"But to fight—that is another affair."—[Page 156].
Raoul Vaillantcœur was the biggest and the handsomest man in the village; nearly six feet tall, straight as a fir-tree, and black as a bull-moose in December. He had natural force enough and to spare. Whatever he did was done by sheer power of back and arm. He could send a canoe up against the heaviest water, provided he did not get mad and break his paddle—which he usually did. He had more muscle than he knew how to use.
Prosper Leclère did not have so much, but he knew better how to handle it. He never broke his paddle—unless it happened to be a bad one, and then he generally had another all ready in the canoe. He was at least six inches shorter than Vaillantcœur; broad shoulders, long arms, light hair, gray eyes; not a handsome fellow, but pleasant looking and very quiet. What he did was done more than half with his head.
Leclère was the kind of a man that never needs more than one match to light a fire.
But Vaillantcœur—well, if the wood was wet he might use a dozen, and when the blaze was kindled, as like as not, he would throw in the rest of the box.
Now, these two men had been friends and were rivals. At least that was the way that one of them looked at it. And most of the people in the parish seemed to think that was the right view.
It was a strange thing, and not altogether satisfactory to the public mind, to have two strongest men in the village. The question of comparative standing in the community ought to be raised and settled in the usual way. Raoul was perfectly willing, and at times (commonly on Saturday nights) very eager. But Prosper was not.
"No," he said, one March night, when he was boiling maple-sap in the sugar-bush with little Ovide Rossigno (who had a lyric passion for holding the coat while another man was fighting)—"no, for what shall I fight with Raoul? As boys we have played together. Once, in the rapids of la Belle Rivière, when I have fallen in the water, I think he has saved my life. He was stronger, then, than me. I am always a friend to him. If I beats him now, am I stronger? No, but weaker. And if he beats me, what is the sense of that? Certainly I shall not like it. What is to gain?"