going to attack us, are they? We are on English soil here. They know that!"