"An' rightly, too," said old Archie McKim.
"I ain't kickin'," said Mark, good-humoredly. "I asked for it."
"But you kicked then, an' he didn't," retorted Flora.
"It's the way we fight in the woods," said Mark to Jim.
"What's that?" asked old McKim, with a cupped hand behind his good ear.
"Footin' it in a fight," replied Mark. "Throwin' the foot."
"A French trick," said Mr. McKim.
"An' what of it?" cried old Hercules Ducat. "What's agin it, Archie McKim? Ain't a man's foot as much his own as his hand? French, d'ye say! Wasn't Black Dave Davi'son a Scot? An' didn't he use his feet? Wasn't he the wickedest fighter on the river? An' he done it all with his feet an' his teeth. But one fine day he drummed his heels on my chest, an' I up an' hove 'im clear acrost the roof o' Widdy Mary McElroy's smoke house—an' he never fit agin."
"Black Dave Davi'son!" cried old Archie, his snow-white whiskers vibrating with scorn and excitement. "Him a Scot! He was five quarters Madawaska French an' four thirds Tobique Injun. Reckon I'd oughter know! Didn't he chaw my ear once when him an' me was courtin' the same girl over to Kingswood Settlement?"
"An' but for the Ducats with their Injun blood an' good buckwheat pancakes an' roasted moose meat, all this here Scottish gentility would have starved to death an' froze to death a hundred years ago an' more."