At length the cocks crowing for day proclaimed the morning, and while yet the blue shadow of the bluff was on the town, Colonel Clark sallied out of the gate and walked abroad. Strange it seemed that war had come to this village, so peaceful and remote. And even stranger it seemed to me to see these Arcadian homes in the midst of the fierce wilderness. The little houses with their sloping roofs and wide porches, the gardens ablaze with color, the neat palings,--all were a restful sight for our weary eyes. And now I scarcely knew our commander. For we had not gone far ere, timidly, a door opened and a mild-visaged man, in the simple workaday smock that the French wore, stood, hesitating, on the steps. The odd thing was that he should have bowed to Clark, who was dressed no differently from Bowman and Harrod and Duff; and the man's voice trembled piteously as he spoke. It needed not John Duff to tell us that he was pleading for the lives of his family. "He will sell himself as a slave if your Excellency will spare them," said Duff, translating. But Clark stared at the man sternly. "I will tell them my plans at the proper time," he said and when Duff had translated this the man turned and went silently into his house again, closing the door behind him. And before we had traversed the village the same thing had happened many times. We gained the fort again, I wondering greatly why he had not reassured these simple people. It was Bowman who asked this question, he being closer to Clark than any of the other captains. Clark said nothing then, and began to give out directions for the day. But presently he called the Captain aside. "Bowman," I heard him say, "we have one hundred and fifty men to hold a province bigger than the whole of France, and filled with treacherous tribes in the King's pay. I must work out the problem for myself." Bowman was silent. Clark, with that touch which made men love him and die for him, laid his hand on the Captain's shoulder. "Have the men called in by detachments," he said, "and fed. God knows they must be hungry,--and you." Suddenly I remembered that he himself had had nothing. Running around the commandant's house to the kitchen door, I came unexpectedly upon Swein Poulsson, who was face to face with the linsey-woolsey-clad figure of Monsieur Rocheblave's negro cook. The early sun cast long shadows of them on the ground. "By tam," my friend was saying, "so I vill eat. I am choost like an ox for three days, und chew grass. Prairie grass, is it?" "Mo pas capab', Michie," said the cook, with a terrified roll of his white eyes. "Herr Gott!" cried Swein Poulsson, "I am red face. Aber Herr Gott, I thank thee I am not a nigger. Und my hair is bristles, yes. Davy" (spying me), "I thank Herr Gott it is not vool. Let us in the kitchen go."