After this, Barboux said very little: but the canoe was paddled to shore and the two men walked aside into the woods. The sun was setting and they cast long shadows upon the bank as they stepped out. John lay still and dozed fitfully, waking up now and then to brush away the mosquitoes that came with the first falling shadows to plague him. By and by in the twilight Menehwehna returned and stood above the bank. He tossed a bundle into the canoe, stepped after it, and pushed off without hurry. John laughed, as a child might laugh, guessing some foolish riddle. "You have killed him!" "He did wickedly," answered Menehwehna. "He was a fool and past bearing." John laughed again; and, being satisfied, dropped asleep. CHAPTER X. BOISVEYRAC. Along the river-front of Boisveyrac, on the slopes between the stone walls of the Seigniory and the broad St. Lawrence, Dominique Guyon, the Seigneur's farmer, strode to and fro encouraging the harvesters. "Work, my children! Work!" He said it over and over again, using the words his father had always used at this season. But the harvesters--old Damase Juneau and his wife La Marmite, Jo Lagasse, the brothers Pierre and Telesphore Courteau, with Telesphore's half-breed wife Leelinau (Lelie, in French)--all knew the difference in tone. It had been worth while in former times to hear old Bonhomme Guyon say the words, putting his heart into them, while the Seigneur himself would follow behind, echoing, "Yes, that is so. Work, my children: work is the great cure!" But Bonhomme Guyon was dead these two months--rest his soul; and the Seigneur gone up the river to command a fortress for the King of France; and no one left at Boisveyrac but themselves and half a dozen militiamen and this young Dominique Guyon, who would not smile and was a skinflint. It was as if the caterpillars had eaten the mirth as well as the profits out of this harvest which (if folks said true) the Seigneur needed so badly. Even the children had ceased to find it amusing, and had trooped after the priest, Father Launoy, up the hill and into the courtyard of the Chateau. "Work, my friends!" said Dominique. He knew well that they detested him and would have vastly preferred his brother Bateese for overseer. For his part, he took life seriously: but no one was better aware of the bar between him and others' love or liking. They respected him because he was the best _canotier_ on the river; a better even than his malformed brother Bateese, now with the army. When he drew near they put more spirit into their pitchforking. "But all the same it breaks the back, this suspense," declared La Marmite. "I never could work with more than one thing in my mind. Tell us, Dominique Guyon: the good Father will be coming out soon, will he not?--that is, if he means to shoot the falls before sunset." "What can it matter to you, mother?" "Matter? Why if he doesn't come soon, I shall burst myself with curiosity, that is all!"