“Ten dollars, cash price, for the pants,” proceeded Walker, “and two hundred for that exact amount in gold stitched up in the waistband of em.”

“The Devil has got ’em, anyhow!” said the landlord,—­“for I saw a queer critter, in my sleep, flying about with ’em on.  Wings looks kinder awful along o’ pants with stripes.  There’ll be no luck round till they’re paid for, I guess.  Couldn’t you take my best checkers for ’em, now, with fifty dollars quilted into the waistband,—­s-a-ay?”

“My name’s Walker,—­Peter Walker,” was the reply.

The landlord was no match for that name, so disagreeably redolent of Lynch and ashes.  Thorough search was made upon the premises, and to some distance around, in the wild hope that the missing trousers might have walked off spontaneously, and lain down somewhere to sleep; but, of course, nothing came of the investigation, although Walker assisted at it with his usual energy.  All compromise was rejected by him, and it was not yet noon when he rode proudly away from the lone hostelry, in the landlord’s best checkers, for which he kindly allowed him five dollars, receiving from him the balance, two hundred and five dollars, in gold.

I forget now what Walker did with that money, although Quatreaux knew exactly, and told me all about it.  Suffice it to say that he made a grand coup with it, in the purchase of a mill-privilege, or claim, or something of the kind.  Less than a year after the events narrated, he again rode up to the lone hostelry, which was not so lonely now, however; for houses were growing up around it, and it took boarders and rang a dinner-bell, and maintained a landlady as well as a landlord, besides.  The landlord was astonished when Walker counted out to him two hundred and five dollars in gold,—­surprised when to that was added a round sum for interest,—­ecstatic, on being presented with a brand-new pair of pantaloons, of the same pattern as the expensive ones formerly so admired by him.  But his features collapsed, and for some time wore an expression of imbecility, when he learned the details of the adventure, and found out that “some things”—­landlords, for example—­“can be done as well as others.”

It was with little reminiscences like the one just narrated that old Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that our horizon was within paddle’s length of us.  With that presumptive clairvoyance which appears to be an essential property of the French raconteur, he did not confine himself to external fact in his narratives, but always professed to report minutely the thoughts that flashed through the mind of such and such a person, on the particular occasion referred to.  He was a master of dialects,—­Yankee, Pennsylvanian Dutch, and Irish.

“Where did you get your English, old man?” I asked him, as we scudded across the lake in our canoe, with a small sail up, one red October evening.