"And at midnight in trooped every man, woman, and brat of the
encampment. The padre takes a tom-tom and stands at one end of the
lodge beating a very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of
his voice: 'Eat, brothers, eat! Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose
the belt! Eat, brothers, eat!' Chouart stands at the boiler ladling
out joints faster than an army could gobble. Within an hour every brat
lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched.
From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps
ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other
end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell: 'Stuff, brudders, stuff!
Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out! Eat, braves, eat!' And the
padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals. Still the warriors eat!
Still the drums beat! Still the meat is heaped! Then, one brave bowls
over asleep with his head on his knees! Another warrior tumbles back!
Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!"
"What did you put in the meat, Pierre?" asked Groseillers absently.
Radisson laughed.
"Do you mind, Chouart," he asked, "how the padre wanted to put poison
in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn't let him? Then the Dutchman
wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn't let
him?"
Both men laughed.
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