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"When one of the soldiers died of the pleurisy last winter in the fort and Captain Demeré was ill himself, Captain Stuart read the service all solemn and proper, and had men to march with arms reversed and fire a volley over the grave." Mrs. Halsing rose to the occasion by demanding what good such evidences of religion might do in such a lot as there was at the fort.

"Cable" is from the Semitic root kebel, to cord, and is the same in all nautical uses. "Hawser" once written halser is from the Baltic stock, the rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish, from painter, a snare. "Sheet" is Italian, from scotta; "brace" French, and "stay" English.

Halsing, by the cabin door, on a bench which the hostess had vacated in her favor, adopting instead an inverted tub, and although admitting as true much that was said, Mrs. Beedie advanced palliating theories which, paradoxically enough, while they did not contradict the main statement, had all the effect of denial. For her part, said Mrs.

Halsing, solemnly, "why did you ever come to the frontier?" "We were lacking somewhat in this world's goods. And we wish to make a provision for our little girl. We are young and don't care for privation." "You ain't fitten for the frontier."

Halsing said, "That French thing flirts with every man in the fort, from the commandant down to Mrs. Dean's one-year-old boy twin!"

"I can weave seven yards of woolen cloth a day my linen is all ten hundred. And I can hoe corn like a squaw." "That's what you'll be in this country a squaw! All women are. You'll have to hoe all the corn you can plant." Mrs. Halsing shook her head mournfully from side to side. "I'd like to see the coast towns agin. If I was as young as you I'd not tarry, I'd not tarry in the wilderness."

Halsing added, turning an unflinching front toward Mrs. Beedie. Then resuming her dissertation to Odalie: "But there's one thing that rests on my mind. I can't decide which one it belongs to, Captain Stuart or Captain Demeré. Did ye see I know ye did a lady's little riding-mask on the shelf of the great hall. Ye must have seen it," lowering her voice, "a love token?"

Halsing, she did not see what anybody who was safe in Virginia or Carolina, or anywhere else, would come to this country for. She wouldn't, except that her husband was possessed! The sight of a road put him into a "trembly fit." He was moving west to get rid of civilization, and he was as uncivilized as a "bar himself, or an Injun."

"Oh," said Odalie, in a casual tone and with a slight shrug of the shoulders, not relishing the intrusive turn of the disquisition, "a souvenir, perhaps, from the colonies or over seas." "La, now!" cried Mrs. Halsing, baffled and disconcerted, "you're as French as a frog!" Recovering herself, she resumed quickly. "It's the deceitfulness of Captain Stuart that sets me agin him.

Halsing; but there were other girlish flowers, somewhat overshadowed by the queens of the parterre, whom he found when his eyes had lost their dazing gloat upon the beauty of the belle of the settlement mere little daisies or violets, as near half wild as himself, knowing hardly more of civilized society than he did.