"When I have forgotten. When I am no more your friend." Prosper picked up his trowel and went into the tower. Raoul bad-worded him and every stone of his building from foundation to cornice, and then went down the road to get a bottle of cognac. An hour later he came back breathing out threatenings and slaughter, strongly flavored with raw spirits. Prosper was working quietly on the top of the tower, at the side away from the road. He saw nothing until Raoul, climbing up by the ladders on the inside, leaped on the platform and rushed at him like a crazy lynx. "Now!" he cried, "no hole to hide in here, rat! I'll squeeze the lies out of you." He gripped Prosper by the head, thrusting one thumb into his eye, and pushing him backward on the scaffolding. Blinded, half-maddened by the pain, Prosper thought of nothing but to get free. He swung his long arm upward and landed a fearful blow on Raoul's face that dislocated the jaw; then twisting himself downward and sideways, he fell in toward the wall. Raoul plunged forward, stumbled, let go his hold, and pitched out from the tower, arms spread, clutching the air. Forty feet straight down! A moment—or was it an eternity?—of horrible silence. Then the body struck the rough stones at the foot of the tower with a thick, soft dunt, and lay crumpled up among them, without a groan, without a movement. When the other men, who had hurried up the ladders in terror, found Leclère, he was peering over the edge of the scaffold, wiping the blood from his eyes, trying to see down. "I have killed him," he muttered, "my friend! He is smashed to death. I am a murderer. Let me go. I must throw myself down!" They had hard work to hold him back. As they forced him down the ladders he trembled like a poplar. But Vaillantcœur was not dead. No; it was incredible—to fall forty feet and not be killed—they talk of it yet all through the valley of the Lake St. John—it was a miracle! But Vaillantcœur had broken only a nose, a collar-bone, and three ribs—for one like him that was but a _bagatelle_. A good doctor from Chicoutimi, a few months of nursing, and he would be on his feet again, almost as good a man as he had ever been. It was Leclère who put himself in charge of this. "It is my affair," he said—"my fault! It was not a fair place to fight. Why did I strike? I must attend to this bad work." "_Mais, sacré bleu!_" they answered, "how could you help it? He forced you. You did not want to be killed. That would be a little too much." "No," he persisted, "this is my affair. Girard, you know my money is with the _notaire_. There is plenty. Raoul has not enough, perhaps not any. But he shall want nothing—you understand—nothing! It is my affair, all that he needs—but you shall not tell him—no! That is all. _C'est fini!_"