ANTOINE IN TROUBLE

Four nights later Pepin Quesnelle and his mother were having their supper in the large common sitting-room, which also did duty as kitchen and workshop. The tidy, silver-haired old dame had set out a place for Pepin at the well-scrubbed table, but the petit maitre, much to her regret, would not sit down at it as was his wont He insisted on having his supper placed on the long, low bench, covered with tools and harness, at which he was working. He had a Government job on hand, and knew that if he sat down to the table in state, there would be much good time wasted in useless formality. His mother therefore brought some bread and a large steaming plate of some kind of stew, and placed them within reach of his long arms.

“Pepin,” she said, with a hint of fond remonstrance, “it is not like you to eat so. If any one should happen to come and catch you, my sweet one, eating like a common Indian, what would they think? Take care, apple of my eye, it is ver’ hot!”

She hastily put down the steaming bowl, from which a savoury steam ascended, and Antoine the bear, who was sitting on his haunches in evident meditation behind the bench, deliberately looked in another direction. What mattered the master’s dinner to a bear of his high-class principles!

“Thank you, my mother,” said Pepin, without lifting his eyes, and sewing away with both hands as if for dear life. “What you say is true, ver’ true, but the General he will want this harness, and the troops go to-morrow to catch Poundmaker. And, after all, what matters it where I sit am I not Pepin Quesnelle?”

Antoine, still looking vacantly in another direction, moved meditatively nearer the steaming dish. Why had they not given him his supper? He had been out for quite a long walk that day, his appetite was excellent.

“Mother,” said Pepin again, “that young female Douglas, who was here some time ago, I wonder where she may be now? Since then I have been many times think that, after all, she was, what the soldier-officers call it, not half-bad.”

“Ah, Pepin!” and the old lady sighed, “she was a sweet child, and some day might even have done as wife for you. But you are so particular, my son. Of course, I do not mean to say she was good enough for you, but at least she was more better than those other women who would try and steal you from me. Mon Dieu, how they do conspire!”

“So, that is so,” commented Pepin resignedly, but at the same time not without a hint of satisfaction in his voice; “they will do it, you know, mother. Bah! if the shameless females only knew how Pepin Quesnelle sees through their little ways, how they would be confounded astonished, and go hide themselves for the shame of it! But this girl, that is the thing, she was nice girl, I think, and if perhaps she had the airs of a grande dame and would expect much well, after all, there was myself to set against that Eh? What? Don’t you think that is so, my mother?”

“Yes, Pepin, yes, of course that is so, my sweet one, and what more could any woman want? And that girl, I think, she was took wid you, for I see her two, three times look at you so out of the corners of the eyes.”

While this conversation was proceeding, Antoine had more than once glanced at his master without turning his head. The plate of stew was now within easy reach of his short grizzled snout, and really it looked as if it had been put there on purpose for him to help himself.

When Pepin happened to look round, he thought his mother, in a fit of absent-mindedness, must have put down an empty plate it was so clean, so beautifully clean. But when he looked at Antoine, who was now sitting quite out of reach of the plate, and observed the Sunday-school expression on the bear’s old-fashioned face, he understood matters. He knew Antoine of old.

“Mother,” he said, in his natural voice and quite quietly, “my dear mother, don’t let the old beast know that you suspect anything. Take up that plate, and don’t look at him, or he will find out we have discovered all. What have you got left in the pot, my mother?”

“Two pigeons, my sweet one, but ”

“That will do, mother. Do not excite yourself. Your Pepin will be avenged. The b’ar shall have the lot, ma foi! the whole lot, and he will wish that he had waited until his betters were finished. Take down the mustard tin, and the pepper-pot, and yes, those little red peppers that make the mouth as the heat of the pit below, and put them all in the insides of one pigeon. Do you hear me, my mother dear? Now, do not let him see you do it, for his sense is as that of the Evil One himself, and he would not eat that pigeon.”

“Oh, my poor wronged one, and to think that that ”

“Hush hush, my mother! Can you not do as I have told you? Pick up the plate quietly. Bien, that is right! Now, do not look at him, but fill the pigeon up. So ... that is so, mother dear. O, Antoine, you sweet, infernal b’ar, but I will make you wish as how the whole Saskatchewan were running down your crater of a throat in two, three minutes more. But there will be no Saskatchewan non, not one leetle drop of water to cool your thieving tongue!”

And despite the lively state of affairs he predicted for his four-footed friend, he never once looked at it, but kept tinkering at the harness as if nothing particular were exciting him.

The good old lady was filled with concern for Antoine, for whom, as sharing the companionship of her well-beloved, she had quite a friendly regard. Still, had not the traitorous animal robbed her darling her Pepin of his supper? It was a hard, a very hard thing to do, but he must be taught a lesson. With many misgivings she stuffed the cavernous fowl with the fiery condiments.

“Now, mother dear, just wipe it clean so that the fire and brimstone does not show on the outside, and pour over it some gravy. That is right, ma mere. I will reward you later. Now, just place it on the bench and take away the other plate. Do not let the cunning malefactor think you notice him at all. He will think it is the second course. Bien!”

He turned his head sharply and looked at the bear with one of his quick, bird-like movements, just at the same moment as the bear looked at him. But there was nothing on the artless Antoine’s face but mild, sentimental inquiry.

“Ha! he is cunning!” muttered Pepin. “Do you remember, my mother, how Mon Dieu! he’s got it!”

That was very apparent. Antoine had nipped up the fowl, and with one or two silent crunches was in the act of swallowing it. So pressed was he for time that at first he did not detect the fiery horrors he was swallowing. But in a minute or two he realised that something unlooked for had occurred, that there was a young volcano in his mouth that had to be quenched at any cost So he sprang to his feet and rushed at a bucket of water that stood in a corner of the room, and went so hastily that he knocked the bucket over and then fell on it. The burning pain inside him made him snap and growl and fall to worrying the unfortunate bucket.

As for Pepin, he evinced the liveliest joy. He threw the harness from him, leapt from the bench, and seizing his long stick, danced out on the floor in front of the bear. The good old dame stood with clasped hands in a far corner of the room, looking with considerable apprehension upon this fresh domestic development.

“Aha, Antoine, mon enfant!” cried the dwarf, “and so my supper you will steal, will you? And how you like it, mon ami? Now, for to digest it, a dance, that is good. So get up, get up and dance, my sweet innocence! Houp-la!”

But just at that moment there came a knock at the door. It was pushed open, and the unstable breed, Bastien Lagrange, entered. Antoine, beside himself with internal discomfort and rage, eyed the intruder with a fiery, ominous light in his eyes. Here surely was a heaven-sent opportunity for letting off steam. Before his master could prevent him he had rushed open-mouthed at Lagrange and thrown him upon his back. Quicker than it takes to write it, he had ripped the clothing from his body with his great claws and was at his victim’s throat. The dwarf, with a strange, hoarse cry, threw himself upon the bear. With his powerful arms and huge hands he caught it by the throat, and compressed the windpipe, until the astonished animal loosed its hold and opened its mouth to gasp for breath. Then, bracing himself, Pepin threw it backwards with as much seeming ease as when, on one occasion, he had strangled a young cinnamon in the woods. Bastien Lagrange lay back with the blood oozing from his mouth, the whites of his eyes turned upwards. He tried to speak, but the words came indistinctly from his lips. He put one hand to his breast, and a small packet fell to the ground.

“From the daughter of Douglas,” he gasped. And then he lay still.