“They are some of the king’s soldiers.”

“But why so many of them?  Do they await some enemy?”

“Nay; we are at peace with all the world.  Worse luck!”

“At peace.  Why then all these men?”

“That they may be ready.”

The young man shook his head in bewilderment.  “They might be as ready in their own homes surely.  In our country every man has his musket in his chimney corner, and is ready enough, yet he does not waste his time when all is at peace.”

“Our king is very great, and he has many enemies.”

“And who made the enemies?”

“Why, the king, to be sure.”

“Then would it not be better to be without him?”

The guardsman shrugged his epaulettes in despair.  “We shall both wind up in the Bastille or Vincennes at this rate,” said he.  “You must know that it is in serving the country that he has made these enemies.  It is but five years since he made a peace at Nimeguen, by which he tore away sixteen fortresses from the Spanish Lowlands.  Then, also, he had laid his hands upon Strassburg and upon Luxembourg, and has chastised the Genoans, so that there are many who would fall upon him if they thought that he was weak.”

“And why has he done all this?”

“Because he is a great king, and for the glory of France.”

The stranger pondered over this answer for some time as they rode on between the high, thin poplars, which threw bars across the sunlit road.

“There was a great man in Schenectady once,” said he at last.  “They are simple folk up yonder, and they all had great trust in each other.  But after this man came among them they began to miss—­one a beaver-skin and one a bag of ginseng, and one a belt of wampum, until at last old Pete Hendricks lost his chestnut three-year-old.  Then there was a search and a fuss until they found all that had been lost in the stable of the new-comer, so we took him, I and some others, and we hung him up on a tree, without ever thinking what a great man he had been.”

De Catinat shot an angry glance at his companion.  “Your parable, my friend, is scarce polite,” said he.  “If you and I are to travel in peace you must keep a closer guard upon your tongue.”

“I would not give you offence, and it may be that I am wrong,” answered the American, “but I speak as the matter seems to me, and it is the right of a free man to do that.”

De Catinat’s frown relaxed as the other turned his earnest blue eyes upon him.  “By my soul, where would the court be if every man did that?” said he.  “But what in the name of heaven is amiss now?”

His companion had hurled himself off his horse, and was stooping low over the ground, with his eyes bent upon the dust.  Then, with quick, noiseless steps, he zigzagged along the road, ran swiftly across a grassy bank, and stood peering at the gap of a fence, with his nostrils dilated, his eyes shining, and his whole face aglow with eagerness.