half with his head.

He was the kind of a man that never needs more than one match to
light a fire.

But Vaillantcoeur--well, if the wood was wet he might use a dozen,
and when the blaze was kindled, as like as not he would throw in the
rest of the box.

Now, these two men had been friends and were changed into rivals.
At least that was the way that one of them looked at it. And most
of the people in the parish seemed to think that was the right view.
It was a strange thing, and not altogether satisfactory to the
public mind, to have two strongest men in the village. The question
of comparative standing in the community ought to be raised and
settled in the usual way. Raoul was perfectly willing, and at times
(commonly on Saturday nights) very eager. But Prosper was not.

"No," he said, one March night, when he was boiling maple-sap in the
sugar-bush with little Ovide Rossignol (who had a lyric passion for
holding the coat while another man was fighting)--"no, for what
shall I fight with Raoul? As boys we have played together. Once,
in the rapids of the Belle Riviere, when I have fallen in the water,
I think he has saved my life. He was stronger, then, than me. I am
always a friend to him. If I beat him now, am I stronger? No, but
weaker. And if he beats me, what is the sense of that? Certainly I
shall not like it. What is to gain?"

Down in the store of old Girard, that night, Vaillantcoeur was
holding forth after a different fashion. He stood among the