"Hempseed, I sow thee,--hempseed, I sow thee; let him who is to marry me
come after me and mow thee."

Peggy led her followers out of the east door towards the river; wheeling
when she reached a little wind-row of rotted timbers. This chaos had
once stood up in order, forming makeshift bastions for the fort, and
supporting cannon. Such boards and posts as the negroes had not carried
off lay now along the river brink, and the Okaw was steadily undermining
that brink as it had already undermined and carried away the Jesuits'
spacious landing.

Glancing over their shoulders with secret laughter for that fearful
gleam of scythes which was to come, the girls marched back; and their
leader's abrupt halt jarred the entire line. A man stood in the opposite
entrance. They could not see him in outline, but his unmistakable hat
showed against a low-lying sky.

"Who's there?" demanded Peggy Morrison.

The intruder made no answer.

They could not see a scythe about him, but to every girl he took a
different form. He was Billy Edgar, or Jules Vigo, or Rice Jones, or any
other gallant of Kaskaskia, according to the varying faith which beating
hearts sent to the eyes that saw him.

The spell of silence did not last. A populous roost invaded by a fox
never resounded with more squalling than did the old Jesuit College. The
girls swished around corners and tumbled over the vegetable beds.