"Father Beret has just been telling me," said Madame Roussillon,
"that our friend Long-Hair made some trouble last night. How about
it?"

Rene told her what he knew and added that Long-Hair would
probably never be seen again.

"He was shot, no doubt of it," he went on, "and is now being
nibbled by fish and turtles. We tracked him by his blood to where
he jumped into the Wabash. He never came out."

Strangely enough it happened that, at the very time of this chat
between Madame Roussillon and Rene Alice was bandaging Long-Hair's
wounded leg with strips of her apron. It was under some willows
which overhung the bank of a narrow and shallow lagoon or slough,
which in those days extended a mile or two back into the country
on the farther side of the river. Alice and Jean went over in a
pirogue to see if the water lilies, haunting a pond there, were
yet beginning to bloom. They landed at a convenient spot some
distance up the little lagoon, made the boat fast by dragging its
prow high ashore, and were on the point of setting out across a
neck of wet, grassy land to the pond, when a deep grunt, not
unlike that of a self-satisfied pig, attracted them to the
willows, where they discovered Long-Hair, badly wounded, weltering
in some black mud.

His hiding-place was cunningly chosen, save that the mire troubled
him, letting him down by slow degrees, and threatening to engulf
him bodily; and he was now too weak to extricate himself. He
lifted his head and glared. His face was grimy, his hair matted