The little dinner-party at the Frontenac discussed this episode. "Almost
too good to be true, colonel," I objected. "You're sure it _is_ true?
Bring out your Hirondelle. He ought to be home wounded, with a war cross
on his breast, by now."

The colonel smiled and shook his head. "It is that which I cannot
do--show you my Hirondelle. Not here, and not in France, by _malheur_.
For he ventured once too often and too far, as the captain prophesied,
and he is dead. God rest the brave! Also a Croix de Guerre is indeed
his, but no Hirondelle is there to claim it."

The silence of a moment was a salute to the soul of a warrior passed to
the happy hunting-grounds. And then I began on another story of my
Rafael's adventures which something in the colonel's tale suggested.

The colonel, his winning face all a smile, interrupted. "Does one
believe, then, in this Rafael of m'sieur who caps me each time my tales
of my Huron Hirondelle? It appears to me that m'sieur has the brain, of
a story-teller and hangs good stories on a figure which he has built and
named so--Rafael. Me, I cannot believe there exists this Rafael. I
believe there is only one such gallant d'Artagnan of the Hurons, and it
is--it was--my Hirondelle. Show me your Rafael, then!" demanded the
colonel.

At that challenge the scheme which had flashed into my mind an hour ago
gathered shape and power. "I will show him to you, colonel," I took up
the challenge, "if you will allow me." I turned to include the others.
"Isn't it possible for you all to call a truce and come up tomorrow to
my club to be my guests for as long or as short a time as you will? I