Next day Lisette left behind her forever the free, happy days of colthood. At first Ranald was unwilling to trust her to any other hands than his own, but when he saw how skillfully and gently Yankee handled her, soothing her while he harnessed and hitched her up, he recognized that she was safer with Yankee than with himself, and allowed him to have the reins. They spent the morning driving up and down the lane with Lisette and Fox hitched to the stone-boat. The colt had been kindly treated from her earliest days, and consequently knew nothing of fear. She stepped daintily beside old Fox, fretting and chafing in the harness, but without thought of any violent objection. In the afternoon the colt was put through her morning experience, with the variation that the stone-boat was piled up with a fairly heavy load of earth and stone. And about noon the day following, Lisette was turning her furrow with all the steadiness of a horse twice her age. Before two weeks were over, Yankee, with the horses, and Ranald, with the oxen, had finished the plowing, and in another ten days the fields lay smooth and black, with the seed harrowed safely in, waiting for the rain. Yankee's visit had been a godsend, not only to Ranald with his work, but also to Macdonald Dubh. He would talk to the grim, silent man by the hour, after the day's work was done, far into the night, till at length he managed to draw from him the secret of his misery. “I will never be a man again,” he said, bitterly, to Yankee. “And there is the farm all to pay for. I have put it off too long and now it is too late, and it is all because of that--that--brute beast of a Frenchman.” “Mean cuss!” ejaculated Yankee. “And I am saying,” continued Macdonald Dubh, opening his heart still further, “I am saying, it was no fair fight, whatever. I could whip him with one hand. It was when I was pulling out Big Mack, poor fellow, from under the heap, that he took me unawares.” “That's so,” assented Yankee. “Blamed lowdown trick.” “And, oh, I will be praying God to give me strength just to meet him! I will ask no more. But,” he added, in bitter despair, “there is no use for me to pray. Strength will come to me no more.” “Well,” said Yankee, brightly, “needn't worry about that varmint. He ain't worth it, anyhow.” “Aye, he is not worth it, indeed, and that is the man who has brought me to this.” That was the bitter part to Macdonald Dubh. A man he despised had beaten him. “Now look here,” said Yankee, “course I ain't much good at this, but if you will just quit worryin', I'll undertake to settle this little account with Mr. LeNware.”