"I should have killed him long ago," thought McElroy simply, "as one
kills a wolf,--for the good of the settlement."
As they lay watching the unearthly orgy at the fire a plan slowly took
shape in McElroy's mind. They were unbound as they had been for many
days, the silent guard proving sufficient surety for their retention,
and they were two to one in the wild confusion of the growing
excitement. What easier than a swift grapple in the dusk, one man
locked in combat with the sentinel and one lost in the forest and the
night? It was a desperate chance, but they were desperate men with the
post, the hatchet, and the matete before them. As the thought grew it
took on proportions of possibility and the factor threw up his head
with the old motion, shaking out of his eyes the falling sun-burnt
hair.
"M'sieu," he said, in a low voice, carefully modulated to the careless
tone of weary speech which was their habit of nights; "M'sieu, I have a
plan."
The cavalier looked up quickly.
"Ah!" he said; "a plan? Of what,--conduct at the stake? The etiquette
of the ceremony of the Feast of Flame?"
"Peace!" replied McElroy sternly; "you jest, M'sieu.
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