But Chéri did not need the summons, for he was coming straight to her. His pockets all bulged out with almonds and raisins and an orange that he had secured for her from the very fine dinner which had been given that day up at his father's house. He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten. When he had emptied his pockets, La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back of the cabin, and disappeared into the wood. He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun out there. "You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he had inquired, with the calculating air of an experienced hunter. "_Non, non,!_" the woman laughed. "Don't you look fo' no deer, Chéri. Dat's too big. But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel fo' her dinner to-morrow, an' she goin' be satisfi'." "One squirrel ain't a bite. I 'll bring you mo' 'an one, La Folle," he had boasted pompously as he went away. When the woman, an hour later, heard the report of the boy's rifle close to the wood's edge, she would have thought nothing of it if a sharp cry of distress had not followed the sound. She withdrew her arms from the tub of suds in which they had been plunged, dried them upon her apron, and as quickly as her trembling limbs would bear her, hurried to the spot whence the ominous report had come. It was as she feared. There she found Chéri stretched upon the ground, with his rifle beside him. He moaned piteously:-- "I'm dead, La Folle! I'm dead! I'm gone!" "_Non, non!_" she exclaimed resolutely, as she knelt beside him. "Put you' arm 'roun' La Folle's nake, Chéri. Dat's nuttin'; dat goin' be nuttin'." She lifted him in her powerful arms. Chéri had carried his gun muzzle-downward. He had stumbled,--he did not know how. He only knew that he had a ball lodged somewhere in his leg, and he thought that his end was at hand. Now, with his head upon the woman's shoulder, he moaned and wept with pain and fright. "Oh, La Folle! La Folle! it hurt so bad! I can' stan' it, La Folle!" "Don't cry, mon bébé mon bébé, mon Chéri!" the woman spoke soothingly as she covered the ground with long strides. "La Folle goin' mine you; Doctor Bonfils goin' come make _mon Chéri_ well agin." She had reached the abandoned field. As she crossed it with her precious burden, she looked constantly and restlessly from side to side. A terrible fear was upon her,--the fear of the world beyond the bayou, the morbid and insane dread she had been under since childhood. When she was at the bayou's edge she stood there, and shouted for help as if a life depended upon it:-- "Oh, P'tit Maître! P'tit Maître! Venez done! Au secours! Au secours!" No voice responded. Chéri's hot tears were scalding her neck. She called for each and every one upon the place, and still no answer came.