Fletcher's answer was an oath. They put Maisonville between them, ran him through the town up to the firing line, and there, to my horror, they tied him to a post and used him for a shield, despite his heart-rending yells. In mortal fear that the poor man would be shot down, I was running away to find some one who might have influence over them when I met a lieutenant. He came up and ordered them angrily to unbind Maisonville and bring him before the Colonel. Fletcher laughed, whipped out his hunting knife, and cut the thongs; but he and Willis had scarce got twenty paces from the officer before they seized poor Maisonville by the hair and made shift to scalp him. This was merely backwoods play, had Maisonville but known it. Persuaded, however, that his last hour was come, he made a desperate effort to clear himself, whereupon Fletcher cut off a piece of his skin by mistake. Maisonville, making sure that he had been scalped, stood groaning and clapping his hand to his head, while the two young rascals drew back and stared at each other.
“What's to do now?” said Willis.
“Take our medicine, I reckon,” answered Fletcher, grimly. And they seized the tottering man between them, and marched him straightway to the fire where Clark stood.
They had seen the Colonel angry before, but now they were fairly withered under his wrath. And he could have given them no greater punishment, for he took them from the firing line, and sent them back to wait among the reserves until the morning.
“Nom de Dieu!” said Maisonville, wrathfully, as he watched them go, “they should hang.”
“The stuff that brought them here through ice and flood is apt to boil over, Captain,” remarked the Colonel, dryly.
“If you please, sir,” said I, “they did not mean to cut him, but he wriggled.”
Clark turned sharply.
“Eh?” said he, “did you have a hand in this, too?”
“Peste!” cried the Captain, “the little ferret—you call him—he find me on the prairie. I run to catch him with some men and fall into the crick—” he pointed to his soaked leggings, “and your demons, they fall on top of me.”