The pipe was loaded; Eve ran off to the kitchen to fetch a stick out of the fire with glowing end, because, she said, ‘she did not like the smell of the burning amadou.’ Jasper handed the pipe to Barbara, who, with an effort to be demure, took it. ‘Are you ready?’ asked Jasper, who was whirling the stick, making a fiery ring in the air. Barbara had put the pipe between her lips, precisely in the middle of her mouth. ‘No, that will not do,’ said the young man; ‘put the pipe in the side of your mouth. Where it is now I cannot light it without burning the tip of your nose.’ Barbara put her little finger into the bowl to assure herself that it was full. Eve was on her knees at her sister’s feet, her elbows on her lap, looking up amused and delighted. Barbara kept her neck and back erect, and her chin high in the air. A smile was on her face, but no tremor in her lip. Eve burst into a fit of laughter. ‘Oh, Bab, you look so unspeakably droll!’ But Barbara did not laugh and let go the pipe. Her hands were down on the bench, one on each side of her. She might have been sitting in a dentist’s chair to have a tooth drawn. She was a little afraid of the consequences; nevertheless, she had undertaken to smoke, and smoke she would—one whiff, no more. ‘Ready?’ asked Jasper. She could not answer, because her lips grasped the pipe with all the muscular force of which they were capable. She replied by gravely and slowly bowing her head. ‘This is our calumet of peace, is it not, Miss Jordan? A lasting peace never to be broken—never?’ She replied again only by a serious bow, head and pipe going down and coming up again. ‘Ready?’ Jasper brought the red-hot coal in contact with the tobacco in the bowl. The glow kindled Barbara’s face. She drew a long, a conscientiously long, breath. Then her brows went up in query. ‘Is it alight?’ asked Eve, interpreting the question. ‘Wait a moment——Yes,’ answered Jasper. Then a long spiral of white smoke, like a jet of steam from a kettle that is boiling, issued from Barbara’s lips, and rose in a perfect white ring. Her eyes followed the ring. At that moment—bang! and again—bang!—the discharge of firearms. The pipe fell into her lap. ‘What is that?’ asked Eve, springing to her feet. They all hurried out of the garden, and stood in front of the house, looking up and down the lane. ‘Stay here and I will see,’ said Jasper. ‘There may be poachers near.’ ‘In pity do not leave us, or I shall die of fear,’ cried Eve. The darkness had deepened. A few stars were visible. Voices were audible, and the tread of men in the lane. Then human figures were visible. It was too dark at first to distinguish who they were, and the suspense was great. As, however, they drew nearer, Jasper and the girls saw that the party consisted of Joseph, the warder, and a couple of constables, leading a prisoner. ‘We have got him,’ said Joseph Woodman, ‘the right man at last.’ ‘Whom have you got?’ asked Barbara.