The white man under the tree had been quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and came over to the rail fence against which they leaned.
"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand the brown one of the trader.

"I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean?
Yonder great fellow with the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you went away.

All your other playmates are gone,--though you did not play much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the meadow with your own color.

Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile with your old master ?" As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to beckon to the Indian with the ball.

But Hugon drew his hand away, straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town.