“Yes, Pepin, yes, of course that is so, my sweet one, and what more could any woman want?  And that girl, I think, she was took wid you, for I see her two, three times look at you so out of the corners of the eyes.”

While this conversation was proceeding, Antoine had more than once glanced at his master without turning his head.  The plate of stew was now within easy reach of his short grizzled snout, and really it looked as if it had been put there on purpose for him to help himself.

When Pepin happened to look round, he thought his mother, in a fit of absent-mindedness, must have put down an empty plate—­it was so clean, so beautifully clean.  But when he looked at Antoine, who was now sitting quite out of reach of the plate, and observed the Sunday-school expression on the bear’s old-fashioned face, he understood matters.  He knew Antoine of old.

“Mother,” he said, in his natural voice and quite quietly, “my dear mother, don’t let the old beast know that you suspect anything.  Take up that plate, and don’t look at him, or he will find out we have discovered all.  What have you got left in the pot, my mother?”

“Two pigeons, my sweet one, but—­”

“That will do, mother.  Do not excite yourself.  Your Pepin will be avenged.  The b’ar shall have the lot, ma foi! the whole lot, and he will wish that he had waited until his betters were finished.  Take down the mustard tin, and the pepper-pot, and yes, those little red peppers that make the mouth as the heat of the pit below, and put them all in the insides of one pigeon.  Do you hear me, my mother dear?  Now, do not let him see you do it, for his sense is as that of the Evil One himself, and he would not eat that pigeon.”

“Oh, my poor wronged one, and to think that that—­”

“Hush hush, my mother!  Can you not do as I have told you?  Pick up the plate quietly. Bien, that is right!  Now, do not look at him, but fill the pigeon up.  So ... that is so, mother dear.  O, Antoine, you sweet, infernal b’ar, but I will make you wish as how the whole Saskatchewan were running down your crater of a throat in two, three minutes more.  But there will be no Saskatchewan—­non, not one leetle drop of water to cool your thieving tongue!”

And despite the lively state of affairs he predicted for his four-footed friend, he never once looked at it, but kept tinkering at the harness as if nothing particular were exciting him.

The good old lady was filled with concern for Antoine, for whom, as sharing the companionship of her well-beloved, she had quite a friendly regard.  Still, had not the traitorous animal robbed her darling—­her Pepin—­of his supper?  It was a hard, a very hard thing to do, but he must be taught a lesson.  With many misgivings she stuffed the cavernous fowl with the fiery condiments.

“Now, mother dear, just wipe it clean so that the fire and brimstone does not show on the outside, and pour over it some gravy.  That is right, ma mere.  I will reward you—­later.  Now, just place it on the bench and take away the other plate.  Do not let the cunning malefactor think you notice him at all.  He will think it is the second course. Bien!”