"My God," he say, "the sand is quick!"
M'siu, I do not know how it is with me. When I throw Filon in the pool, I have not known it is quick-sand; but when I hear that, I think I am glad. I kneel down by that log in the ford and watch Filon. He speak to me very quiet:
"You must get a rope and make fast to that pine and throw the end to me. There is a rope in my pack."
"Yes," say I, "there is a rope."
So I take my flocks across the ford, since Filon is in the water, and take all those silly ones toward La Crevasse, and after I think about that business. Three days after, I meet P'tee Pete. I tell him I find the sheep of Filon in the pine wood below Sentinel Rock. Pete, he say that therefore Filon is come to some hurt, and that he look for him. That make me scare lest he should look by the ford of Crèvecœur. So after that, five or six days, when Narcisse Duplin is come up with me, I tell him Filon is gone to Sacramento where his money is; therefore I keep care of his sheep. That is a better tale—eh, M'siu,—for I have to say something. Every shepherd in that range is know those sheep of Filon. All this time I think me to take the sheep to Pierre Jullien in the meadow of Black Mountain. He is not much, that Pierre. If I tell him it is one gift from Le bon Dieu, that is explain enough for Pierre Jullien. Then I will be quit of the trouble of Filon Geraud.
So, M'siu, would it have been, but for that dog Helène. That is Filon's she-dog that he raise from a pup. She is—she is une femme, that dog! All that first night when we come away from the ford, she cry, cry in her throat all through the dark, and in the light she look at me with her eyes, so to say:
"I know, Raoul! I know what is under the water of Crèvecœur." M'siu, is a man to stand that from a dog? So the next night I beat her, and in the morning she is gone. I think me the good luck to get rid of her. That Helène! M'siu, what you think she do? She have gone back to look in the water for Filon. There she stay, and all sheepmen when they pass that way see that she is a good sheepdog, and that she is much hungry; so they wonder that she will not leave off to look and go with them. After while all people in those parts is been talkin' about that dog of Filon's that look so keen in the water of Crèvecœur. Mebbe four, five weeks after that I have killed Filon, one goes riding by that place and sees Helène make mourn by the waterside over something that stick in the sand. It is Filon. Yes. That quick-sand have spit him out again. So you say; but me, I think it is the devil.
For the rest the sheriff has told you. Here they have brought me, and there is much talk. Of that I am weary, but for this I tell you all how it is about Filon; M'siu, I would not hang. Look you, so long as I stay in this life I am quit of that man, but if I die—there is Filon. So will he do unto me all that I did at the ford of Crèvecœur, and more; for he is a bad one, Filon. Therefore it is as I tell you, M'siu, I, Raoul. By the help of God. Yes.
