Jean de Gravois and Croisset came forth from the store to meet
them.
"You have company, my dear!" cried Jean to Melisse. "Two gentlemen
fresh from London on the last boat, and one of them younger and
handsomer than your own Jan Thoreau. They are waiting for you in the
cabin, where mon pere is getting them dinner, and telling them how
beautifully you would have made the coffee if you were there."
"Two!" said Jan, as Melisse left them. "Who are they?"
"The new agent, M. Timothy Dixon, as red as the plague, and fatter
than a spawning fish! And his son, who has come along for fun, he
says; and I believe he will get what he's after if he remains here
very long, Jan Thoreau, for he looked a little too boldly at my Iowaka
when she came into the store just now!"
"Mon Dieu!" laughed Jan, as Gravois took in the four quarters of the
earth with a terrible gesture. "Can you blame him, Jean? I tell you
that I look at Iowaka whenever I get the chance!"
"Is she not worth it?" cried Jean in rapture. "You are welcome to
every look that you can get, Jan Thoreau. But the foreigner--I will
skin him alive and spit him with devil-thorn if he so much as peeps at
her out of the wrong way of his eye!"
Croisset spoke.
"There was once a foreigner who came.
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