When Auguste came back to Victor, he would go at once to Nancy Hale's cabin, or send for her. Surely she had lied in court about what she and Auguste were to each other. The boys Raoul had sent to watch her cabin would let him know of Auguste's arrival. Armand nodded vigorously. "May le Bon Dieu grant me the chance to kill him. But what makes you so sure he will come here?" "Because he knows that he can prove Pierre left Victoire to him. Cooper has those papers, and Cooper helped him escape, so he has Cooper on his side." Armand said, "Two pieces of paper. Easy enough to make them disappear." "How in hell am I going to get them away from Cooper? Him and his Regulators." Glowering at Raoul, Armand leaned back in his chair, making it creak. He folded his hands across the big belly that stretched his homespun shirt. "Kill Cooper and there will be no more Regulators." _How I wish I could._ Pouring himself another drink, Raoul said, "Armand, you're damn near as stupid as an Indian." Armand's eyes narrowed and for a moment Raoul saw a flash of hatred that reminded him of the way the overseer used to look at Pierre. "Have a care how you talk to me, mon colonel," Armand said in a voice that sounded like millstones grinding together, "I am your one friend. Otto Wegner and Eli Greenglove turned on you, Hodge Hode is dead, Levi Pope has joined the Regulators." _It's true. I have no other friends but Armand. I have no family. What's happened to me?_ "Damn it, it _is_ plain stupid to talk about fighting the Regulators, Armand. Kill Cooper and we'd have a countywide war on our hands." "I believe we could frighten the Regulators into backing down, mon colonel--if _we_ showed some courage." _That's a jab at me._ Whiskey and anger almost made Raoul lash out again at Armand, but he felt a sudden fear that Armand would turn on him and he would be all alone. Raoul brooded for a time, then finally spoke. "Wait till I get the lead mine opened up next spring. We'll go up to Galena, you and I, and we'll recruit the roughest, meanest miners we can find. And we'll make it plain to them that they'll have two jobs--to dig for lead and to fight Regulators. When we've got enough of them down here, we'll take on Cooper and his crowd in the next election. I'll spread whiskey and money around and our boys will beat up anybody who says he won't vote our way. Smith County will belong to us again, Armand." He heard hurried footsteps echoing on the split-log floor of the fort's main room. Someone rapped on his office door. Like a swimmer coming up from the bottom of a lake after a dive, Raoul rose up out of his comfortable whiskey haze. "Who's there?" he growled. Josiah Hode, a skinny, red-haired youth in dark calico shirt and workman's trousers, a big hunting knife at his waist, pushed the door open. Hodge's orphaned son.