He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part
of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five
years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log
sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him.
He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town
toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to
the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care
of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging
about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could
remember.

At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever
know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the
swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago."

Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She
never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the
steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed.

"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he
stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here
except jest sugarin' time."

The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of
which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and
propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his
lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no
reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make
him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came
every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all