"Promise me that you will not taste liquor this night," Father
Beret went on, grasping the young man's arm more firmly; "promise
me, my son, promise me."

Still Rene was silent. The men did not look at each other, but
gazed away across the country beyond the Wabash to where a glory
from the western sun flamed on the upper rim of a great cloud
fragment creeping along the horizon. Warm as the day had been, a
delicious coolness now began to temper the air; for the wind had
shifted into the northwest. A meadowlark sang dreamingly in the
wild grass of the low lands hard by, over which two or three
prairie hawks hovered with wings that beat rapidly.

"Eh bien, I must go," said Rene presently, getting to his feet
nimbly and evading Father Beret's hand which would have held him.

"Not to the river house, my son?" said the priest appealingly.

"No, not there; I have another letter; one for M'sieu' Roussillon;
it came by the boat too. I go to give it to Madame Roussillon."

Rene de Ronville was a dark, weather-stained young fellow, neither
tall nor short, wearing buckskin moccasins, trousers and tunic.
His eyes were dark brown, keen, quick-moving, set well under heavy
brows. A razor had probably never touched his face, and his thin,
curly beard crinkled over his strongly turned cheeks and chin,
while his moustaches sprang out quite fiercely above his full-
lipped, almost sensual mouth. He looked wiry and active, a man not
to be lightly reckoned with in a trial of bodily strength and will
power.