With stern face the factor started forward, while the little maid covered her pretty eyes and whimpered.
But quicker than his stride retribution leaped to meet DesCaut.
He saw the woman's arm shoot out and her strong hand, smooth and tawny as finest tanned buckskin, double itself hard and leap in where the jaw turns downward into the curve of the throat.
The stroke of a man it was, clean and sharp and well delivered, and DesCaut, catching his heel on a buried stone's sharp jut, went backward with his head in the young grass of the sloping shore.
For a moment she stood as it had left her, leaning forward, and there was a shine of satisfaction in her eyes.
Then as the man essayed to rise there was a mighty laughter from the two youths on the river bank and the spell was broken.
McElroy went forward.
“DesCaut,” he said sharply, and his words cut like the lash of the long dog-whips, “you deserves death but you have been beaten by a woman. Go, and boast of your strength. It is sufficient.”
DesCaut stood a moment swaying drunkenly with the force of passion within him, his lips snarling back from his teeth and his eyes measuring the factor unsteadily then he snatched off the little cap he wore and hurled it at him.
Turning on his heel he swung down toward the gate and the two voyageurs now standing and still laughing merrily.