For a time none spoke, and no sound, save De Croix’s labored breathing, broke the silence.  Burns had turned slightly, and I knew was listening intently for any sound without.  Apparently satisfied that the noise made by us had not been overheard, he asked in his old deliberate drawl: 

“How in thunder, Mister Parly-voo, did ye git up thet thar combination, anyhow?”

I heard the Frenchman chuckle, and pinched him as a warning to be careful.  He answered, in his reckless, easy way: 

“’T was all simple enough behind the scenes, Messieurs.  I but took some old sacking discovered here, and used it as a robe, standing my hair well on end; and a flash of powder made the scene most realistic.  The thing indeed worked well.  I would I had a picture of Master Wayland’s face to show Toinette!”

This chance mention of her name recalled me to myself.  The undecided wager was yet to be won, and the night was now nearly spent.  There came to me a sudden determination to risk a rush through the darkness to the Fort gates, rather than chance any further defeat at the hands of this rash gallant.  Yet prudence bade me question somewhat further before I ventured upon so mad a deed.

“No doubt ’t was most happy from your point of view, Monsieur.  From ours, it was less so; and instead of laughing, you might better be thanking your lucky stars that you did not pay more dearly for such folly.  But what brought you here?  Why have you failed to reach the stockade?”

“Sacre!” he muttered carelessly, “but I had a fierce enough run for it as it was.  Why did I not reach the stockade?  Because, my friend, I am no real ghost to be invisible in the night, nor am I a bird to fly.  ’T was in the shadow of that big building yonder that I ran into a nest of those copper-colored fiends, and ’t was nip and tuck which of us won, had I not, by pure good luck, chanced to stumble into this hole, and so escape them.  Perchance they also thought me a ghost, who knows?  But, be that as it may, they were beating the river bank for me in the flesh, when you came creeping here.”

We lay flat on the floor, the three of us, our eyes fastened upon the faint light that began to stream in through the entrance.  I could hear Burns muttering to himself, as is often the way with men who lead lives of solitude; and every now and then De Croix would shake silently at the recollection of what had just occurred.  I minded neither of them, but chiefly planned how best I might outwit De Croix and win the prize offered by Mademoiselle.  The promise of dawning day was in the outer air, too dim as yet to render our faces visible.  Suddenly the slight draft of air veered, and swept a tiny breath of smoke into my nostrils.  It came so quickly that I scarcely realized its significance until Burns scrambled to his knees with a growl.

“God! the devils have run us to cover!” he cried, sullenly.  “They have started a fire to smoke us out!”