"I wasn't going to be frightened by a canoe full of Frenchmen," he said doggedly. "This place is ours, and if this king wants it let him come and take it. The best man will hold it in the end. But I suspect it is not his Majesty of France. Louis XV. can have no great use for our little holding. But Jules Lapon has. He owns the ground on the far side next to father's, and with ours thrown in he'd have the whole of the river banks for three miles either way." "You've hit it, Steve. It air that skunk as brought this bit of tin along, and it air him as wants the place," cried Jim, staring out across the river at the fast-retreating canoes. "What is more, lad, he's goin' to have it for a time. Me and Mac and Silver Fox guessed as there was somethin' up, and ever since daylight we've had our eyes on the varmint. There was a lot too much movement amongst the Injuns, and we reckoned it didn't mean good to us. Them critters has nailed their bits of tin at three other places along this bank, and they air going to take the land whether we want it or not." "Do you actually mean that they will drive us out of the place?" asked Steve. "That air so. There's news comin' slowly through that the French and their Injuns is movin' on and drivin' the British before 'em. There's tales of settlements attacked and taken, men and women scalped, and children carried off by them redskin devils. We've heard the same before, and I don't know how it is that we along here at this settlement have escaped so long. But reckon these fellers is out on the war-path agin, and, lad, we've got to git." Go! They must leave the place where Steve had lived ever since he was a tiny little fellow. The log cabin which was his home must be given up to these Frenchmen and their allies! The thought was a cruel one, and it is not to be wondered at that an exclamation of bitterness escaped him. "Faith, Steve, me lad, it's hard to think on, so it is," said Mac, coming to him and placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Hasn't Mac and the loikes of him settled peaceful here? hasn't the wives and the childer made homes for all of us, so they have? But ye've to choose what's the best. To see these thavin' damons here in our very own places, or to see ivery mother's son of us, and the women and childer too--God bless the darlints!--scalped and kilt by these fellers. Sure, Steve, better to see the settlements burn, to put fires to ivery roof and watch 'em flare, than have them fellers settin' in our doorways, or scalpin' all of us. Och, but it's a sore time for us, a sore time, and we'll have to foight before we get back what's our own. Bedad! Ye'll know soon, Steve, darlint. 'Tis you and me, and Jim and Silver Fox, and ivery one of us, as'll take our muskets and go out to foight the blackguards."