CHAPTER IX.

PITOU BECOMES A TACTICIAN. Our hero’s fall was deep. How could he go back to his friends without the arms? How, after having had so much confidence shown in him, tell them that their leader was a braggart who, in spite of his sword and helmet, had let a priest whack him in the rear? To vaunt of carrying all before him with Father Fortier and fail so shamefully--what a fault! To obtain the muskets, force or cunning was the means. He might steal into the school and steal out the arms. But the word “steal,” sounded ba…