“In Pennsylvania,” replied he.  “I went there on my own hook, when I was about twelve year old, and worked in an oil-mill for four year.”

“In an oil-mill?  Perhaps that accounts for the glibness with which language slips off your tongue.”

“’Guess it do,” said the old voyageur, with ready assent.

We nearly got foul of a raft coming down the lake, manned with a rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and were very drunk and boisterous.

“Ugly customers to deal with, those brules,” remarked I, when we had got clear away from them.

“Some on ’em is,” replied the old voyageur.  “Did you notice the one with the queer eye,—­him in the Scotch cap and shupac moccasons?”

I had noticed him, and an ill-looking thief he was.  One of his eyes, either from natural deformity or the effect of hostile operation, was dragged down from its proper parallel, and planted in a remote socket near the corner of his mouth, whence it glared and winked with super-natural ferocity.

“That’s Rupe Falardeau,” continued my companion.  “His father, old Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,—­only the eye’s lower down still.  If that’s to go on in the family, I guess there’ll be a Falardeau with his eye in his knee, some time.”

In the deck-fight in which old Rupe got his ugly mark Pete Walker had a hand; and the part he took in it, as related to me by old Quatreaux, who was also present, affords a good example of the tact and coolness which gave him such mastery over the wild spirits among whom he worked out his destiny.

Walker was coming down a lumbering-river—­I forget the name of it—­on board a small tug-steamboat, in which he had an interest.  He had gone into other speculations beside furs, by this time, and had contracts in two or three places for supplying remote stations with salt pork, tea, and other staple provisions of the lumbering-craft.

Stopping to wood at the mouth of a creek, a gang of raftsmen came on board,—­half-breed Canadians of fierce and demoralized aspect,—­men of great muscular strength, and armed heavily with axes and butcher-knives.  The gang was led by Rupe Falardeau, a dangerous man, whether drunk or sober, and one whose antecedents were recorded in blood.  These men had been drinking, and were very noisy and intrusive, and presently a row arose between them and some of the boat-hands.  Fisticuffs and kicks were first exchanged, but without any great loss of blood.  Knives were then drawn and nourished, and matters were beginning to assume a serious aspect, when Walker made his appearance forward of the paddle-box, pointing a heavy pistol right at the head of the ringleader.

“Rupe!” shouted he, in a voice that attracted immediate attention, “drop that knife, or else I shoot!”

The crowd parted for a moment, and Rupe, standing alone near the bows, wheeled round with a yell, and glared fiercely at the speaker.