initial commit of ebook 6179HEADmain

2 files changed, 10163 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/gp07w10.txt b/old/gp07w10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8595d64
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gp07w10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10163 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook Pierre And His People, Complete, by Parker
+#7 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+   
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+                    
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Complete
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: July, 2004  [EBook #6179]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 27, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, BY PARKER ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 1.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Volume 1.
+THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
+GOD'S GARRISON
+A HAZARD OF THE NORTH
+
+Volume 2.
+A PRAIRIE VAGABOND
+SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON
+THREE OUTLAWS
+
+Volume 3.
+SHON MCGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE
+PERE CHAMPAGNE
+THE SCARLET HUNTER
+THE STONE
+
+Volume 4.
+THE TALL MASTER
+THE CRIMSON FLAG
+THE FLOOD
+IN PIPI VALLEY
+
+Volume 5.
+ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
+THE CIPHER
+A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
+A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL INTRODUCTION
+
+With each volume of this subscription edition (1912) there is a special
+introduction, setting forth, in so far as seemed possible, the relation
+of each work to myself, to its companion works, and to the scheme of my
+literary life. Only one or two things, therefore, need be said here, as I
+wish God-speed to this edition, which, I trust, may help to make old
+friends warmer friends and new friends more understanding.  Most of the
+novels and most of the short stories were suggested by incidents or
+characters which I had known, had heard of intimately, or, as in the case
+of the historical novels, had discovered in the works of historians.  In
+no case are the main characters drawn absolutely from life; they are not
+portraits; and the proof of that is that no one has ever been able to
+identify, absolutely, any single character in these books.  Indeed, it
+would be impossible for me to restrict myself to actual portraiture.  It
+is trite to say that photography is not art, and photography has no charm
+for the artist, or the humanitarian indeed, in the portrayal of life.
+At its best it is only an exhibition of outer formal characteristics,
+idiosyncrasies, and contours.  Freedom is the first essential of the
+artistic mind.  As will be noticed in the introductions and original
+notes to several of these volumes, it is stated that they possess
+anachronisms; that they are not portraits of people living or dead, and
+that they only assume to be in harmony with the spirit of men and times
+and things.  Perhaps in the first few pages of 'The Right of Way'
+portraiture is more nearly reached than in any other of these books, but
+it was only the nucleus, if I may say so, of a larger development which
+the original Charley Steele never attained.  In the novel he grew to
+represent infinitely more than the original ever represented in his short
+life.
+
+That would not be strange when it is remembered that the germ of The
+'Right of Way' was growing in my mind over a long period of years, and
+it must necessarily have developed into a larger conception than the
+original character could have suggested.  The same may be said of the
+chief characters in 'The Weavers'.  The story of the two brothers--David
+Claridge and Lord Eglington--in that book was brewing in my mind for
+quite fifteen years, and the main incidents and characters of other
+novels in this edition had the same slow growth.  My forthcoming novel,
+called 'The Judgment House', had been in my mind for nearly twenty years
+and only emerged when it was full grown, as it were; when I was so
+familiar with the characters that they seemed as real in all ways as
+though they were absolute people and incidents of one's own experience.
+
+Little more need be said.  In outward form the publishers have made this
+edition beautiful.  I should be ill-content if there was not also an
+element of beauty in the work of the author.  To my mind truth alone
+is not sufficient.  Every work of art, no matter how primitive in
+conception, how tragic or how painful, or even how grotesque in design
+--like the gargoyles on Notre Dame must have, too, the elements of
+beauty--that which lures and holds, the durable and delightful thing.
+I have a hope that these books of mine, as faithful to life as I could
+make them, have also been touched here and there by the staff of beauty.
+Otherwise their day will be short indeed; and I should wish for them a
+day a little longer at least than my day and span.
+
+I launch the ship.  May it visit many a port!  May its freight never lie
+neglected on the quays!
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+So far as my literary work is concerned 'Pierre and His People' may be
+likened to a new city built upon the ashes of an old one.  Let me
+explain.  While I was in Australia I began a series of short stories
+and sketches of life in Canada which I called 'Pike Pole Sketches on the
+Madawaska'.  A very few of them were published in Australia, and I
+brought with me to England in 1889 about twenty of them to make into a
+volume.  I told Archibald Forbes, the great war correspondent, of my wish
+for publication, and asked him if he would mind reading the sketches and
+stories before I approached a publisher.  He immediately consented, and
+one day I brought him the little brown bag containing the tales.
+
+A few days afterwards there came an invitation to lunch, and I went to
+Clarence Gate, Regent's Park, to learn what Archibald Forbes thought of
+my tales.  We were quite merry at luncheon, and after luncheon, which for
+him was a glass of milk and a biscuit, Forbes said to me, "Those stories,
+Parker--you have the best collection of titles I have ever known."  He
+paused.  I understood.  To his mind the tales did not live up to their
+titles.  He hastily added, "But I am going to give you a letter of
+introduction to Macmillan.  I may be wrong."  My reply was: "You need not
+give me a letter to Macmillan unless I write and ask you for it."
+
+I took my little brown bag and went back to my comfortable rooms in an
+old-fashioned square.  I sat down before the fire on this bleak winter's
+night with a couple of years' work on my knee.  One by one I glanced
+through the stories and in some cases read them carefully, and one by one
+I put them in the fire, and watched them burn.  I was heavy at heart, but
+I felt that Forbes was right, and my own instinct told me that my ideas
+were better than my performance--and Forbes was right.  Nothing was left
+of the tales; not a shred of paper, not a scrap of writing.  They had all
+gone up the chimney in smoke.  There was no self-pity.  I had a grim kind
+of feeling regarding the thing, but I had no regrets, and I have never
+had any regrets since.  I have forgotten most of the titles, and indeed
+all the stories except one.  But Forbes and I were right; of that I am
+sure.
+
+The next day after the arson I walked for hours where London was busiest.
+The shop windows fascinated me; they always did; but that day I seemed,
+subconsciously, to be looking for something.  At last I found it.  It was
+a second-hand shop in Covent Garden.  In the window there was the uniform
+of an officer of the time of Wellington, and beside it--the leather coat
+and fur cap of a trapper of the Hudson's Bay Company!  At that window I
+commenced to build again upon the ashes of last night's fire.  Pretty
+Pierre, the French half-breed, or rather the original of him as I knew
+him when a child, looked out of the window at me.  So I went home, and
+sitting in front of the fire which had received my manuscript the night
+before, with a pad upon my knee, I began to write 'The Patrol of the
+Cypress Hills' which opens 'Pierre and His People'.
+
+The next day was Sunday.  I went to service at the Foundling Hospital in
+Bloomsbury, and while listening superficially to the sermon I was also
+reading the psalms.  I came upon these words, "Free among the Dead like
+unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, that are out of
+remembrance," and this text, which I used in the story 'The Patrol of the
+Cypress Hills', became, in a sense, the text for all the stories which
+came after.  It seemed to suggest the lives and the end of the lives of
+the workers of the pioneer world.
+
+So it was that Pierre and His People chiefly concerned those who had been
+wounded by Fate, and had suffered the robberies of life and time while
+they did their work in the wide places.  It may be that my readers have
+found what I tried, instinctively, to convey in the pioneer life I
+portrayed--"The soul of goodness in things evil."  Such, on the whole,
+my observation had found in life, and the original of Pierre, with all
+his mistakes, misdemeanours, and even crimes, was such an one as I would
+have gone to in trouble or in hour of need, knowing that his face would
+never be turned from me.
+
+These stories made their place at once.  The 'Patrol of the Cypress
+Hills' was published first in 'The Independent' of New York and in
+'Macmillan's Magazine' in England.  Mr. Bliss Carman, then editor of 'The
+Independent', eagerly published several of them--'She of the Triple
+Chevron' and others.  Mr. Carman's sympathy and insight were a great help
+to me in those early days.  The then editor of 'Macmillan's Magazine',
+Mr. Mowbray Morris, was not, I think, quite so sure of the merits of the
+Pierre stories.  He published them, but he was a little credulous
+regarding them, and he did not pat me on the back by any means.  There
+was one, however, who made the best that is in 'Pierre and His People'
+possible; this was the unforgettable W. E. Henley, editor of The
+'National Observer'.  One day at a sitting I wrote a short story called
+'Antoine and Angelique', and sent it to him almost before the ink was
+dry.  The reply came by return of post: "It is almost, or quite, as good
+as can be.  Send me another."  So forthwith I sent him 'God's Garrison',
+and it was quickly followed by 'The Three Outlaws', 'The Tall Master',
+'The Flood', 'The Cipher', 'A Prairie Vagabond', and several others.  At
+length came 'The Stone', which brought a telegram of congratulation, and
+finally 'The Crimson Flag'.  The acknowledgment of that was a postcard
+containing these all too-flattering words: "Bravo, Balzac!"  Henley would
+print what no other editor would print; he gave a man his chance to do
+the boldest thing that was in him, and I can truthfully say that the
+doors which he threw open gave freedom to an imagination and an
+individuality of conception, for which I can never be sufficiently
+grateful.
+
+These stories and others which appeared in 'The National Observer', in
+'Macmillan's', in 'The English Illustrated Magazine' and others made many
+friends; so that when the book at length came out it was received with
+generous praise, though not without some criticism.  It made its place,
+however, at once, and later appeared another series, called 'An
+Adventurer of the North', or, as it is called in this edition, 'A Romany
+of the Snows'.  Through all the twenty stories of this second volume the
+character of Pierre moved; and by the time the last was written there was
+scarcely an important magazine in the English-speaking world which had
+not printed one or more of them.  Whatever may be thought of the stories
+themselves, or of the manner in which the life of the Far North was
+portrayed, of one thing I am sure: Pierre was true to the life--to his
+race, to his environment, to the conditions of pioneer life through which
+he moved.  When the book first came out there was some criticism from
+Canada itself, but that criticism has long since died away, and it never
+was determined.
+
+Plays have been founded on the 'Pierre' series, and one in particular,
+'Pierre of the Plains', had a considerable success, with Mr. Edgar
+Selwyn, the adapter, in the main part.  I do not know whether, if I were
+to begin again, I should have written all the Pierre stories in quite the
+same way.  Perhaps it is just as well that I am not able to begin again.
+The stories made their own place in their own way, and that there is
+still a steady demand for 'Pierre and His People' and 'A Romany of the
+Snows' seems evidence that the editor of an important magazine in New
+York who declined to recommend them for publication to his firm (and
+later published several of the same series) was wrong, when he said that
+the tales "seemed not to be salient."  Things that are not "salient" do
+not endure.  It is twenty years since 'Pierre and His People' was
+produced--and it still endures.  For this I cannot but be deeply
+grateful.  In any case, what 'Pierre' did was to open up a field which
+had not been opened before, but which other authors have exploited since
+with success and distinction.  'Pierre' was the pioneer of the Far North
+in fiction; that much may be said; and for the rest, Time is the test,
+and Time will have its way with me as with the rest.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+It is possible that a Note on the country portrayed in these stories may
+be in keeping.  Until 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company--first granted its
+charter by King Charles II--practically ruled that vast region stretching
+from the fiftieth parallel of latitude to the Arctic Ocean--a handful of
+adventurous men entrenched in forts and posts, yet trading with, and
+mostly peacefully conquering, many savage tribes.  Once the sole master
+of the North, the H. B. C. (as it is familiarly called) is reverenced by
+the Indians and half-breeds as much as, if not more than, the Government
+established at Ottawa.  It has had its forts within the Arctic Circle; it
+has successfully exploited a country larger than the United States.  The
+Red River Valley, the Saskatchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are now
+belted by a great railway, and given to the plough; but in the far north
+life is much the same as it was a hundred years ago.  There the trapper,
+clerk, trader, and factor are cast in the mould of another century,
+though possessing the acuter energies of this.  The 'voyageur' and
+'courier de bois' still exist, though, generally, under less picturesque
+names.
+
+The bare story of the hardy and wonderful career of the adventurers
+trading in Hudson's Bay,--of whom Prince Rupert was once chiefest,--and
+the life of the prairies, may be found in histories and books of travel;
+but their romances, the near narratives of individual lives, have waited
+the telling.  In this book I have tried to feel my way towards the heart
+of that life--worthy of being loved by all British men, for it has given
+honest graves to gallant fellows of our breeding.  Imperfectly, of
+course, I have done it; but there is much more to be told.
+
+When I started Pretty Pierre on his travels, I did not know--nor did he
+--how far or wide his adventurers and experiences would run.  They have,
+however, extended from Quebec in the east to British Columbia in the
+west, and from the Cypress Hills in the south to the Coppermine River
+in the north.  With a less adventurous man we had had fewer happenings.
+His faults were not of his race, that is, French and Indian,--nor were
+his virtues; they belong to all peoples.  But the expression of these
+is affected by the country itself.  Pierre passes through this series of
+stories, connecting them, as he himself connects two races, and here and
+there links the past of the Hudson's Bay Company with more modern life
+and Canadian energy pushing northward.  Here is something of romance
+"pure and simple," but also traditions and character, which are the
+single property of this austere but not cheerless heritage of our race.
+
+All of the tales have appeared in magazines and journals--namely, 'The
+National Observer', 'Macmillan's', 'The National Review', and 'The
+English Illustrated'; and 'The Independent of New York'.  By the courtesy
+of the proprietors of these I am permitted to republish.
+
+                                        G. P.
+
+HARPENDEN,
+HERTFORDSHIRE,
+July, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
+GOD'S GARRISON
+A HAZARD OF THE NORTH
+
+
+
+THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS
+
+"He's too ha'sh," said old Alexander Windsor, as he shut the creaking
+door of the store after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big iron
+stove with outstretched hands; hands that were cold both summer and
+winter.  He was of lean and frigid make.
+
+"Sergeant Fones is too ha'sh," he repeated, as he pulled out the damper
+and cleared away the ashes with the iron poker.
+
+Pretty Pierre blew a quick, straight column of cigarette smoke into the
+air, tilted his chair back, and said: "I do not know what you mean by
+'ha'sh,' but he is the devil.  Eh, well, there was more than one devil
+made sometime in the North West."  He laughed softly.
+
+"That gives you a chance in history, Pretty Pierre," said a voice from
+behind a pile of woollen goods and buffalo skins in the centre of the
+floor.  The owner of the voice then walked to the window.  He scratched
+some frost from the pane and looked out to where the trooper in dog-skin
+coat, gauntlets and cap, was mounting his broncho.  The old man came and
+stood near the young man,--the owner of the voice,--and said again: "He's
+too ha'sh."
+
+"Harsh you mean, father," added the other.
+
+"Yes, harsh you mean, Old Brown Windsor,--quite harsh," said Pierre.
+
+Alexander Windsor, storekeeper and general dealer, was sometimes called
+"Old Brown Windsor" and sometimes "Old Aleck," to distinguish him from
+his son, who was known as "Young Aleck."
+
+As the old man walked back again to the stove to warm his hands, Young
+Aleck continued: "He does his duty, that's all.  If he doesn't wear kid
+gloves while at it, it's his choice.  He doesn't go beyond his duty.
+You can bank on that.  It would be hard to exceed that way out here."
+
+"True, Young Aleck, so true; but then he wears gloves of iron, of ice.
+That is not good.  Sometime the glove will be too hard and cold on a
+man's shoulder, and then!--Well, I should like to be there," said Pierre,
+showing his white teeth.
+
+Old Aleck shivered, and held his fingers where the stove was red hot.
+
+The young man did not hear this speech; from the window he was watching
+Sergeant Fones as he rode towards the Big Divide.  Presently he said:
+"He's going towards Humphrey's place.  I--" He stopped, bent his brows,
+caught one corner of his slight moustache between his teeth, and did not
+stir a muscle until the Sergeant had passed over the Divide.
+
+Old Aleck was meanwhile dilating upon his theme before a passive
+listener.  But Pierre was only passive outwardly.  Besides hearkening to
+the father's complaints he was closely watching the son.  Pierre was
+clever, and a good actor.  He had learned the power of reserve and
+outward immobility.  The Indian in him helped him there.  He had heard
+what Young Aleck had just muttered; but to the man of the cold fingers he
+said: "You keep good whisky in spite of the law and the iron glove, Old
+Aleck."  To the young man: "And you can drink it so free, eh, Young
+Aleck?"
+
+The half-breed looked out of the corners of his eyes at the young man,
+but he did not raise the peak of his fur cap in doing so, and his glances
+askance were not seen.
+
+Young Aleck had been writing something with his finger-nail on the frost
+of the pane, over and over again.  When Pierre spoke to him thus he
+scratched out the word he had written, with what seemed unnecessary
+force.  But in one corner it remained:
+
+"Mab--"
+
+Pierre added: "That is what they say at Humphrey's ranch."
+
+"Who says that at Humphrey's?--Pierre, you lie!" was the sharp and
+threatening reply.  The significance of this last statement had been
+often attested on the prairies by the piercing emphasis of a six-
+chambered revolver.  It was evident that Young Aleck was in earnest.
+Pierre's eyes glowed in the shadow, but he idly replied:
+
+"I do not remember quite who said it.  Well, 'mon ami,' perhaps I lie;
+perhaps.  Sometimes we dream things, and these dreams are true.  You call
+it a lie--'bien!'  Sergeant Fones, he dreams perhaps Old Aleck sells
+whisky against the law to men you call whisky runners, sometimes to
+Indians and half-breeds--halfbreeds like Pretty Pierre.  That was a dream
+of Sergeant Fones; but you see he believes it true.  It is good sport,
+eh?  Will you not take--what is it?--a silent partner?  Yes; a silent
+partner, Old Aleck.  Pretty Pierre has spare time, a little, to make
+money for his friends and for himself, eh?"
+
+When did not Pierre have time to spare?  He was a gambler.  Unlike the
+majority of half-breeds, he had a pronounced French manner, nonchalant
+and debonair.
+
+The Indian in him gave him coolness and nerve.  His cheeks had a tinge of
+delicate red under their whiteness, like those of a woman.  That was why
+he was called Pretty Pierre.  The country had, however, felt a kind of
+weird menace in the name.  It was used to snakes whose rattle gave notice
+of approach or signal of danger.  But Pretty Pierre was like the death-
+adder, small and beautiful, silent and deadly.  At one time he had made
+a secret of his trade, or thought he was doing so.  In those days he was
+often to be seen at David Humphrey's home, and often in talk with Mab
+Humphrey; but it was there one night that the man who was ha'sh gave him
+his true character, with much candour and no comment.
+
+Afterwards Pierre was not seen at Humphrey's ranch.  Men prophesied that
+he would have revenge some day on Sergeant Fones; but he did not show
+anything on which this opinion could be based.  He took no umbrage at
+being called Pretty Pierre the gambler.  But for all that he was
+possessed of a devil.
+
+Young Aleck had inherited some money through his dead mother from his
+grandfather, a Hudson's Bay factor.  He had been in the East for some
+years, and when he came back he brought his "little pile" and an
+impressionable heart with him.  The former Pretty Pierre and his friends
+set about to win; the latter, Mab Humphrey won without the trying.  Yet
+Mab gave Young Aleck as much as he gave her.  More.  Because her love
+sprang from a simple, earnest, and uncontaminated life.  Her purity and
+affection were being played against Pierre's designs and Young Aleck's
+weakness.  With Aleck cards and liquor went together.  Pierre seldom
+drank.
+
+But what of Sergeant Fones?  If the man that knew him best--the
+Commandant--had been asked for his history, the reply would have been:
+"Five years in the Service, rigid disciplinarian, best non-commissioned
+officer on the Patrol of the Cypress Hills."  That was all the Commandant
+knew.
+
+A soldier-policeman's life on the frontier is rough, solitary, and
+severe.  Active duty and responsibility are all that make it endurable.
+To few is it fascinating.  A free and thoughtful nature would, however,
+find much in it, in spite of great hardships, to give interest and even
+pleasure.  The sense of breadth and vastness, and the inspiration of pure
+air could be a very gospel of strength, beauty, and courage, to such an
+one--for a time.  But was Sergeant Fones such an one?  The Commandant's
+scornful reply to a question of the kind would have been: "He is the best
+soldier on the Patrol."
+
+And so with hard gallops here and there after the refugees of crime or
+misfortune, or both, who fled before them like deer among the passes of
+the hills, and, like deer at bay, often fought like demons to the death;
+with border watchings, and protection and care and vigilance of the
+Indians; with hurried marches at sunrise, the thermometer at fifty
+degrees below zero often in winter, and open camps beneath the stars, and
+no camp at all, as often as not, winter and summer; with rough barrack
+fun and parade and drill and guard of prisoners; and with chances now and
+then to pay homage to a woman's face, the Mounted Force grew full of the
+Spirit of the West and became brown, valiant, and hardy, with wind and
+weather.  Perhaps some of them longed to touch, oftener than they did,
+the hands of children, and to consider more the faces of women,--for
+hearts are hearts even under a belted coat of red on the Fiftieth
+Parallel,--but men of nerve do not blazon their feelings.
+
+No one would have accused Sergeant Fones of having a heart.  Men of keen
+discernment would have seen in him the little Bismarck of the Mounted
+Police.  His name carried farther on the Cypress Hills Patrol than any
+other; and yet his officers could never say that he exceeded his duty
+or enlarged upon the orders he received.  He had no sympathy with crime.
+Others of the force might wink at it; but his mind appeared to sit
+severely upright upon the cold platform of Penalty, in beholding breaches
+of the statutes.  He would not have rained upon the unjust as the just if
+he had had the directing of the heavens.  As Private Gellatly put it:
+"Sergeant Fones has the fear o' God in his heart, and the law of the land
+across his saddle, and the newest breech-loading at that!"  He was part
+of the great machine of Order, the servant of Justice, the sentinel in
+the vestibule of Martial Law.  His interpretation of duty worked upward
+as downward.  Officers and privates were acted on by the force known as
+Sergeant Fones.  Some people, like Old Brown Windsor, spoke hardly and
+openly of this force.  There were three people who never did--Pretty
+Pierre, Young Aleck, and Mab Humphrey.  Pierre hated him; Young Aleck
+admired in him a quality lying dormant in himself--decision; Mab Humphrey
+spoke unkindly of no one.  Besides--but no!
+
+What was Sergeant Fones's country?  No one knew.  Where had he come from?
+No one asked him more than once.  He could talk French with Pierre,
+--a kind of French that sometimes made the undertone of red in the
+Frenchman's cheeks darker.  He had been heard to speak German to a German
+prisoner, and once, when a gang of Italians were making trouble on a line
+of railway under construction, he arrested the leader, and, in a few
+swift, sharp words in the language of the rioters, settled the business.
+He had no accent that betrayed his nationality.
+
+He had been recommended for a commission.  The officer in command had
+hinted that the Sergeant might get a Christmas present.  The officer had
+further said: "And if it was something that both you and the Patrol would
+be the better for, you couldn't object, Sergeant."  But the Sergeant only
+saluted, looking steadily into the eyes of the officer.  That was his
+reply.  Private Gellatly, standing without, heard Sergeant Fones say, as
+he passed into the open air, and slowly bared his forehead to the winter
+sun:
+
+"Exactly."
+
+And Private Gellatly cried, with revolt in his voice, "Divils me own, the
+word that a't to have been full o' joy was like the clip of a rifle-
+breech."
+
+Justice in a new country is administered with promptitude and vigour,
+or else not administered at all.  Where an officer of the Mounted Police-
+Soldiery has all the powers of a magistrate, the law's delay and the
+insolence of office have little space in which to work.  One of the
+commonest slips of virtue in the Canadian West was selling whisky
+contrary to the law of prohibition which prevailed.  Whisky runners were
+land smugglers.  Old Brown Windsor had, somehow, got the reputation of
+being connected with the whisky runners; not a very respectable business,
+and thought to be dangerous.  Whisky runners were inclined to resent
+intrusion on their privacy with a touch of that biting inhospitableness
+which a moonlighter of Kentucky uses toward an inquisitive, unsympathetic
+marshal.  On the Cypress Hills Patrol, however, the erring servants of
+Bacchus were having a hard time of it.  Vigilance never slept there in
+the days of which these lines bear record.  Old Brown Windsor had,
+in words, freely espoused the cause of the sinful.  To the careless
+spectator it seemed a charitable siding with the suffering; a proof that
+the old man's heart was not so cold as his hands.  Sergeant Fones thought
+differently, and his mission had just been to warn the store-keeper that
+there was menacing evidence gathering against him, and that his
+friendship with Golden Feather, the Indian Chief, had better cease at
+once.  Sergeant Fones had a way of putting things.  Old Brown Windsor
+endeavoured for a moment to be sarcastic.  This was the brief dialogue in
+the domain of sarcasm:
+
+"I s'pose you just lit round in a friendly sort of way, hopin' that I'd
+kenoodle with you later."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+There was an unpleasant click to the word.  The old man's hands got
+colder.  He had nothing more to say.
+
+Before leaving, the Sergeant said something quietly and quickly to Young
+Aleck.  Pierre observed, but could not hear.  Young Aleck was uneasy;
+Pierre was perplexed.  The Sergeant turned at the door, and said in
+French: "What are your chances for a Merry Christmas at Pardon's Drive,
+Pretty Pierre?"  Pierre answered nothing.  He shrugged his shoulders, and
+as the door closed, muttered, "Il est le diable."  And he meant it.  What
+should Sergeant Fones know of that intended meeting at Pardon's Drive on
+Christmas Day?  And if he knew, what then?  It was not against the law to
+play euchre.  Still it perplexed Pierre.  Before the Windsors, father and
+son, however, he was, as we have seen, playfully cool.
+
+After quitting Old Brown Windsor's store, Sergeant Fones urged his stout
+broncho to a quicker pace than usual.  The broncho was, like himself,
+wasteful of neither action nor affection.  The Sergeant had caught him
+wild and independent, had brought him in, broken him, and taught him
+obedience.  They understood each other; perhaps they loved each other.
+But about that even Private Gellatly had views in common with the general
+sentiment as to the character of Sergeant Fones.  The private remarked
+once on this point "Sarpints alive! the heels of the one and the law of
+the other is the love of them.  They'll weather together like the Divil
+and Death."
+
+The Sergeant was brooding; that was not like him.  He was hesitating;
+that was less like him.  He turned his broncho round as if to cross the
+Big Divide and to go back to Windsor's store; but he changed his mind
+again, and rode on toward David Humphrey's ranch.  He sat as if he had
+been born in the saddle.  His was a face for the artist, strong and
+clear, and having a dominant expression of force.  The eyes were deepset
+and watchful.  A kind of disdain might be traced in the curve of the
+short upper lip, to which the moustache was clipped close--a good fit,
+like his coat.  The disdain was more marked this morning.
+
+The first part of his ride had been seen by Young Aleck, the second part
+by Mab Humphrey.  Her first thought on seeing him was one of apprehension
+for Young Aleck and those of Young Aleck's name.  She knew that people
+spoke of her lover as a ne'er-do-weel; and that they associated his name
+freely with that of Pretty Pierre and his gang.  She had a dread of
+Pierre, and, only the night before, she had determined to make one last
+great effort to save Aleck, and if he would not be saved--strange that,
+thinking it all over again, as she watched the figure on horseback coming
+nearer, her mind should swerve to what she had heard of Sergeant Fones's
+expected promotion.  Then she fell to wondering if anyone had ever given
+him a real Christmas present; if he had any friends at all; if life meant
+anything more to him than carrying the law of the land across his saddle.
+Again he suddenly came to her in a new thought, free from apprehension,
+and as the champion of her cause to defeat the half-breed and his gang,
+and save Aleck from present danger or future perils.
+
+She was such a woman as prairies nurture; in spirit broad and thoughtful
+and full of energy; not so deep as the mountain woman, not so
+imaginative, but with more persistency, more daring.  Youth to her was a
+warmth, a glory.  She hated excess and lawlessness, but she could
+understand it.  She felt sometimes as if she must go far away into the
+unpeopled spaces, and shriek out her soul to the stars from the fulness
+of too much life.  She supposed men had feelings of that kind too, but
+that they fell to playing cards and drinking instead of crying to the
+stars.  Still, she preferred her way.
+
+Once, Sergeant Fones, on leaving the house, said grimly after his
+fashion: "Not Mab but Ariadne--excuse a soldier's bluntness.....
+Good-bye!" and with a brusque salute he had ridden away.  What he meant
+she did not know and could not ask.  The thought instantly came to her
+mind: Not Sergeant Fones; but who?  She wondered if Ariadne was born on
+the prairie.  What knew she of the girl who helped Theseus, her lover, to
+slay the Minotaur?  What guessed she of the Slopes of Naxos?  How old was
+Ariadne?  Twenty?  For that was Mab's age.  Was Ariadne beautiful? She
+ran her fingers loosely through her short brown hair, waving softly
+about her Greek-shaped head, and reasoned that Ariadne must have been
+presentable, or Sergeant Fones would not have made the comparison.
+She hoped Ariadne could ride well, for she could.
+
+But how white the world looked this morning, and how proud and brilliant
+the sky!  Nothing in the plane of vision but waves of snow stretching to
+the Cypress Hills; far to the left a solitary house, with its tin roof
+flashing back the sun, and to the right the Big Divide.  It was an old-
+fashioned winter, not one in which bare ground and sharp winds make life
+outdoors inhospitable.  Snow is hospitable-clean, impacted snow; restful
+and silent.  But there was one spot in the area of white, on which Mab's
+eyes were fixed now, with something different in them from what had been
+there.  Again it was a memory with which Sergeant Fones was associated.
+One day in the summer just past she had watched him and his company put
+away to rest under the cool sod, where many another lay in silent
+company, a prairie wanderer, some outcast from a better life gone by.
+Afterwards, in her home, she saw the Sergeant stand at the window,
+looking out towards the spot where the waves in the sea of grass were
+more regular and greener than elsewhere, and were surmounted by a high
+cross.  She said to him--for she of all was never shy of his stern ways:
+
+"Why is the grass always greenest there, Sergeant Fones?"
+
+He knew what she meant, and slowly said: "It is the Barracks of the
+Free."
+
+She had no views of life save those of duty and work and natural joy and
+loving a ne'er-do-weel, and she said: "I do not understand that."
+
+And the Sergeant replied: "'Free among the Dead like unto them that are
+wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance.'"
+
+But Mab said again: "I do not understand that either."
+
+The Sergeant did not at once reply.  He stepped to the door and gave a
+short command to some one without, and in a moment his company was
+mounted in line; handsome, dashing fellows; one the son of an English
+nobleman, one the brother of an eminent Canadian politician, one related
+to a celebrated English dramatist.  He ran his eye along the line, then
+turned to Mab, raised his cap with machine-like precision, and said: "No,
+I suppose you do not understand that.  Keep Aleck Windsor from Pretty
+Pierre and his gang.  Good-bye."
+
+Then he mounted and rode away.  Every other man in the company looked
+back to where the girl stood in the doorway; he did not.  Private
+Gellatly said, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view: "Devils
+bestir me, what a widdy she'll make!"  It was understood that Aleck
+Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year's Day.
+What connection was there between the words of Sergeant Fones and those
+of Private Gellatly?  None, perhaps.
+
+Mab thought upon that day as she looked out, this December morning, and
+saw Sergeant Fones dismounting at the door.  David Humphrey, who was
+outside, offered to put up the Sergeant's horse; but he said: "No, if
+you'll hold him just a moment, Mr. Humphrey, I'll ask for a drink of
+something warm, and move on.  Miss Humphrey is inside, I suppose?"
+
+"She'll give you a drink of the best to be had on your patrol, Sergeant,"
+was the laughing reply.  "Thanks for that, but tea or coffee is good
+enough for me," said the Sergeant.  Entering, the coffee was soon in the
+hand of the hardy soldier.  Once he paused in his drinking and scanned
+Mab's face closely.  Most people would have said the Sergeant had an
+affair of the law in hand, and was searching the face of a criminal; but
+most people are not good at interpretation.  Mab was speaking to the
+chore-girl at the same time and did not see the look.  If she could have
+defined her thoughts when she, in turn, glanced into the Sergeant's face,
+a moment afterwards, she would have said, "Austerity fills this man.
+Isolation marks him for its own."  In the eyes were only purpose,
+decision, and command.  Was that the look that had been fixed upon her
+face a moment ago?  It must have been.  His features had not changed a
+breath.  Mab began their talk.
+
+"They say you are to get a Christmas present of promotion, Sergeant
+Fones."
+
+"I have not seen it gazetted," he answered enigmatically.
+
+"You and your friends will be glad of it."
+
+"I like the service."
+
+"You will have more freedom with a commission."  He made no reply, but
+rose and walked to the window, and looked out across the snow, drawing on
+his gauntlets as he did so.
+
+She saw that he was looking where the grass in summer was the greenest!
+
+He turned and said:
+
+"I am going to barracks now.  I suppose Young Aleck will be in quarters
+here on Christmas Day, Miss Mab?"
+
+"I think so," and she blushed.
+
+"Did he say he would be here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+He looked toward the coffee.  Then: "Thank you.....Good-bye."
+
+"Sergeant?"
+
+"Miss Humphrey!"
+
+"Will you not come to us on Christmas Day?"
+
+His eyelids closed swiftly and opened again.  "I shall be on duty."
+
+"And promoted?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"And merry and happy?"--she smiled to herself to think of Sergeant Fones
+being merry and happy.
+
+"Exactly."
+
+The word suited him.
+
+He paused a moment with his fingers on the latch, and turned round as if
+to speak; pulled off his gauntlet, and then as quickly put it on again.
+Had he meant to offer his hand in good-bye?  He had never been seen to
+take the hand of anyone except with the might of the law visible in
+steel.
+
+He opened the door with the right hand, but turned round as he stepped
+out, so that the left held it while he faced the warmth of the room and
+the face of the girl.  The door closed.
+
+Mounted, and having said good-bye to Mr. Humphrey, he turned towards the
+house, raised his cap with soldierly brusqueness, and rode away in the
+direction of the barracks.
+
+The girl did not watch him.  She was thinking of Young Aleck, and of
+Christmas Day, now near.  The Sergeant did not look back.
+
+Meantime the party at Windsor's store was broken up.  Pretty Pierre and
+Young Aleck had talked together, and the old man had heard his son say:
+"Remember, Pierre, it is for the last time."  Then they talked after this
+fashion:
+
+"Ah, I know, 'mon ami;'  for the last time!  'Eh, bien,' you will spend
+Christmas Day with us too--no?  You surely will not leave us on the day
+of good fortune?  Where better can you take your pleasure for the last
+time?  One day is not enough for farewell.  Two, three; that is the magic
+number.  You will, eh? no?  Well, well, you will come to-morrow--and--eh,
+'mon ami,' where do you go the next day?  Oh, 'pardon,' I forgot, you
+spend the Christmas Day--I know.  And the day of the New Year?  Ah, Young
+Aleck, that is what they say--the devil for the devil's luck.  So."
+
+"Stop that, Pierre."  There was fierceness in the tone.  "I spend the
+Christmas Day where you don't, and as I like, and the rest doesn't
+concern you.  I drink with you, I play with you--'bien!'  As you say
+yourself, 'bien,' isn't that enough?"
+
+"'Pardon!'  We will not quarrel.  No; we spend not the Christmas Day
+after the same fashion, quite.  Then, to-morrow at Pardon's Drive!
+Adieu!"
+
+Pretty Pierre went out of one door, a malediction between his white
+teeth, and Aleck went out of another door with a malediction upon his
+gloomy lips.  But both maledictions were levelled at the same person.
+Poor Aleck.
+
+"Poor Aleck!"  That is the way we sometimes think of a good nature gone
+awry; one that has learned to say cruel maledictions to itself, and
+against which demons hurl their deadly maledictions too.  Alas, for the
+ne'er-do-weel!
+
+That night a stalwart figure passed from David Humphrey's door, carrying
+with him the warm atmosphere of a good woman's love.  The chilly outer
+air of the world seemed not to touch him, Love's curtains were drawn so
+close.  Had one stood within "the Hunter's Room," as it was called, a
+little while before, one would have seen a man's head bowed before a
+woman, and her hand smoothing back the hair from the handsome brow where
+dissipation had drawn some deep lines.  Presently the hand raised the
+head until the eyes of the woman looked full into the eyes of the man.
+
+"You will not go to Pardon's Drive again, will you, Aleck?"
+
+"Never again after Christmas Day, Mab.  But I must go to-morrow.  I have
+given my word."
+
+"I know.  To meet Pretty Pierre and all the rest, and for what?  Oh,
+Aleck, isn't the suspicion about your father enough, but you must put
+this on me as well?"
+
+"My father must suffer for his wrong-doing if he does wrong, and I for
+mine."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  He bowed his head again.
+
+"And I have done wrong to us both.  Forgive me, Mab."
+
+She leaned over and caressed his hair.  "I forgive you, Aleck."
+
+A thousand new thoughts were thrilling through him.  Yet this man had
+given his word to do that for which he must ask forgiveness of the woman
+he loved.  But to Pretty Pierre, forgiven or unforgiven, he would keep
+his word.  She understood it better than most of those who read this
+brief record can.  Every sphere has its code of honour and duty peculiar
+to itself.
+
+"You will come to me on Christmas morning, Aleck?"
+
+"I will come on Christmas morning."
+
+"And no more after that of Pretty Pierre?"
+
+"And no more of Pretty Pierre."
+
+She trusted him; but neither could reckon with unknown forces.
+
+Sergeant Fones, sitting in the barracks in talk with Private Gellatly,
+said at that moment in a swift silence, "Exactly."
+
+Pretty Pierre, at Pardon's Drive, drinking a glass of brandy at that
+moment, said to the ceiling:
+
+"No more of Pretty Pierre after to-morrow night, monsieur!  Bien!  If it
+is for the last time, then it is for the last time.  So....so."
+
+He smiled.  His teeth were amazingly white.
+
+The stalwart figure strode on under the stars, the white night a lens for
+visions of days of rejoicing to come.  All evil was far from him.  The
+dolorous tide rolled back in this hour from his life, and he revelled in
+the light of a new day.
+
+"When I've played my last card to-morrow night with Pretty Pierre, I'll
+begin the world again," he whispered.
+
+And Sergeant Fones in the barracks said just then, in response to a
+further remark of Private Gellatly,--"Exactly."
+
+Young Aleck fell to singing:
+
+                   "Out from your vineland come
+                       Into the prairies wild;
+                    Here will we make our home,
+                       Father, mother, and child;
+                    Come, my love, to our home,
+                       Father, mother, and child,
+                       Father, mother, and--"
+
+He fell to thinking again--"and child--and child,"--it was in his ears
+and in his heart.
+
+But Pretty Pierre was singing softly to himself in the room at Pardon's
+Drive:
+
+              "Three good friends with the wine at night
+                    Vive la compagnie!
+               Two good friends when the sun grows bright
+                    Vive la compagnie!
+                    Vive la, vive la, vive l'amour!
+                    Vive la, vive la, vive l'amour!
+               Three good friends, two good friends
+                    Vive la compagnie!"
+
+What did it mean?
+
+Private Gellatly was cousin to Idaho Jack, and Idaho Jack disliked Pretty
+Pierre, though he had been one of the gang.  The cousins had seen each
+other lately, and Private Gellatly had had a talk with the man who was
+ha'sh.  It may be that others besides Pierre had an idea of what it
+meant.
+
+In the house at Pardon's Drive the next night sat eight men, of whom
+three were Pretty Pierre, Young Aleck, and Idaho Jack.  Young Aleck's
+face was flushed with bad liquor and the worse excitement of play.  This
+was one of the unreckoned forces.  Was this the man that sang the tender
+song under the stars last night?  Pretty Pierre's face was less pretty
+than usual; the cheeks were pallid, the eyes were hard and cold.  Once he
+looked at his partner as if to say, "Not yet."  Idaho Jack saw the look;
+he glanced at his watch; it was eleven o'clock.  At that moment the door
+opened, and Sergeant Fones entered.  All started to their feet, most with
+curses on their lips; but Sergeant Fones never seemed to hear anything
+that could make a feature of his face alter.  Pierre's hand was on his
+hip, as if feeling for something.  Sergeant Fones saw that; but he walked
+to where Aleck stood, with his unplayed cards still in his hand, and,
+laying a hand on his shoulder, said, "Come with me."
+
+"Why should I go with you?"--this with a drunken man's bravado.
+
+"You are my prisoner."
+
+Pierre stepped forward.  "What is his crime?" he exclaimed.
+
+"How does that concern you, Pretty Pierre?"
+
+"He is my friend."
+
+"Is he your friend, Aleck?"
+
+What was there in the eyes of Sergeant Fones that forced the reply,--
+"To-night, yes; to-morrow, no."
+
+"Exactly.  It is near to-morrow; come."
+
+Aleck was led towards the door.  Once more Pierre's hand went to his hip;
+but he was looking at the prisoner, not at the Sergeant.  The Sergeant
+saw, and his fingers were at his belt.  He opened the door.  Aleck passed
+out.  He followed.  Two horses were tied to a post.  With difficulty
+Aleck was mounted.  Once on the way his brain began slowly to clear, but
+he grew painfully cold.  It was a bitter night.  How bitter it might have
+been for the ne'er-do-weel let the words of Idaho Jack, spoken in a long
+hour's talk next day with Old Brown Windsor, show.  "Pretty Pierre, after
+the two were gone, said, with a shiver of curses,--'Another hour and it
+would have been done, and no one to blame.  He was ready for trouble.
+His money was nearly finished.  A little quarrel easily made, the door
+would open, and he would pass out.  His horse would be gone, he could not
+come back; he would walk.  The air is cold, quite, quite cold; and the
+snow is a soft bed.  He would sleep well and sound, having seen Pretty
+Pierre for the last time.  And now--'  The rest was French and furtive."
+
+From that hour Idaho Jack and Pretty Pierre parted company.
+
+Riding from Pardon's Drive, Young Aleck noticed at last that they were
+not going towards the barracks.  He said: "Why do you arrest me?"
+
+The Sergeant replied: "You will know that soon enough.  You are now going
+to your own home.  Tomorrow you will keep your word and go to David
+Humphrey's place; the next day I will come for you.  Which do you choose:
+to ride with me to-night to the barracks and know why you are arrested,
+or go, unknowing, as I bid you, and keep your word with the girl?"
+
+Through Aleck's fevered brain, there ran the words of the song he sang
+before--
+
+                   "Out from your vineland come
+                       Into the prairies wild;
+                    Here will we make our home,
+                       Father, mother, and child."
+
+He could have but one answer.
+
+At the door of his home the Sergeant left him with the words, "Remember
+you are on parole."
+
+Aleck noticed as the Sergeant rode away that the face of the sky had
+changed, and slight gusts of wind had come up.  At any other time his
+mind would have dwelt upon the fact.  It did not do so now.
+
+Christmas Day came.  People said that the fiercest night, since the
+blizzard day of 1863, had been passed.  But the morning was clear and
+beautiful.  The sun came up like a great flower expanding.  First the
+yellow, then the purple, then the red, and then a mighty shield of roses.
+The world was a blanket of drift, and down, and glistening silver.
+
+Mab Humphrey greeted her lover with such a smile as only springs to a
+thankful woman's lips.  He had given his word and had kept it; and the
+path of the future seemed surer.
+
+He was a prisoner on parole; still that did not depress him.  Plans for
+coming days were talked of, and the laughter of many voices filled the
+house.  The ne'er-do-weel was clothed and in his right mind.  In the
+Hunter's Room the noblest trophy was the heart of a repentant prodigal.
+
+In the barracks that morning a gazetted notice was posted, announcing,
+with such technical language as is the custom, that Sergeant Fones was
+promoted to be a lieutenant in the Mounted Police Force of the North West
+Territory.  When the officer in command sent for him he could not be
+found.  But he was found that morning; and when Private Gellatly, with
+a warm hand, touching the glove of "iron and ice" that, indeed, now said:
+"Sergeant Fones, you are promoted, God help you!" he gave no sign.
+Motionless, stern, erect, he sat there upon his horse, beside a stunted
+larch tree.  The broncho seemed to understand, for he did not stir, and
+had not done so for hours;--they could tell that.  The bridle rein was
+still in the frigid fingers, and a smile was upon the face.
+
+A smile upon the face of Sergeant Fones!
+
+Perhaps he smiled that he was going to the Barracks of the Free--
+
+"Free among the Dead like unto them that are wounded and lie in the
+grave, that are out of remembrance."
+
+In the wild night he had lost his way, though but a few miles from the
+barracks.
+
+He had done his duty rigidly in that sphere of life where he had lived so
+much alone among his many comrades.  Had he exceeded his duty once in
+arresting Young Aleck?
+
+When, the next day, Sergeant Fones lay in the barracks, over him the flag
+for which he had sworn to do honest service, and his promotion papers in
+his quiet hand, the two who loved each other stood beside him for many a
+throbbing minute.  And one said to herself, silently: "I felt sometimes"
+--but no more words did she say even to herself.
+
+Old Aleck came in, and walked to where the Sergeant slept, wrapped close
+in that white frosted coverlet which man wears but once.  He stood for a
+moment silent, his fingers numbly clasped.
+
+Private Gellatly spoke softly: "Angels betide me, it's little we knew the
+great of him till he wint away; the pride, and the law--and the love of
+him."
+
+In the tragedy that faced them this Christmas morning one at least had
+seen "the love of him."  Perhaps the broncho had known it before.
+
+Old Aleck laid a palm upon the hand he had never touched when it had
+life.  "He's--too--ha'sh," he said slowly.
+
+Private Gellatly looked up wonderingly.  But the old man's eyes were wet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GOD'S GARRISON
+
+Twenty years ago there was trouble at Fort o' God.  "Out of this place we
+get betwixt the suns," said Gyng the Factor.  "No help that falls abaft
+tomorrow could save us.  Food dwindles, and ammunition's nearly gone, and
+they'll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if we stay.  We'll creep
+along the Devil's Causeway, then through the Red Horn Woods, and so
+across the plains to Rupert House.  Whip in the dogs, Baptiste, and be
+ready all of you at midnight."
+
+"And Grah the Idiot--what of him"? asked Pretty Pierre.
+
+"He'll have to take his chance.  If he can travel with us, so much the
+better for him"; and the Factor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If not, so much the worse, eh"? returned Pretty Pierre.
+
+"Work the sum out to suit yourself.  We've got our necks to save.  God'll
+have to help the Idiot if we can't."
+
+"You hear, Grah Hamon, Idiot," said Pierre an hour afterwards, "we're
+going to leave Fort o' God and make for Rupert House.  You've a dragging
+leg, you're gone in the savvy, you have to balance yourself with your
+hands as you waddle along, and you slobber when you talk; but you've got
+to cut away with us quick across the Beaver Plains, and Christ'll have to
+help you if we can't.  That's what the Factor says, and that's how the
+case stands, Idiot--'bien?'"
+
+"Grah want pipe--bubble--bubble--wind blow," muttered the daft one.
+
+Pretty Pierre bent over and said slowly: "If you stay here, Grah, the
+Indian get your scalp; if you go, the snow is deep and the frost is like
+a badger's tooth, and you can't be carried."
+
+"Oh, Oh!--my mother dead--poor Annie--by God, Grah want pipe--poor Grah
+sleep in snow-bubble, bubble--Oh, Oh!--the long wind, fly away."
+
+Pretty Pierre watched the great head of the Idiot as it swung heavily on
+his shoulders, and then said: "'Mais,' like that, so!" and turned away.
+
+When the party were about to sally forth on their perilous path to
+safety, Gyng stood and cried angrily: "Well, why hasn't some one bundled
+up that moth-eaten Caliban?  Curse it all, must I do everything myself?"
+
+"But you see," said Pierre, "the Caliban stays at Fort o' God."
+
+"You've got a Christian heart in you, so help me, Heaven!" replied the
+other.  "No, sir, we give him a chance,--and his Maker too for that
+matter, to show what He's willing to do for His misfits."
+
+Pretty Pierre rejoined, "Well, I have thought.  The game is all against
+Grah if he go; but there are two who stay at Fort o' God."
+
+And that is how, when the Factor and his half-breeds and trappers stole
+away in silence towards the Devil's Causeway, Pierre and the Idiot
+remained behind.  And that is why the flag of the H. B. C. still flew
+above Fort o' God in the New Year's sun just twenty years ago to-day.
+
+The Hudson's Bay Company had never done a worse day's work than when they
+promoted Gyng to be chief factor.  He loathed the heathen and he showed
+his loathing.  He had a heart harder than iron, a speech that bruised
+worse than the hoof of an angry moose.  And when at last he drove away a
+band of wandering Sioux, foodless, from the stores, siege and ambush took
+the place of prayer, and a nasty portion fell to Fort o' God.  For the
+Indians found a great cache of buffalo meat, and, having sent the women
+and children south with the old men, gave constant and biting assurances
+to Gyng that the heathen hath his hour, even though he be a dog which is
+refused those scraps from the white man's table which give life in the
+hour of need.  Besides all else, there was in the Fort the thing which
+the gods made last to humble the pride of men--there was rum.
+
+And the morning after Gyng and his men had departed, because it was a day
+when frost was master of the sun, and men grew wild for action, since to
+stand still was to face indignant Death, they, who camped without,
+prepared to make a sally upon the wooden gates.  Pierre saw their intent,
+and hid in the ground some pemmican and all the scanty rum.  Then he
+looked at his powder and shot, and saw that there was little left.  If he
+spent it on the besiegers, how should they fare for beast and fowl in
+hungry days?  And for his rifle he had but a brace of bullets.  He rolled
+these in his hand, looking upon them with a grim smile.  And the Idiot,
+seeing, rose and sidled towards him, and said: "Poor Grah want pipe--
+bubble--bubble."  Then a light of childish cunning came into his eyes,
+and he touched the bullets blunderingly, and continued: "Plenty, plenty
+b'longs Grah--give poor Grah pipe--plenty, plenty, give you these."
+
+And Pretty Pierre after a moment replied: "So that's it, Grah?--you've
+got bullets stowed away?  Well, I must have them.  It's a one-sided game
+in which you get the tricks; but here's the pipe, Idiot--my only pipe for
+your dribbling mouth--my last good comrade.  Now show me the bullets.
+Take me to them, daft one, quick."
+
+A little later the Idiot sat inside the store, wrapped in loose furs, and
+blowing bubbles; while Pretty Pierre, with many handfuls of bullets by
+him, waited for the attack.
+
+"Eh," he said, as he watched from a loophole, "Gyng and the others have
+got safely past the Causeway, and the rest is possible.  Well, it hurts
+an idiot as much to die, perhaps, as a half-breed or a factor.  It is
+good to stay here.  If we fight, and go out swift like Grah's bubbles,
+it is the game.  If we starve and sleep as did Grah's mother, then it
+also is the game.  It is great to have all the chances against and then
+to win.  We shall see."
+
+With a sharp relish in his eye he watched the enemy coming slowly
+forward.  Yet he talked almost idly to himself: "I have a thought of so
+long ago.  A woman--she was a mother, and it was on the Madawaska River,
+and she said: 'Sometimes I think a devil was your father, an angel
+sometimes.  You were begot in an hour between a fighting and a mass:
+between blood and heaven.  And when you were born you made no cry.  They
+said that was a sign of evil.  You refused the breast, and drank only of
+the milk of wild cattle.  In baptism you flung your hand before your face
+that the water might not touch, nor the priest's finger make a cross upon
+the water.  And they said it were better if you had been born an idiot
+than with an evil spirit; and that your hand would be against the loins
+that bore you.  But Pierre, ah Pierre, you love your mother, do you
+not?'" .  .  .  And he standing now, his eye closed with the gate-chink
+in front of Fort o' God, said quietly: "She was of the race that hated
+these--my mother; and she died of a wound they gave her at the Tete
+Blanche Hill.  Well, for that you die now, Yellow Arm, if this gun has a
+bullet cold enough."
+
+A bullet pinged through the sharp air, as the Indians swarmed towards the
+gate, and Yellow Arm, the chief, fell.  The besiegers paused; and then,
+as if at the command of the fallen man, they drew back, bearing him to
+the camp, where they sat down and mourned.
+
+Pierre watched them for a time; and, seeing that they made no further
+move, retired into the store, where the Idiot muttered and was happy
+after his kind.  "Grah got pipe--blow away--blow away to Annie--pretty
+soon."
+
+"Yes, Grah, there's chance enough that you'll blow away to Annie pretty
+soon," remarked the other.
+
+"Grah have white eagles--fly, fly on the wind--oh, oh, bubble, bubble!"
+and he sent the filmy globes floating from the pipe that a camp of river-
+drivers had given the half-breed winters before.
+
+Pierre stood and looked at the wandering eyes, behind which were the
+torturings of an immense and confused intelligence; a life that fell
+deformed before the weight of too much brain, so that all tottered from
+the womb into the gutters of foolishness, and the tongue mumbled of chaos
+when it should have told marvellous things.  And the half-breed, the
+thought of this coming upon him, said: "Well, I think the matters of hell
+have fallen across the things of heaven, and there is storm.  If for one
+moment he could think clear, it would be great."
+
+He bethought him of a certain chant, taught him by a medicine man in
+childhood, which, sung to the waving of a torch in a place of darkness,
+caused evil spirits to pass from those possessed, and good spirits to
+reign in their stead.  And he raised the Idiot to his feet, and brought
+him, maundering, to a room where no light was.  He kneeled before him
+with a lighted torch of bear's fat and the tendons of the deer, and
+waving it gently to and fro, sang the ancient rune, until the eye of the
+Idiot, following the torch at a tangent as it waved, suddenly became
+fixed upon the flame, when it ceased to move.  And the words of the chant
+ran through Grah's ears, and pierced to the remote parts of his being;
+and a sickening trouble came upon his face, and the lips ceased to drip,
+and were caught up in twinges of pain.  .  .  .  The chant rolled on:
+"Go forth, go forth upon them, thou, the Scarlet Hunter!  Drive them
+forth into the wilds, drive them crying forth!  Enter in, O enter in, and
+lie upon the couch of peace, the couch of peace within my wigwam, thou
+the wise one!  Behold, I call to thee!"
+
+And Pierre, looking upon the Idiot, saw his face glow, and his eye stream
+steadily to the light, and he said, "What is it that you see, Grah?--
+speak!"
+
+All pitifulness and struggle had gone from the Idiot's face, and a strong
+calm fell upon it, and the voice of a man that God had created spoke
+slowly: "There is an end of blood.  The great chief Yellow Arm is fallen.
+He goeth to the plains where his wife will mourn upon his knees, and his
+children cry, because he that gathered food is gone, and the pots are
+empty on the fire.  And they who follow him shall fight no more.  Two
+shall live through bitter days, and when the leaves shall shine in the
+sun again, there shall good things befal.  But one shall go upon a long
+journey with the singing birds in the path of the white eagle.  He shall
+travel, and not cease until he reach the place where fools, and children,
+and they into whom a devil entered through the gates of birth, find the
+mothers who bore them.  But the other goeth at a different time--"
+At this point the light in Pretty Pierre's hand flickered and went out,
+and through the darkness there came a voice, the voice of an idiot, that
+whimpered: "Grah want pipe--Annie, Annie dead."
+
+The angel of wisdom was gone, and chaos spluttered on the lolling lips
+again; the Idiot sat feeling for the pipe that he had dropped.
+
+And never again through the days that came and went could Pierre, by any
+conjuring, or any swaying torch, make the fool into a man again.  The
+devils of confusion were returned forever.  But there had been one
+glimpse of the god.  And it was as the Idiot had said when he saw with
+the eyes of that god: no more blood was shed.  The garrison of this fort
+held it unmolested.  The besiegers knew not that two men only stayed
+within the walls; and because the chief begged to be taken south to die,
+they left the place surrounded by its moats of ice and its trenches of
+famine; and they came not back.
+
+But other foes more deadly than the angry heathen came, and they were
+called Hunger and Loneliness.  The one destroyeth the body and the other
+the brain.  But Grah was not lonely, nor did he hunger.  He blew his
+bubbles, and muttered of a wind whereon a useless thing--a film of water,
+a butterfly, or a fool--might ride beyond the reach of spirit, or man,
+or heathen.  His flesh remained the same, and grew not less; but that of
+Pierre wasted, and his eye grew darker with suffering.  For man is only
+man, and hunger is a cruel thing.  To give one's food to feed a fool, and
+to search the silent plains in vain for any living thing to kill, is a
+matter for angels to do and bear, and not mere mortals.  But this man had
+a strength of his own like to his code of living, which was his own and
+not another's.  And at last, when spring leaped gaily forth from the grey
+cloak of winter, and men of the H. B. C. came to relieve Fort o' God, and
+entered at its gates, a gaunt man, leaning on his rifle, greeted them
+standing like a warrior, though his body was like that of one who had
+lain in the grave.  He answered to the name of Pierre without pride, but
+like a man and not as a sick woman.  And huddled on the floor beside him
+was an idiot fondling a pipe, with a shred of pemmican at his lips.
+
+As if in irony of man's sacrifice, the All Hail and the Master of Things
+permitted the fool to fulfil his own prophecy, and die of a sudden
+sickness in the coming-on of summer.  But he of God's Garrison that
+remained repented not of his deed.  Such men have no repentance, neither
+of good nor evil.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HAZARD OF THE NORTH
+
+Nobody except Gregory Thorne and myself knows the history of the Man and
+Woman, who lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog Ear River falls
+into Marigold Lake.  This portion of the Height of Land is a lonely
+country.  The sun marches over it distantly, and the man of the East--
+the braggart--calls it outcast; but animals love it; and the shades of
+the long-gone trapper and 'voyageur' saunter without mourning through its
+fastnesses.  When you are in doubt, trust God's dumb creatures--and the
+happy dead who whisper pleasant promptings to us, and whose knowledge is
+mighty.  Besides, the Man and Woman lived there, and Gregory Thorne says
+that they could recover a lost paradise.  But Gregory Thorne is an
+insolent youth.  The names of these people were John and Audrey
+Malbrouck; the Man was known to the makers of backwoods history as
+Captain John.  Gregory says about that--but no, not yet!--let his first
+meeting with the Man and the Woman be described in his own words, unusual
+and flippant as they sometimes are; for though he is a graduate of
+Trinity College, Cambridge, and a brother of a Right Honourable, he has
+conceived it his duty to emancipate himself in the matter of style in
+language; and he has succeeded.
+
+"It was autumn," he said, "all colours; beautiful and nippy on the Height
+of Land; wild ducks, the which no man could number, and bear's meat
+abroad in the world.  I was alone.  I had hunted all day, leaving my mark
+now and then as I journeyed, with a cache of slaughter here, and a blazed
+hickory there.  I was hungry as a circus tiger--did you ever eat slippery
+elm bark?--yes, I was as bad as that.  I guessed from what I had been
+told, that the Malbrouck show must be hereaway somewhere.  I smelled the
+lake miles off--oh, you could too if you were half the animal I am; I
+followed my nose and the slippery-elm between my teeth, and came at a
+double-quick suddenly on the fair domain.  There the two sat in front of
+the house like turtle-doves, and as silent as a middy after his first
+kiss.  Much as I ached to get my tooth into something filling, I wished
+that I had 'em under my pencil, with that royal sun making a rainbow of
+the lake, the woods all scarlet and gold, and that mist of purple--eh,
+you've seen it?--and they sitting there monarchs of it all, like that
+duffer of a king who had operas played for his solitary benefit.  But
+I hadn't a pencil and I had a hunger, and I said 'How!' like any other
+Injin--insolent, wasn't it?  Then the Man rose, and he said I was
+welcome, and she smiled an approving but not very immediate smile, and
+she kept her seat,--she kept her seat, my boy,--and that was the first
+thing that set me thinking.  She didn't seem to be conscious that there
+was before her one of the latest representatives from Belgravia, not she!
+But when I took an honest look at her face, I understood.  I'm glad that
+I had my hat in my hand, polite as any Frenchman on the threshold of a
+blanchisserie: for I learned very soon that the Woman had been in
+Belgravia too, and knew far more than I did about what was what.  When
+she did rise to array the supper table, it struck me that if Josephine
+Beauharnais had been like her, she might have kept her hold on Napoleon,
+and saved his fortunes; made Europe France; and France the world. I could
+not understand it.  Jimmy Haldane had said to me when I was asking for
+Malbrouck's place on the compass,--'Don't put on any side with them, my
+Greg, or you'll take a day off for penitence.'  They were both tall and
+good to look at, even if he was a bit rugged, with neck all wire and
+muscle, and had big knuckles.  But she had hands like those in a picture
+of Velasquez, with a warm whiteness and educated--that's it, educated
+hands.
+
+"She wasn't young, but she seemed so.  Her eyes looked up and out at you
+earnestly, yet not inquisitively, and more occupied with something in her
+mind, than with what was before her.  In short, she was a lady; not one
+by virtue of a visit to the gods that rule o'er Buckingham Palace, but by
+the claims of good breeding and long descent.  She puzzled me, eluded me
+--she reminded me of someone; but who?  Someone I liked, because I felt a
+thrill of admiration whenever I looked at her--but it was no use, I
+couldn't remember.  I soon found myself talking to her according to St.
+James--the palace, you know--and at once I entered a bet with my beloved
+aunt, the dowager--who never refuses to take my offer, though she seldom
+wins, and she's ten thousand miles away, and has to take my word for it--
+that I should find out the history of this Man and Woman before another
+Christmas morning, which wasn't more than two months off.  You know
+whether or not I won it, my son."
+
+I had frequently hinted to Gregory that I was old enough to be his
+father, and that in calling me his son, his language was misplaced; and I
+repeated it at that moment.  He nodded good-humouredly, and continued:
+
+"I was born insolent, my s--my ancestor.  Well, after I had cleared a
+space at the supper table, and had, with permission, lighted my pipe,
+I began to talk.  .  .  Oh yes, I did give them a chance occasionally;
+don't interrupt.  .  .  .  I gossiped about England, France, the
+universe.  From the brief comments they made I saw they knew all about
+it, and understood my social argot, all but a few words--is there
+anything peculiar about any of my words?  After having exhausted Europe
+and Asia I discussed America; talked about Quebec, the folklore of the
+French Canadians, the 'voyageurs' from old Maisonneuve down.  All the
+history I knew I rallied, and was suddenly bowled out.  For Malbrouck
+followed my trail from the time I began to talk, and in ten minutes he
+had proved me to be a baby in knowledge, an emaciated baby; he eliminated
+me from the equation.  He first tripped me on the training of naval
+cadets; then on the Crimea; then on the taking of Quebec; then on the
+Franco-Prussian War; then, with a sudden round-up, on India.  I had been
+trusting to vague outlines of history; I felt when he began to talk that
+I was dealing with a man who not only knew history, but had lived it.
+He talked in the fewest but directest words, and waxed eloquent in a
+blunt and colossal way.  But seeing his wife's eyes fixed on him
+intently, he suddenly pulled up, and no more did I get from him
+on the subject.  He stopped so suddenly that in order to help over the
+awkwardness, though I'm not really sure there was any, I began to hum a
+song to myself.  Now, upon my soul, I didn't think what I was humming;
+it was some subterranean association of things, I suppose--but that
+doesn't matter here.  I only state it to clear myself of any unnecessary
+insolence.  These were the words I was maundering with this noble voice
+of mine:
+
+             "'The news I bring, fair Lady,
+               Will make your tears run down
+
+               Put off your rose-red dress so fine
+               And doff your satin gown!
+
+               Monsieur Malbrouck is dead, alas!
+               And buried, too, for aye;
+
+               I saw four officers who bore
+               His mighty corse away.
+                    .............
+               We saw above the laurels,
+               His soul fly forth amain.
+
+               And each one fell upon his face
+               And then rose up again.
+
+               And so we sang the glories,
+               For which great Malbrouck bled;
+               Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine,
+               Great Malbrouck, he is dead.'
+
+"I felt the silence grow peculiar, uncomfortable.  I looked up.  Mrs.
+Malbrouck was rising to her feet with a look in her face that would make
+angels sorry--a startled, sorrowful thing that comes from a sleeping
+pain.  What an ass I was!  Why, the Man's name was Malbrouck; her name
+was Malbrouck--awful insolence!  But surely there was something in the
+story of the song itself that had moved her.  As I afterward knew,
+that was it.  Malbrouck sat still and unmoved, though I thought I saw
+something stern and masterful in his face as he turned to me; but again
+instantly his eyes were bent on his wife with a comforting and
+affectionate expression.  She disappeared into the house.  Hoping to make
+it appear that I hadn't noticed anything, I dropped my voice a little and
+went on, intending, however, to stop at the end of the verse:
+
+             "'Malbrouck has gone a-fighting,
+               Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine!'
+
+"I ended there; because Malbrouck's heavy hand was laid on my shoulder,
+and he said: 'If you please, not that song.'
+
+"I suspect I acted like an idiot.  I stammered out apologies, went down
+on my litanies, figuratively speaking, and was all the same confident
+that my excuses were making bad infernally worse.  But somehow the old
+chap had taken a liking to me.--No, of course you couldn't understand
+that.  Not that he was so old, you know; but he had the way of retired
+royalty about him, as if he had lived life up to the hilt, and was all
+pulse and granite.  Then he began to talk in his quiet way about hunting
+and fishing; about stalking in the Highlands and tiger-hunting in India;
+and wound up with some wonderful stuff about moose-hunting, the sport of
+Canada.  This made me itch like sin, just to get my fingers on a trigger,
+with a full moose-yard in view.  I can feel it now--the bound in the
+blood as I caught at Malbrouck's arm and said: 'By George, I must kill
+moose; that's sport for Vikings, and I was meant to be a Viking--or a
+gladiator.'  Malbrouck at once replied that he would give me some moose-
+hunting in December if I would come up to Marigold Lake.  I couldn't
+exactly reply on the instant, because, you see, there wasn't much chance
+for board and lodging thereabouts, unless--but he went on to say that I
+should make his house my 'public,'perhaps he didn't say it quite in those
+terms, that he and his wife would be glad to have me.  With a couple of
+Indians we could go north-west, where the moose-yards were, and have some
+sport both exciting and prodigious.  Well, I'm a muff, I know, but I
+didn't refuse that.  Besides, I began to see the safe side of the bet I
+had made with my aunt, the dowager, and I was more than pleased with what
+had come to pass so far.  Lucky for you, too, you yarn-spinner, that the
+thing did develop so, or you wouldn't be getting fame and shekels out of
+the results of my story.
+
+"Well, I got one thing out of the night's experience; and it was that the
+Malbroucks were no plebs., that they had had their day where plates are
+blue and gold and the spoons are solid coin.  But what had sent them up
+here among the moose, the Indians, and the conies--whatever THEY are?
+How should I get at it?  Insolence, you say?  Yes, that.  I should come
+up here in December, and I should mulct my aunt in the price of a new
+breech-loader.  But I found out nothing the next morning, and I left
+with a paternal benediction from Malbrouck, and a smile from his wife
+that sent my blood tingling as it hadn't tingled since a certain season
+in London, which began with my tuneful lyre sounding hopeful numbers and
+ended with it hanging on the willows.
+
+"When I thought it all over, as I trudged back on yesterday's track, I
+concluded that I had told them all my history from my youth up until now,
+and had got nothing from them in return.  I had exhausted my family
+records, bit by bit, like a curate in his first parish; and had gone so
+far as to testify that one of my ancestors had been banished to Australia
+for political crimes.  Distinctly they had me at an advantage, though,
+to be sure, I had betrayed Mrs. Malbrouck into something more than
+a suspicion of emotion.
+
+"When I got back to my old camp, I could find out nothing from the other
+fellows; but Jacques Pontiac told me that his old mate, Pretty Pierre,
+who in recent days had fallen from grace, knew something of these people
+that no one else guessed, because he had let them a part of his house
+in the parish of St. Genevieve in Quebec, years before.  Pierre had
+testified to one fact, that a child--a girl--had been born to Mrs.
+Malbrouck in his house, but all further knowledge he had withheld.
+Pretty Pierre was off in the Rocky Mountains practising his profession
+--chiefly poker--and was not available for information.  What did I,
+Gregory Thorne, want of the information anyway?  That's the point, my
+son.  Judging from after-developments I suppose it was what the foolish
+call occult sympathy.  Well, where was that girl-child?  Jacques Pontiac
+didn't know.  Nobody knew.  And I couldn't get rid of Mrs. Malbrouck's
+face; it haunted me; the broad brow, deep eyes, and high-bred sweetness
+--all beautifully animal.  Don't laugh: I find astonishing likenesses
+between the perfectly human and the perfectly animal.  Did you never see
+how beautiful and modest the faces of deer are; how chic and sensitive is
+the manner of a hound; nor the keen, warm look in the eye of a well-bred
+mare?  Why, I'd rather be a good horse of blood and temper than half the
+fellows I know.  You are not an animal lover as I am; yes, even when I
+shoot them or fight them I admire them, just as I'd admire a swordsman
+who, in 'quart,' would give me death by the wonderful upper thrust.  It's
+all a battle; all a game of love and slaughter, my son, and both go
+together.
+
+"Well, as I say, her face followed me.  Watch how the thing developed.
+By the prairie-track I went over to Fort Desire, near the Rockies, almost
+immediately after this, to see about buying a ranch with my old chum at
+Trinity, Polly Cliffshawe--Polydore, you know.  Whom should I meet in a
+hut on the ranch but Jacques's friend, Pretty Pierre.  This was luck; but
+he was not like Jacques Pontiac, he was secretive as a Buddhist deity.
+He had a good many of the characteristics that go to a fashionable
+diplomatist: clever, wicked, cool, and in speech doing the vanishing
+trick just when you wanted him.  But my star of fortune was with me.  One
+day Silverbottle, an Indian, being in a murderous humour, put a bullet in
+Pretty Pierre's leg, and would have added another, only I stopped it
+suddenly.  While in his bed he told me what he knew of the Malbroucks.
+
+"This is the fashion of it.  John and Audrey Malbrouck had come to Quebec
+in the year 1865, and sojourned in the parish of St. Genevieve, in the
+house of the mother of Pretty Pierre.  Of an inquiring turn of mind, the
+French half-breed desired to know concerning the history of these English
+people, who, being poor, were yet gentle, and spoke French with a grace
+and accent which was to the French-Canadian patois as Shakespeare's
+English is to that of Seven Dials.  Pierre's methods of inquisitiveness
+were not strictly dishonest.  He did not open letters, he did not besiege
+dispatch-boxes, he did not ask impudent questions; he watched and
+listened.  In his own way he found out that the man had been a soldier in
+the ranks, and that he had served in India.  They were most attached to
+the child, whose name was Marguerite.  One day a visitor, a lady, came to
+them.  She seemed to be the cause of much unhappiness to Mrs. Malbrouck.
+And Pierre was alert enough to discover that this distinguished-looking
+person desired to take the child away with her.  To this the young mother
+would not consent, and the visitor departed with some chillingly-polite
+phrases, part English, part French, beyond the exact comprehension of
+Pierre, and leaving the father and mother and little Marguerite happy.
+Then, however, these people seemed to become suddenly poorer, and
+Malbrouck began farming in a humble, but not entirely successful way.
+The energy of the man was prodigious; but his luck was sardonic.  Floods
+destroyed his first crops, prices ran low, debt accumulated, foreclosure
+of mortgage occurred, and Malbrouck and the wife and child went west.
+
+"Five years later, Pretty Pierre saw them again at Marigold Lake:
+Malbrouck as agent for the Hudson's Bay Company--still poor, but
+contented.  It was at this period that the former visitor again appeared,
+clothed in purple and fine linen, and, strange as it may seem, succeeded
+in carrying off the little child, leaving the father and mother broken,
+but still devoted to each other.
+
+"Pretty Pierre closed his narration with these words: ''Bien,' that
+Malbrouck, he is great.  I have not much love of men, but he--well, if he
+say,--"See, Pierre, I go to the home of the white bear and the winter
+that never ends; perhaps we come back, perhaps we die; but there will be
+sport for men--" 'voila!' I would go.  To know one strong man in this
+world is good.  Perhaps, some time I will go to him--yes, Pierre, the
+gambler, will go to him, and say: It is good for the wild dog that he
+live near the lion.  And the child, she was beautiful; she had a light
+heart and a sweet way.'"
+
+It was with this slight knowledge that Gregory Thorne set out on his
+journey over the great Canadian prairie to Marigold Lake, for his
+December moose-hunt.
+
+Gregory has since told me that, as he travelled with Jacques Pontiac
+across the Height of Land to his destination, he had uncomfortable
+feelings; presentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, and melancholy
+--a thing far from habitual with him.  Insolence is all very well, but
+you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn't effective with vague
+presentiments.  And when Gregory's insolence was taken away from him, he
+was very like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him; his brown cheek
+and frank eye had lost something of their charm.  It was these unusual
+broodings that worried him; he waked up suddenly one night calling,
+"Margaret!  Margaret!" like any childlike lover.  And that did not
+please him.  He believed in things that, as he said himself, "he could
+get between his fingers;" he had little sympathy with morbid
+sentimentalities.  But there was an English Margaret in his life; and he,
+like many another childlike man, had fallen in love, and with her--very
+much in love indeed; and a star had crossed his love to a degree that
+greatly shocked him and pleased the girl's relatives.  She was the
+granddaughter of a certain haughty dame of high degree, who regarded
+icily this poorest of younger sons, and held her darling aloof.  Gregory,
+very like a blunt unreasoning lover, sought to carry the redoubt by wild
+assault; and was overwhelmingly routed.  The young lady, though finding
+some avowed pleasure in his company, accompanied by brilliant
+misunderstanding of his advances and full-front speeches, had never given
+him enough encouragement to warrant his playing young Lochinvar in Park
+Lane; and his cup became full when, at the close of the season, she was
+whisked off to the seclusion of a country-seat, whose walls to him were
+impregnable.  His defeat was then, and afterwards, complete.  He pluckily
+replied to the derision of his relatives with multiplied derision,
+demanded his inheritance, got his traps together, bought a fur coat,
+and straightway sailed the wintry seas to Canada.
+
+His experiences had not soured his temper.  He believed that every dog
+has his day, and that Fate was very malicious; that it brought down the
+proud, and rewarded the patient; that it took up its abode in marble
+halls, and was the mocker at the feast.  All this had reference, of
+course, to the time when he should--rich as any nabob--return to London,
+and be victorious over his enemy in Park Lane.  It was singular that he
+believed this thing would occur; but he did.  He had not yet made his
+fortune, but he had been successful in the game of buying and selling
+lands, and luck seemed to dog his path.  He was fearless, and he had a
+keen eye for all the points of every game--every game but love.
+
+Yet he was born to succeed in that game too.  For though his theory was,
+that everything should be treated with impertinence before you could get
+a proper view of it, he was markedly respectful to people.  Few could
+resist him; his impudence of ideas was so pleasantly mixed with
+delicately suggested admiration of those to whom he talked.  It was
+impossible that John Malbrouck and his wife could have received him
+other than they did; his was the eloquent, conquering spirit.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+By the time he reached Lake Marigold he had shaken off all those hovering
+fancies of the woods, which, after all, might only have been the
+whisperings of those friendly and far-seeing spirits who liked the lad
+as he journeyed through their lonely pleasure-grounds.  John Malbrouck
+greeted him with quiet cordiality, and Mrs. Malbrouck smiled upon him
+with a different smile from that with which she had speeded him a month
+before; there was in it a new light of knowledge, and Gregory could not
+understand it.  It struck him as singular that the lady should be dressed
+in finer garments than she wore when he last saw her; though certainly
+her purple became her.  She wore it as if born to it; and with an air
+more sedately courteous than he had ever seen, save at one house in Park
+Lane.  Had this rustle of fine trappings been made for him?  No; the
+woman had a mind above such snobbishness, he thought.  He suffered for
+a moment the pang of a cynical idea; but the eyes of Mrs. Malbrouck were
+on him and he knew that he was as nothing before her.  Her eyes--how they
+were fixed upon him!  Only two women had looked so truthfully at him
+before: his dead mother and--Margaret.  And Margaret--why, how strangely
+now at this instant came the thought that she was like his Margaret!
+Wonder sprang to his eyes.  At that moment a door opened and a girl
+entered the room--a girl lissome, sweet-faced, well-bred of manner,
+who came slowly towards them.
+
+"My daughter, Mr. Thorne," the mother briefly remarked.  There was no
+surprise in the girl's face, only an even reserve of pleasure, as she
+held out her hand and said: "Mr. Gregory Thorne and I are old enemies."
+Gregory Thorne's nerve forsook him for an instant.  He knew now the
+reason of his vague presentiments in the woods; he understood why, one
+night, when he had been more childlike than usual in his memory of the
+one woman who could make life joyous for him, the voice of a voyageur,
+not Jacques's nor that of any one in camp, sang:
+
+              "My dear love, she waits for me,
+                  None other my world is adorning;
+               My true love I come to thee,
+                  My dear, the white star of the morning.
+               Eagles spread out your wings,
+                  Behold where the red dawn is breaking!
+               Hark, 'tis my darling sings,
+                  The flowers, the song-birds awaking;
+               See, where she comes to me,
+                  My love, ah, my dear love!"
+
+And here she was.  He raised her hand to his lips, and said: "Miss
+Carley, you have your enemy at an advantage."
+
+"Miss Carley in Park Lane, Margaret Malbrouck here in my old home," she
+replied.
+
+There ran swiftly through the young man's brain the brief story that
+Pretty Pierre had told him.  This, then, was the child who had been
+carried away, and who, years after, had made captive his heart in London
+town!  Well, one thing was clear, the girl's mother here seemed inclined
+to be kinder to him than was the guardian grandmother--if she was the
+grandmother--because they had their first talk undisturbed, it may be
+encouraged; amiable mothers do such deeds at times.
+
+"And now pray, Mr. Thorne," she continued, "may I ask how came you here
+in my father's house after having treated me so cavalierly in London?--
+not even sending a P.P.C. when you vanished from your worshippers in
+Vanity Fair."
+
+"As for my being here, it is simply a case of blind fate; as for my
+friends, the only one I wanted to be sorry for my going was behind
+earthworks which I could not scale in order to leave my card, or--or
+anything else of more importance; and being left as it were to the
+inclemency of a winter world, I fled from--"
+
+She interrupted him.  "What! the conqueror, you, flying from your
+Moscow?"
+
+He felt rather helpless under her gay raillery; but he said:
+
+"Well, I didn't burn my kremlin behind me."
+
+"Your kremlin?"
+
+"My ships, then: they--they are just the same," he earnestly pleaded.
+Foolish youth, to attempt to take such a heart by surprise and storm!
+
+"That is very interesting," she said, "but hardly wise.  To make fortunes
+and be happy in new countries, one should forget the old ones.
+Meditation is the enemy of action."
+
+"There's one meditation could make me conquer the North Pole, if I could
+but grasp it definitely."
+
+"Grasp the North Pole?  That would be awkward for your friends and
+gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history.  But,
+perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow!  for my father tells
+me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards.  How
+valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the essentials of fortune-
+making!"
+
+"Miss Malbrouck, I am in earnest, and I've always been in earnest in one
+thing at least.  I came out here to make money, and I've made some, and
+shall make more; but just now the moose are as brands for the burning,
+and I have a gun sulky for want of exercise."
+
+"What an eloquent warrior-temper!  And to whom are your deeds of valour
+to be dedicated?  Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies of the
+chase?"
+
+"Before the most provoking but worshipful lady that I know."
+
+"Who is the sylvan maid?  What princess of the glade has now the homage
+of your impressionable heart, Mr. Thorne?"
+
+And Gregory Thorne, his native insolence standing him in no stead, said
+very humbly:
+
+"You are that sylvan maid, that princess--ah, is this fair to me, is it
+fair, I ask you?"
+
+"You really mean that about the trophies"? she replied.  "And shall you
+return like the mighty khans, with captive tigers and lions, led by
+stalwart slaves, in your train, or shall they be captive moose or
+grizzlies?"
+
+"Grizzlies are not possible here," he said, with cheerful seriousness,
+"but the moose is possible, and more, if you would be kinder--Margaret."
+
+"Your supper, see, is ready," she said.  "I venture to hope your appetite
+has not suffered because of long absence from your friends."
+
+He could only dumbly answer by a protesting motion of the hand, and his
+smile was not remarkably buoyant.
+
+The next morning they started on their moose-hunt.  Gregory Thorne was
+cast down when he crossed the threshold into the winter morning without
+hand-clasp or god-speed from Margaret Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was
+there, and Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how good a thing it
+would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every
+morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day.  But what was
+the use of wishing!  Margaret evidently did not care.  And though the air
+was clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless wind
+blowing on him; a wind that chilled him; and he hummed to himself
+bitterly a song of the voyageurs:
+
+              "O, O, the winter wind, the North wind,
+                  My snow-bird, where art thou gone?
+               O, O, the wailing wind the night wind,
+                  The cold nest; I am alone.
+               O, O, my snow-bird!
+
+              "O, O, the waving sky, the white sky,
+                  My snow-bird thou fliest far;
+               O, O, the eagle's cry, the wild cry,
+                  My lost love, my lonely star.
+               O, O, my snow-bird!"
+
+He was about to start briskly forward to join Malbrouck and his Indians,
+who were already on their way, when he heard his name called, and,
+turning, he saw Margaret in the doorway, her fingers held to the tips of
+her ears, as yet unused to the frost.  He ran back to where she stood,
+and held out his hand.  "I was afraid," he bluntly said, "that you
+wouldn't forsake your morning sleep to say good-bye to me."
+
+"It isn't always the custom, is it," she replied, "for ladies to send the
+very early hunter away with a tally-ho?  But since you have the grace to
+be afraid of anything, I can excuse myself to myself for fleeing the
+pleasantest dreams to speed you on your warlike path."
+
+At this he brightened very much, but she, as if repenting she had given
+him so much pleasure, added: "I wanted to say good-bye to my father, you
+know; and--" she paused.
+
+"And"? he added.
+
+"And to tell him that you have fond relatives in the old land who would
+mourn your early taking off; and, therefore, to beg him, for their sakes,
+to keep you safe from any outrageous moose that mightn't know how the
+world needed you."
+
+"But there you are mistaken," he said; "I haven't anyone who would
+really care, worse luck!  except the dowager; and she, perhaps, would be
+consoled to know that I had died in battle,--even with a moose,--and was
+clear of the possibility of hanging another lost reputation on the family
+tree, to say nothing of suspension from any other kind of tree.  But, if
+it should be the other way; if I should see your father in the path of an
+outrageous moose--what then?"
+
+"My father is a hunter born," she responded; "he is a great man," she
+proudly added.
+
+"Of course, of course," he replied.  "Good-bye.  I'll take him your
+love.--Good-bye!" and he turned away.
+
+"Good-bye," she gaily replied; and yet, one looking closely would have
+seen that this stalwart fellow was pleasant to her eyes, and as she
+closed the door to his hand waving farewell to her from the pines, she
+said, reflecting on his words:
+
+"You'll take him my love, will you?  But, Master Gregory, you carry a
+freight of which you do not know the measure; and, perhaps, you never
+shall, though you are very brave and honest, and not so impudent as you
+used to be,--and I'm not so sure that I like you so much better for that
+either, Monsieur Gregory."
+
+Then she went and laid her cheek against her mother's, and said: "They've
+gone away for big game, mother dear; what shall be our quarry?"
+
+"My child," the mother replied, "the story of our lives since last you
+were with me is my only quarry.  I want to know from your own lips all
+that you have been in that life which once was mine also, but far away
+from me now, even though you come from it, bringing its memories without
+its messages."
+
+"Dear, do you think that life there was so sweet to me?  It meant as
+little to your daughter as to you.  She was always a child of the wild
+woods.  What rustle of pretty gowns is pleasant as the silken shiver of
+the maple leaves in summer at this door?  The happiest time in that life
+was when we got away to Holwood or Marchurst, with the balls and calls
+all over."
+
+Mrs. Malbrouck smoothed her daughter's hand gently and smiled
+approvingly.
+
+"But that old life of yours, mother; what was it?  You said that you
+would tell me some day.  Tell me now.  Grandmother was fond of me--poor
+grandmother!  But she would never tell me anything.  How I longed to be
+back with you!.... Sometimes you came to me in my sleep, and called to me
+to come with you; and then again, when I was gay in the sunshine, you
+came, and only smiled but never beckoned; though your eyes seemed to me
+very sad, and I wondered if mine would not also become sad through
+looking in them so--are they sad, mother?"  And she laughed up brightly
+into her mother's face.
+
+"No, dear; they are like the stars.  You ask me for my part in that life.
+I will tell you soon, but not now.  Be patient.  Do you not tire of this
+lonely life?  Are you truly not anxious to return to--"
+
+"'To the husks that the swine did eat?'  No, no, no; for, see: I was born
+for a free, strong life; the prairie or the wild wood, or else to live in
+some far castle in Welsh mountains, where I should never hear the voice
+of the social Thou must!--oh, what a must! never to be quite free or
+natural.  To be the slave of the code.  I was born--I know not how! but
+so longing for the sky, and space, and endless woods.  I think I never
+saw an animal but I loved it, nor ever lounged the mornings out at
+Holwood but I wished it were a hut on the mountain side, and you and
+father with me."  Here she whispered, in a kind of awe: "And yet to think
+that Holwood is now mine, and that I am mistress there, and that I must
+go back to it--if only you would go back with me.... ah, dear, isn't it
+your duty to go back with me"? she added, hesitatingly.
+
+Audrey Malbrouck drew her daughter hungrily to her bosom, and said: "Yes,
+dear, I will go back, if it chances that you need me; but your father and
+I have lived the best days of our lives here, and we are content.
+But, my Margaret, there is another to be thought of too, is there not?
+And in that case is my duty then so clear?"
+
+The girl's hand closed on her mother's, and she knew her heart had been
+truly read.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The hunters pursued their way, swinging grandly along on their snow-
+shoes, as they made for the Wild Hawk Woods.  It would seem as if
+Malbrouck was testing Gregory's strength and stride, for the march that
+day was a long and hard one.  He was equal to the test, and even Big
+Moccasin, the chief, grunted sound approval.  But every day brought out
+new capacities for endurance and larger resources; so that Malbrouck,
+who had known the clash of civilisation with barbarian battle, and deeds
+both dour and doughty, and who loved a man of might, regarded this youth
+with increasing favour.  By simple processes he drew from Gregory his
+aims and ambitions, and found the real courage and power behind the front
+of irony--the language of manhood and culture which was crusted by free
+and easy idioms.  Now and then they saw moose-tracks, but they were some
+days out before they came to a moose-yard--a spot hoof-beaten by the
+moose; his home, from which he strays, and to which he returns at times
+like a repentant prodigal.  Now the sport began.  The dog-trains were put
+out of view, and Big Moccasin and another Indian went off immediately to
+explore the country round about.  A few hours, and word was brought that
+there was a small herd feeding not far away.  Together they crept
+stealthily within range of the cattle.  Gregory Thorne's blood leaped as
+he saw the noble quarry, with their wide-spread horns, sniffing the air,
+in which they had detected something unusual.  Their leader, a colossal
+beast, stamped with his forefoot, and threw back his head with a snort.
+
+"The first shot belongs to you, Mr. Thorne," said Malbrouck.  "In the
+shoulder, you know.  You have him in good line.  I'll take the heifer."
+
+Gregory showed all the coolness of an old hunter, though his lips
+twitched slightly with excitement.  He took a short but steady aim, and
+fired.  The beast plunged forward and then fell on his knees.  The others
+broke away.  Malbrouck fired and killed a heifer, and then all ran in
+pursuit as the moose made for the woods.
+
+Gregory, in the pride of his first slaughter, sprang away towards the
+wounded leader, which, sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to
+and fro.  When at close range, he raised his gun to fire again, but the
+moose rose suddenly, and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Gregory,
+who knew full well that a straight stroke from those hoofs would end his
+moose-hunting days.  He fired, but to no effect.  He could not, like a
+toreador, jump aside, for those mighty horns would sweep too wide a
+space.  He dropped on his knees swiftly, and as the great antlers almost
+touched him, and he could feel the roaring breath of the mad creature in
+his face, he slipped a cartridge in, and fired as he swung round; but at
+that instant a dark body bore him down.  He was aware of grasping those
+sweeping horns, conscious of a blow which tore the flesh from his chest;
+and then his knife--how came it in his hand?--with the instinct of the
+true hunter.  He plunged it once, twice, past a foaming mouth, into that
+firm body, and then both fell together; each having fought valiantly
+after his kind.
+
+Gregory dragged himself from beneath the still heaving body, and
+stretched to his feet; but a blindness came, and the next knowledge he
+had was of brandy being poured slowly between his teeth, and of a voice
+coming through endless distances: "A fighter, a born fighter," it said.
+"The pluck of Lucifer--good boy!"
+
+Then the voice left those humming spaces of infinity, and said: "Tilt him
+this way a little, Big Moccasin.  There, press firmly, so.  Now the band
+steady--together--tighter--now the withes--a little higher up--cut them
+here."  There was a slight pause, and then: "There, that's as good as an
+army surgeon could do it.  He'll be as sound as a bell in two weeks.  Eh,
+well, how do you feel now?  Better?  That's right!  Like to be on your
+feet, would you?  Wait.  Here, a sup of this.  There you are.  .  .  .
+Well?"
+
+"Well," said the young man, faintly, "he was a beauty."
+
+Malbrouck looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, and then said: "Yes, he
+was a beauty."
+
+"I want a dozen more like him, and then I shall be able to drop 'em as
+neat as, you do."
+
+"H'm!  the order is large.  I'm afraid we shall have to fill it at some
+other time;" and Malbrouck smiled a little grimly.
+
+"What! only one moose to take back to the Height of Land, to--" something
+in the eye of the other stopped him.
+
+"To?  Yes, to"? and now the eye had a suggestion of humour.
+
+"To show I'm not a tenderfoot."
+
+"Yes, to show you're not a tenderfoot.  I fancy that will be hardly
+necessary.  Oh, you will be up, eh?  Well!"
+
+"Well, I'm a tottering imbecile.  What's the matter with my legs?--my
+prophetic soul, it hurts!  Oh, I see; that's where the old warrior's hoof
+caught me sideways.  Now, I'll tell you what, I'm going to have another
+moose to take back to Marigold Lake."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes.  I'm going to take back a young, live moose."
+
+"A significant ambition.  For what?--a sacrifice to the gods you have
+offended in your classic existence?"
+
+"Both.  A peace-offering, and a sacrifice to--a goddess."
+
+"Young man," said the other, the light of a smile playing on his lips,
+"'Prosperity be thy page!'  Big Moccasin, what of this young live moose?"
+
+The Indian shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"But I tell you I shall have that live moose, if I have to stay here to
+see it grow."
+
+And Malbrouck liked his pluck, and wished him good luck.  And the good
+luck came.  They travelled back slowly to the Height of Land, making a
+circuit.  For a week they saw no more moose; but meanwhile Gregory's hurt
+quickly healed.  They had now left only eight days in which to get back
+to Dog Ear River and Marigold Lake.  If the young moose was to come
+it must come soon.  It came soon.
+
+They chanced upon a moose-yard, and while the Indians were beating the
+woods, Malbrouck and Gregory watched.
+
+Soon a cow and a young moose came swinging down to the embankment.
+Malbrouck whispered: "Now if you must have your live moose, here's a
+lasso.  I'll bring down the cow.  The young one's horns are not large.
+Remember, no pulling.  I'll do that.  Keep your broken chest and bad arm
+safe.  Now!"
+
+Down came the cow with a plunge into the yard-dead.  The lasso, too, was
+over the horns of the calf, and in an instant Malbrouck was swinging away
+with it over the snow.  It was making for the trees--exactly what
+Malbrouck desired.  He deftly threw the rope round a sapling, but not too
+taut, lest the moose's horns should be injured.  The plucky animal now
+turned on him.  He sprang behind a tree, and at that instant he heard the
+thud of hoofs behind him.  He turned to see a huge bull-moose bounding
+towards him.  He was between two fires, and quite unarmed.  Those hoofs
+had murder in them.  But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, and he
+only caught the forward rush of the antlers as the beast fell.
+
+The young moose now had ceased its struggles, and came forward to the
+dead bull with that hollow sound of mourning peculiar to its kind.
+Though it afterwards struggled once or twice to be free, it became docile
+and was easily taught, when its anger and fear were over.
+
+And Gregory Thorne had his live moose.  He had also, by that splendid
+shot, achieved with one arm, saved Malbrouck from peril, perhaps from
+death.
+
+They drew up before the house at Marigold Lake on the afternoon of the
+day before Christmas, a triumphal procession.  The moose was driven, a
+peaceful captive with a wreath of cedar leaves around its neck--the
+humourous conception of Gregory Thorne.  Malbrouck had announced their
+coming by a blast from his horn, and Margaret was standing in the doorway
+wrapped in furs, which may have come originally from Hudson's Bay,
+but which had been deftly re-manufactured in Regent Street.
+
+Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes.  She clapped her hands gaily,
+and cried: "Welcome, welcome, merry-men all!"  She kissed her father; she
+called to her mother to come and see; then she said to Gregory, with arch
+raillery, as she held out her hand: "Oh, companion of hunters, comest
+thou like Jacques in Arden from dropping the trustful tear upon the prey
+of others, or bringest thou quarry of thine own?  Art thou a warrior
+sated with spoil, master of the sports, spectator of the fight, Prince,
+or Pistol?  Answer, what art thou?"
+
+And he, with a touch of his old insolence, though with something of irony
+too, for he had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, said:
+
+"All, lady, all!  The Olympian all!  The player of many parts.  I am
+Touchstone, Jacques, and yet Orlando too."
+
+"And yet Orlando too, my daughter," said Malbrouck, gravely.  "He saved
+your father from the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice.  Had your father
+his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with one arm a bull moose at long
+range, so!--he would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but wear the
+title gladly."
+
+Margaret Malbrouck's face became anxious instantly.  "He saved you from
+danger--from injury, father"? she slowly said, and looked earnestly at
+Gregory; "but why to shoot with one arm only?"
+
+"Because in a fight of his own with a moose--a hand-to-hand fight--he had
+a bad moment with the hoofs of the beast."
+
+And this young man, who had a reputation for insolence, blushed, so that
+the paleness which the girl now noticed in his face was banished; and to
+turn the subject he interposed:
+
+"Here is the live moose that I said I should bring.  Now say that he's a
+beauty, please.  Your father and I--"
+
+But Malbrouck interrupted:
+
+"He lassoed it with his one arm, Margaret.  He was determined to do it
+himself, because, being a superstitious gentleman, as well as a hunter,
+he had some foolish notion that this capture would propitiate a goddess
+whom he imagined required offerings of the kind."
+
+"It is the privilege of the gods to be merciful," she said.  "This peace-
+offering should propitiate the angriest, cruellest goddess in the
+universe; and for one who was neither angry nor really cruel--well, she
+should be satisfied.... altogether satisfied," she added, as she put her
+cheek against the warm fur of the captive's neck, and let it feel her
+hand with its lips.
+
+There was silence for a minute, and then with his old gay spirit all
+returned, and as if to give an air not too serious to the situation,
+Gregory, remembering his Euripides, said:
+
+          ". . . . . . . .let the steer bleed,
+          And the rich altars, as they pay their vows,
+          Breathe incense to the gods: for me, I rise
+          To better life, and grateful own the blessing."
+
+"A pagan thought for a Christmas Eve," she said to him, with her fingers
+feeling for the folds of silken flesh in the throat of the moose; "but
+wounded men must be humoured.  And, mother dear, here are our Argonauts
+returned; and--and now I think I will go."
+
+With a quick kiss on her father's cheek--not so quick but he caught the
+tear that ran through her happy smile--she vanished into the house.
+
+That night there was gladness in this home.  Mirth sprang to the lips of
+the men like foam on a beaker of wine, so that the evening ran towards
+midnight swiftly.  All the tale of the hunt was given by Malbrouck to
+joyful ears; for the mother lived again her youth in the sunrise of this
+romance which was being sped before her eyes; and the father, knowing
+that in this world there is nothing so good as courage, nothing so base
+as the shifting eye, looked on the young man, and was satisfied, and told
+his story well;--told it as a brave man would tell it, bluntly as to
+deeds done, warmly as to the pleasures of good sport, directly as to all.
+In the eye of the young man there had come the glance of larger life, of
+a new-developed manhood.  When he felt that dun body crashing on him, and
+his life closing with its strength, and ran the good knife home, there
+flashed through his mind how much life meant to the dying, how much it
+ought to mean to the living; and then this girl, this Margaret, swam
+before his eyes--and he had been graver since.
+
+He knew, as truly as if she had told him, that she could never mate with
+any man who was a loiterer on God's highway, who could live life without
+some sincerity in his aims.  It all came to him again in this room, so
+austere in its appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of
+humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds.  As this
+thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the
+father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back--that he would
+win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck
+before this coming Christmas morning.  With a faint smile at his own past
+insolent self, he glanced at the clock.  It was eleven.  "I have lost my
+bet," he unconsciously said aloud.
+
+He was roused by John Malbrouck remarking: "Yes, you have lost your bet?
+Well, what was it"? The youth, the childlike quality in him," flushed
+his face deeply, and then, with a sudden burst of frankness, he said:
+
+"I did not know that I had spoken.  As for the bet, I deserve to be
+thrashed for ever having made it; but, duffer as I am, I want you to know
+that I'm something worse than duffer.  The first time I met you I made a
+bet that I should know your history before Christmas Day.  I haven't a
+word to say for myself.  I'm contemptible.  I beg your pardon; for your
+history is none of my business.  I was really interested; that's all; but
+your lives, I believe it, as if it was in the Bible, have been great--
+yes, that's the word!  and I'm a better chap for having known you,
+though, perhaps, I've known you all along, because, you see, I've--I've
+been friends with your daughter--and-well, really I haven't anything else
+to say, except that I hope you'll forgive me, and let me know you
+always."
+
+Malbrouck regarded him for a moment with a grave smile, and then looked
+toward his wife.  Both turned their glances quickly upon Margaret, whose
+eyes were on the fire.  The look upon her face was very gentle; something
+new and beautiful had come to reign there.
+
+A moment, and Malbrouck spoke: "You did what was youthful and curious,
+but not wrong; and you shall not lose your hazard.  I--"
+
+"No, do not tell me," Gregory interrupted; "only let me be pardoned."
+
+"As I said, lad, you shall not lose your hazard.  I will tell you the
+brief tale of two lives."
+
+"But, I beg of you!  For the instant I forgot.  I have more to confess."
+And Gregory told them in substance what Pretty Pierre had disclosed to
+him in the Rocky Mountains.
+
+When he had finished, Malbrouck said: "My tale then is briefer still: I
+was a common soldier, English and humble by my mother, French and noble
+through my father--noble, but poor.  In Burmah, at an outbreak among the
+natives, I rescued my colonel from immediate and horrible death, though
+he died in my arms from the injuries he received.  His daughter too, it
+was my fortune, through God's Providence, to save from great danger.  She
+became my wife.  You remember that song you sang the day we first met
+you?
+
+"It brought her father back to mind painfully.  When we came to England
+her people--her mother--would not receive me.  For myself I did not care;
+for my wife, that was another matter.  She loved me and preferred to go
+with me anywhere; to a new country, preferably.  We came to Canada.
+
+"We were forgotten in England.  Time moves so fast, even if the records
+in red-books stand.  Our daughter went to her grandmother to be brought
+up and educated in England--though it was a sore trial to us both--that
+she might fill nobly that place in life for which she is destined.  With
+all she learned she did not forget us.  We were happy save in her
+absence.  We are happy now; not because she is mistress of Holwood and
+Marchurst--for her grandmother and another is dead--but because such as
+she is our daughter, and--"
+
+He said no more.  Margaret was beside him, and her fingers were on his
+lips.
+
+Gregory came to his feet suddenly, and with a troubled face.
+
+"Mistress of Holwood and Marchurst!" he said; and his mind ran over his
+own great deficiencies, and the list of eligible and anxious suitors that
+Park Lane could muster.  He had never thought of her in the light of a
+great heiress.
+
+But he looked down at her as she knelt at her father's knee, her eyes
+upturned to his, and the tide of his fear retreated; for he saw in them
+the same look she had given him when she leaned her cheek against the
+moose's neck that afternoon.
+
+When the clock struck twelve upon a moment's pleasant silence, John
+Malbrouck said to Gregory Thorne:
+
+"Yes, you have won your Christmas hazard, my boy."
+
+But a softer voice than his whispered: "Are you--content--Gregory?"
+
+The Spirits of Christmas-tide, whose paths lie north as well as south,
+smiled as they wrote his answer on their tablets; for they knew, as the
+man said, that he would always be content, and--which is more in the
+sight of angels--that the woman would be content also.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies
+Carrying with him the warm atmosphere of a good woman's love
+Freedom is the first essential of the artistic mind
+I was born insolent
+Knowing that his face would never be turned from me
+Likenesses between the perfectly human and the perfectly animal
+Longed to touch, oftener than they did, the hands of children
+Meditation is the enemy of action
+My excuses were making bad infernally worse
+Nothing so good as courage, nothing so base as the shifting eye
+She wasn't young, but she seemed so
+The Barracks of the Free
+The gods made last to humble the pride of men--there was rum
+The soul of goodness in things evil
+Time is the test, and Time will have its way with me
+Where I should never hear the voice of the social Thou must
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+A PRAIRIE VAGABOND
+SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON
+THREE OUTLAWS
+
+
+
+
+A PRAIRIE VAGABOND
+
+Little Hammer was not a success.  He was a disappointment to the
+missionaries; the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company said he was
+"no good;" the Mounted Police kept an eye on him; the Crees and Blackfeet
+would have nothing to do with him; and the half-breeds were profane
+regarding him.  But Little Hammer was oblivious to any depreciation
+of his merits, and would not be suppressed.  He loved the Hudson's Bay
+Company's Post at Yellow Quill with an unwavering love; he ranged the
+half-breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless of it being thrown
+at him as he in turn threw it at his dog; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly
+with a familiar How! whenever he saw him; he borrowed tabac of the half-
+breed women, and, strange to say, paid it back--with other tabac got by
+daily petition, until his prayer was granted, at the H. B. C. Post.  He
+knew neither shame nor defeat, but where women were concerned he kept his
+word, and was singularly humble.  It was a woman that induced him to be
+baptised.  The day after the ceremony he begged "the loan of a dollar for
+the love of God" from the missionary; and being refused, straightway, and
+for the only time it was known of him, delivered a rumbling torrent of
+half-breed profanity, mixed with the unusual oaths of the barracks.  Then
+he walked away with great humility.  There was no swagger about Little
+Hammer.  He was simply unquenchable and continuous.  He sometimes got
+drunk; but on such occasions he sat down, or lay down, in the most
+convenient place, and, like Caesar beside Pompey's statue, wrapped his
+mantle about his face and forgot the world.  He was a vagabond Indian,
+abandoned yet self-contained, outcast yet gregarious.  No social
+ostracism unnerved him, no threats of the H. B. C. officials moved him;
+and when in the winter of 187_ he was driven from one place to another,
+starving and homeless, and came at last emaciated and nearly dead to the
+Post at Yellow Quill, he asked for food and shelter as if it were his
+right, and not as a mendicant.
+
+One night, shortly after his reception and restoration, he was sitting
+in the store silently smoking the Company's tabac.  Sergeant Gellatly
+entered.  Little Hammer rose, offered his hand, and muttered, "How!"
+
+The Sergeant thrust his hand aside, and said sharply: "Whin I take y'r
+hand, Little Hammer, it'll be to put a grip an y'r wrists that'll stay
+there till y'are in quarters out of which y'll come nayther winter nor
+summer.  Put that in y'r pipe and smoke it, y' scamp!"
+
+Little Hammer had a bad time at the Post that night.  Lounging half-
+breeds reviled him; the H. B. C. officials rebuked him; and travellers
+who were coming and going shared in the derision, as foolish people do
+where one is brow-beaten by many.  At last a trapper entered, whom
+seeing, Little Hammer drew his blanket up about his head.  The trapper
+sat down very near Little Hammer, and began to smoke.  He laid his plug-
+tabac and his knife on the counter beside him.  Little Hammer reached
+over and took the knife, putting it swiftly within his blanket.  The
+trapper saw the act, and, turning sharply on the Indian, called him a
+thief.  Little Hammer chuckled strangely and said nothing; but his eyes
+peered sharply above the blanket.  A laugh went round the store.  In an
+instant the trapper, with a loud oath, caught at the Indian's throat; but
+as the blanket dropped back he gave a startled cry.  There was the flash
+of a knife, and he fell back dead.  Little Hammer stood above him,
+smiling, for a moment, and then, turning to Sergeant Gellatly, held
+out his arms silently for the handcuffs.
+
+The next day two men were lost on the prairies.  One was Sergeant
+Gellatly; the other was Little Hammer.  The horses they rode travelled so
+close that the leg of the Indian crowded the leg of the white man; and
+the wilder the storm grew, the closer still they rode.  A 'poudre' day,
+with its steely air and fatal frost, was an ill thing in the world; but
+these entangling blasts, these wild curtains of snow, were desolating
+even unto death.  The sun above was smothered; the earth beneath was
+trackless; the compass stood for loss all round.
+
+What could Sergeant Gellatly expect, riding with a murderer on his left
+hand: a heathen that had sent a knife through the heart of one of the
+lords of the North?  What should the gods do but frown, or the elements
+be at, but howling on their path?  What should one hope for but that
+vengeance should be taken out of the hands of mortals, and be delivered
+to the angry spirits?
+
+But if the gods were angry at the Indian, why should Sergeant Gellatly
+only sway to and fro, and now laugh recklessly, and now fall sleepily
+forward on the neck of his horse; while the Indian rode straight, and
+neither wavered nor wandered in mind, but at last slipped from his horse
+and walked beside the other?  It was at this moment that the soldier
+heard, "Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly," called through the blast;
+and he thought it came from the skies, or from some other world.  "Me
+darlin'," he said, "have y' come to me?"  But the voice called again:
+"Sergeant Gellatly, keep awake!  keep awake!  You sleep, you die; that's
+it.  Holy.  Yes.  How!"  Then he knew that it was Little Hammer calling
+in his ear, and shaking him; that the Indian was dragging him from his
+horse .  .  .  his revolver, where was it?  he had forgotten .  .  .  he
+nodded .  .  .  nodded.  But Little Hammer said: "Walk, hell! you walk,
+yes;" and Little Hammer struck him again and again; but one arm of the
+Indian was under his shoulder and around him, and the voice was anxious
+and kind.  Slowly it came to him that Little Hammer was keeping him alive
+against the will of the spirits--but why should they strike him instead
+of the Indian?  Was there any sun in the world?  Had there ever been? or
+fire or heat anywhere, or anything but wind and snow in all God's
+universe?  .  .  .  Yes, there were bells ringing--soft bells of a
+village church; and there was incense burning--most sweet it was! and the
+coals in the censer--how beautiful, how comforting!  He laughed with joy
+again, and he forgot how cold, how maliciously cold, he had been; he
+forgot how dreadful that hour was before he became warm; when he was
+pierced by myriad needles through the body, and there was an incredible
+aching at his heart.
+
+And yet something kept thundering on his body, and a harsh voice shrieked
+at him, and there were many lights dancing over his shut eyes; and then
+curtains of darkness were dropped, and centuries of oblivion came; and
+then--then his eyes opened to a comforting silence, and some one was
+putting brandy between his teeth, and after a time he heard a voice say:
+"'Bien,' you see he was a murderer, but he save his captor.  'Voila,'
+such a heathen!  But you will, all the same, bring him to justice--you
+call it that?  But we shall see."
+
+Then some one replied, and the words passed through an outer web of
+darkness and an inner haze of dreams.  "The feet of Little Hammer were
+like wood on the floor when you brought the two in, Pretty Pierre--and
+lucky for them you found them.  .  .  .  The thing would read right in a
+book, but it's not according to the run of things up here, not by a
+damned sight!"
+
+"Private Bradshaw," said the first voice again, "you do not know Little
+Hammer, nor that story of him.  You wait for the trial.  I have something
+to say.  You think Little Hammer care for the prison, the rope?--Ah, when
+a man wait five years to kill--so! and it is done, he is glad sometimes
+when it is all over.  Sergeant Gellatly there will wish he went to sleep
+forever in the snow, if Little Hammer come to the rope.  Yes, I think."
+
+And Sergeant Gellatly's brain was so numbed that he did not grasp the
+meaning of the words, though he said them over and over again.  .  .  .
+Was he dead?  No, for his body was beating, beating .  .  .  well, it
+didn't matter .  .  .  nothing mattered .  .  .  he was sinking to
+forgetfulness .  .  .  sinking.
+
+So, for hours, for weeks--it might have been for years--and then he woke,
+clear and knowing, to "the unnatural, intolerable day"--it was that to
+him, with Little Hammer in prison.  It was March when his memory and
+vigour vanished; it was May when he grasped the full remembrance of
+himself, and of that fight for life on the prairie: of the hands that
+smote him that he should not sleep; of Little Hammer the slayer, who had
+driven death back discomfited, and brought his captor safe to where his
+own captivity and punishment awaited him.
+
+When Sergeant Gellatly appeared in court at the trial he refused to bear
+witness against Little Hammer.  "D' ye think--does wan av y' think--that
+I'll speak a word agin the man--haythen or no haythen--that pulled me out
+of me tomb and put me betune the barrack quilts?  Here's the stripes aff
+me arm, and to gaol I'll go; but for what wint before I clapt the iron on
+his wrists, good or avil, divil a word will I say.  An' here's me left
+hand, and there's me right fut, and an eye of me too, that I'd part with,
+for the cause of him that's done a trick that your honour wouldn't do--
+an' no shame to y' aither--an' y'd been where Little Hammer was with me."
+
+His honour did not reply immediately, but he looked meditatively at
+Little Hammer before he said quietly,--"Perhaps not, perhaps not."
+
+And Little Hammer, thinking he was expected to speak, drew his blanket up
+closely about him and grunted, "How!"
+
+Pretty Pierre, the notorious half-breed, was then called.  He kissed the
+Book, making the sign of the Cross swiftly as he did so, and unheeding
+the ironical, if hesitating, laughter in the court.  Then he said:
+"'Bien,' I will tell you the story-the whole truth.  I was in the Stony
+Plains.  Little Hammer was 'good Injin' then.  .  .  .  Yes, sacre!  it
+is a fool who smiles at that.  I have kissed the Book.  Dam!  .  .  .  He
+would be chief soon when old Two Tails die.  He was proud, then, Little
+Hammer.  He go not to the Post for drink; he sell not next year's furs
+for this year's rations; he shoot straight."
+
+Here Little Hammer stood up and said: "There is too much talk.  Let me
+be.  It is all done.  The sun is set--I care not--I have killed him;"
+and then he drew his blanket about his face and sat down.
+
+But Pierre continued: "Yes, you killed him-quick, after five years--that
+is so; but you will not speak to say why.  Then, I will speak.  The
+Injins say Little Hammer will be great man; he will bring the tribes
+together; and all the time Little Hammer was strong and silent and wise.
+Then Brigley the trapper--well, he was a thief and coward.  He come to
+Little Hammer and say, 'I am hungry and tired.'  Little Hammer give him
+food and sleep.  He go away.  'Bien,' he come back and say,--'It is far
+to go; I have no horse.'  So Little Hammer give him a horse too.  Then he
+come back once again in the night when Little Hammer was away, and before
+morning he go; but when Little Hammer return, there lay his bride--only
+an Injin girl, but his bride-dead!  You see?  Eh?  No?  Well, the Captain
+at the Post he says it was the same as Lucrece.--I say it was like hell.
+It is not much to kill or to die--that is in the game; but that other,
+'mon Dieu!'  Little Hammer, you see how he hide his head: not because he
+kill the Tarquin, that Brigley, but because he is a poor 'vaurien' now,
+and he once was happy and had a wife.  .  .  .  What would you do, judge
+honourable?  .  .  .  Little Hammer, I shake your hand--so--How!"
+
+But Little Hammer made no reply.
+
+The judge sentenced Little Hammer to one month in gaol.  He might have
+made it one thousand months--it would have been the same; for when, on
+the last morning of that month, they opened the door to set him free, he
+was gone.  That is, the Little Hammer whom the high gods knew was gone;
+though an ill-nourished, self-strangled body was upright by the wall.
+The vagabond had paid his penalty, but desired no more of earth.
+
+Upon the door was scratched the one word: How!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON
+
+Between Archangel's Rise and Pardon's Drive there was but one house.  It
+was a tavern, and it was known as Galbraith's Place.  There was no man in
+the Western Territories to whom it was not familiar.  There was no
+traveller who crossed the lonely waste but was glad of it, and would go
+twenty miles out of his way to rest a night on a corn-husk bed which Jen
+Galbraith's hands had filled, to eat a meal that she had prepared, and to
+hear Peter Galbraith's tales of early days on the plains, when buffalo
+were like clouds on the horizon, when Indians were many and hostile, and
+when men called the great western prairie a wedge of the American desert.
+
+It was night on the prairie.  Jen Galbraith stood in the doorway of the
+tavern sitting-room and watched a mighty beacon of flame rising before
+her, a hundred yards away.  Every night this beacon made a circle of
+light on the prairie, and Galbraith's Place was in the centre of the
+circle.  Summer and winter it burned from dusk to daylight.  No hand fed
+it but that of Nature.  It never failed; it was a cruse that was never
+empty.  Upon Jen Galbraith it had a weird influence.  It grew to be to
+her a kind of spiritual companion, though, perhaps, she would not so have
+named it.  This flaming gas, bubbling up from the depths of the earth on
+the lonely plains, was to her a mysterious presence grateful to her; the
+receiver of her thoughts, the daily necessity in her life.  It filled her
+too with a kind of awe; for, when it burned, she seemed not herself
+alone, but another self of her whom she could not quite understand.  Yet
+she was no mere dreamer.  Upon her practical strength of body and mind
+had come that rugged poetical sense, which touches all who live the life
+of mountain and prairie.  She showed it in her speech; it had a measured
+cadence.  She expressed it in her body; it had a free and rhythmic
+movement.  And not Jen alone, but many another dweller on the prairie,
+looked upon it with a superstitious reverence akin to worship.  A
+blizzard could not quench it.  A gale of wind only fed its strength.  A
+rain-storm made a mist about it, in which it was enshrined like a god.
+Peter Galbraith could not fully understand his daughter's fascination for
+this Prairie Star, as the North-West people called it.  It was not
+without its natural influence upon him; but he regarded it most as a
+comfortable advertisement, and he lamented every day that this never-
+failing gas well was not near a large population, and he still its owner.
+He was one of that large family in the earth who would turn the best
+things in their lives into merchandise.  As it was, it brought much grist
+to his mill; for he was not averse to the exercise of the insinuating
+pleasures of euchre and poker in his tavern; and the hospitality which
+ranchmen, cowboys, and travellers sought at his hand was often prolonged,
+and also remunerative to him.
+
+Pretty Pierre, who had his patrol as gamester defined, made semi-annual
+visits to Galbraith's Place.  It occurred generally after the rounding-up
+and branding seasons, when the cowboys and ranchmen were "flush" with
+money.  It was generally conceded that Monsieur Pierre would have made an
+early excursion to a place where none is ever "ordered up," if he had not
+been free with the money which he so plentifully won.
+
+Card-playing was to him a science and a passion.  He loved to win for
+winning's sake.  After that, money, as he himself put it, was only fit
+to be spent for the good of the country, and that men should earn more.
+Since he put his philosophy into instant and generous practice, active
+and deadly prejudice against him did not have lengthened life.
+
+The Mounted Police, or as they are more poetically called, the Riders of
+the Plains, watched Galbraith's Place, not from any apprehension of
+violent events, but because Galbraith was suspected of infringing the
+prevailing law of Prohibition, and because for some years it had been a
+tradition and a custom to keep an eye on Pierre.
+
+As Jen Galbraith stood in the doorway looking abstractedly at the beacon,
+her fingers smoothing her snowy apron the while, she was thinking thus to
+herself: "Perhaps father is right.  If that Prairie Star were only at
+Vancouver or Winnipeg instead of here, our Val could be something, more
+than a prairie-rider.  He'd have been different, if father hadn't started
+this tavern business.  Not that our Val is bad.  He isn't; but if he had
+money he could buy a ranch,--or something."
+
+Our Val, as Jen and her father called him, was a lad of twenty-two, one
+year younger than Jen.  He was prairie-rider, cattle-dealer, scout,
+cowboy, happy-go-lucky vagrant,--a splendid Bohemian of the plains.  As
+Jen said, he was not bad; but he had a fiery, wandering spirit, touched
+withal by the sunniest humour.  He had never known any curb but Jen's
+love and care.  That had kept him within bounds so far.  All men of the
+prairie spoke well of him.  The great new lands have codes and standards
+of morals quite their own.  One enthusiastic admirer of this youth said,
+in Jen's hearing, "He's a Christian--Val Galbraith!"  That was the
+western way of announcing a man as having great civic and social virtues.
+Perhaps the respect for Val Galbraith was deepened by the fact that there
+was no broncho or cayuse that he could not tame to the saddle.
+
+Jen turned her face from the flame and looked away from the oasis of
+warmth it made, to where the light shaded away into darkness, a darkness
+that was unbroken for many a score of miles to the north and west.  She
+sighed deeply and drew herself up with an aggressive motion as though she
+was freeing herself of something.  So she was.  She was trying to shake
+off a feeling of oppression.  Ten minutes ago the gaslighted house behind
+her had seemed like a prison.  She felt that she must have air, space,
+and freedom.
+
+She would have liked a long ride on the buffalo-track.  That, she felt,
+would clear her mind.  She was no romantic creature out of her sphere, no
+exotic.  She was country-born and bred, and her blood had been charged by
+a prairie instinct passing through three generations.  She was part of
+this life.  Her mind was free and strong, and her body was free and
+healthy.  While that freedom and health was genial, it revolted against
+what was gross or irregular.  She loved horses and dogs, she liked to
+take a gun and ride away to the Poplar Hills in search of game, she found
+pleasure in visiting the Indian Reservation, and talking to Sun-in-the-
+North, the only good Indian chief she knew, or that anyone else on the
+prairies knew.  She loved all that was strong and untamed, all that was
+panting with wild and glowing life.  Splendidly developed, softly sinewy,
+warmly bountiful, yet without the least physical over-luxuriance or
+suggestiveness, Jen, with her tawny hair and dark-brown eyes, was a
+growth of unrestrained, unconventional, and eloquent life.  Like Nature
+around her, glowing and fresh, yet glowing and hardy.  There was,
+however, just a strain of pensiveness in her, partly owing to the fact
+that there were no women near her, that she had, virtually, lived her
+life as a woman alone.
+
+As she thus looked into the undefined horizon two things were happening:
+a traveller was approaching Galbraith's Place from a point in that
+horizon; and in the house behind her someone was singing.  The traveller
+sat erect upon his horse.  He had not the free and lazy seat of the
+ordinary prairie-rider.  It was a cavalry seat, and a military manner.
+He belonged to that handful of men who patrol a frontier of near a
+thousand miles, and are the security of peace in three hundred thousand
+miles of territory--the Riders of the Plains, the North-West Mounted
+Police.
+
+This Rider of the Plains was Sergeant Thomas Gellatly, familiarly known
+as Sergeant Tom.  Far away as he was he could see that a woman was
+standing in the tavern door.  He guessed who it was, and his blood
+quickened at the guessing.  But reining his horse on the furthest edge of
+the lighted circle, he said, debatingly: "I've little time enough to get
+to the Rise, and the order was to go through, hand the information to
+Inspector Jules, and be back within forty-eight hours.  Is it flesh and
+blood they think I am?  Me that's just come back from a journey of a
+hundred miles, and sent off again like this with but a taste of sleep and
+little food, and Corporal Byng sittin' there at Fort Desire with a pipe
+in his mouth and the fat on his back like a porpoise.  It's famished I am
+with hunger, and thirty miles yet to do; and she, standin' there with a
+six months' welcome in her eye. . .  .  It's in the interest of Justice
+if I halt at Galbraith's Place for half-an-hour, bedad!  The blackguard
+hid away there at Soldier's Knee will be arrested all the sooner; for
+horse and man will be able the better to travel.  I'm glad it's not me
+that has to take him whoever he is.  It's little I like leadin' a fellow-
+creature towards the gallows, or puttin' a bullet into him if he won't
+come.  .  .  .  Now what will we do, Larry, me boy?  "this to the
+broncho--"Go on without bite or sup, me achin' behind and empty before,
+and you laggin' in the legs, or stay here for the slice of an hour and
+get some heart into us?  Stay here is it, me boy?  then lave go me fut
+with your teeth and push on to the Prairie Star there."  So saying,
+Sergeant Tom, whose language in soliloquy, or when excited, was more
+marked by a brogue than at other times, rode away towards Galbraith's
+Place.
+
+In the tavern at that moment, Pretty Pierrre was sitting on the bar-
+counter, where temperance drinks were professedly sold, singing to
+himself.  His dress was singularly neat, if coarse, and his slouch hat
+was worn with an air of jauntiness according well with his slight make
+and almost girlish delicacy of complexion.  He was puffing a cigarette,
+in the breaks of the song.  Peter Galbraith, tall, gaunt, and sombre-
+looking, sat with his chair tilted back against the wall, rather
+nervously pulling at the strips of bark of which the yielding chair-seat
+was made.  He may or may not have been listening to the song which had
+run through several verses.  Where it had come from, no one knew; no one
+cared to know.  The number of its verses were legion.  Pierre had a sweet
+voice, of a peculiarly penetrating quality; still it was low and well-
+modulated, like the colour in his cheeks, which gave him his name.
+
+These were the words he was singing as Sergeant Tom rode towards the
+tavern:
+
+         "The hot blood leaps in his quivering breast
+               Voila!  'Tis his enemies near!
+          There's a chasm deep on the mountain crest
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
+          They follow him close and they follow him fast,
+               And he flies like a mountain deer;
+          Then a mad, wild leap and he's safe at last!
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
+          A cry and a leap and the danger's past
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"
+
+At the close of the verse, Galbraith said: "I don't like that song.  I--I
+don't like it.  You're not a father, Pierre."
+
+"No, I am not a father.  I have some virtue of that.  I have spared the
+world something, Pete Galbraith."
+
+"You have the Devil's luck; your sins never get YOU into trouble."
+
+A curious fire flashed in the half-breed's eyes, and he said, quietly:
+"Yes, I have great luck; but I have my little troubles at times--at
+times."
+
+"They're different, though, from this trouble of Val's."  There was
+something like a fog in the old man's throat.
+
+"Yes, Val was quite foolish, you see.  If he had killed a white man--
+Pretty Pierre, for instance--well, there would have been a show of
+arrest, but he could escape.  It was an Injin.  The Government cherish
+the Injin much in these days.  The redskin must be protected.  It must be
+shown that at Ottawa there is justice.  That is droll--quite.  Eh, bien!
+Val will not try to escape.  He waits too long-near twenty-four hours.
+Then, it is as you see.  .  .  .  You have not told her?"  He nodded
+towards the door of the sittingroom.
+
+"Nothing.  It'll come on Jen soon enough if he doesn't get away, and bad
+enough if he does, and can't come back to us.  She's fond of him--as fond
+of him as a mother.  Always was wiser than our Val or me, Jen was.  More
+sense than a judge, and proud but not too proud, Pierre--not too proud.
+She knows the right thing to do, like the Scriptures; and she does it
+too.  .  .  .  Where did you say he was hid?"
+
+"In the Hollow at Soldier's Knee.  He stayed too long at Moose Horn.
+Injins carried the news on to Fort Desire.  When Val started south for
+the Border other Injins followed, and when a halt was made at Soldier's
+Knee they pushed across country over to Fort Desire.  You see, Val's
+horse give out.  I rode with him so far.  My horse too was broke up.
+What was to be done?  Well, I knew a ranchman not far from Soldier's
+Knee.  I told Val to sleep, and I would go on and get the ranchman to
+send him a horse, while I come on to you.  Then he could push on to the
+Border.  I saw the ranchman, and he swore to send a horse to Val
+to-night.  He will keep his word.  He knows Val.  That was at noon to-
+day, and I am here, you see, and you know all.  The danger?  Ah, my
+friend,--the Police Barracks at Archangel's Rise!  If word is sent down
+there from Fort Desire before Val passes, they will have out a big
+patrol, and his chances,--well, you know them, the Riders of the Plains.
+But Val, I think will have luck, and get into Montana before they can
+stop him.  I hope; yes."
+
+"If I could do anything, Pierre!  Can't we--"
+
+The half-breed interrupted: "No, we can't do anything, Galbraith.  I have
+done all.  The ranchman knows me.  He will keep his word, by the Great
+Heaven!"  It would seem as if Pierre had reasons for relying on the
+ranchman other than ordinary prairie courtesy to law-breakers.
+
+"Pierre, tell me the whole story over, slow and plain.  It don't seem
+nateral to think of it; but if you go over it again, perhaps I can get
+the thing more reas'nable in my mind.  No, it ain't nateral to me,
+Pierre--our Val running away."  The old man leaned forward and put his
+elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
+
+"Eh, well, it was an Injin.  So much.  It was in self-defence--a little,
+but of course to prove that.  There is the difficulty.  You see, they
+were all drinking, and the Injin--he was a chief---proposed--he proposed
+that Val should sell him his sister, Jen Galbraith, to be the chief's
+squaw.  He would give him a cayuse.  Val's blood came up quick--quite
+quick.  You know Val.  He said between his teeth: 'Look out, Snow Devil,
+you Injin dog, or I'll have your heart.  Do you think a white girl is
+like a redskin woman, to be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to
+the squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?'  Then the Injin said an
+ugly word about Val's sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning....
+Yes, that is good to swear, Galbraith.  You are not the only one that
+curses the law in this world.  It is not Justice that fills the gaols,
+but Law."
+
+The old man rose and walked up and down the room in a shuffling kind of
+way.  His best days were done, the spring of his life was gone, and the
+step was that of a man who had little more of activity and force with
+which to turn the halting wheels of life.  His face was not altogether
+good, yet it was not evil.  There was a sinister droop to the eyelids, a
+suggestion of cruelty about the mouth; but there was more of good-nature
+and passive strength than either in the general expression.  One could
+see that some genial influence had dominated what was inherently cruel
+and sinister in him.  Still the sinister predisposition was there.
+
+"He can't never come here, Pierre, can he"? he asked, despairingly.
+
+"No, he can't come here, Galbraith.  And look: if the Riders of the
+Plains should stop here to-night, or to-morrow, you will be cool--cool,
+eh?"
+
+"Yes, I will be quite cool, Pierre."  Then he seemed to think of
+something else and looked up half-curiously, half-inquiringly at the
+half-breed.
+
+Pierre saw this.  He whistled quietly to himself for a little, and then
+called the old man over to where he sat.  Leaning slightly forward he
+made his reply to the look that had been bent upon him.  He touched
+Galbraith's breast lightly with his delicate fingers, and said: "I have
+not much love for the world, Pete Galbraith, and not much love for men
+and women altogether; they are fools--nearly all.  Some men--you know--
+treat me well.  They drink with me--much.  They would make life a hell
+for me if I was poor--shoot me, perhaps, quick!--if--if I didn't shoot
+first.  They would wipe me with their feet.  They would spoil Pretty
+Pierre."  This he said with a grim kind of humour and scorn, refined in
+its suppressed force.  Fastidious as he was in appearance, Pierre was not
+vain.  He had been created with a sense of refinement that reduced the
+grossness of his life; but he did not trade on it; he simply accepted it
+and lived it naturally after his kind.  He was not good at heart, and he
+never pretended to be so.  He continued: "No, I have not much love; but
+Val, well, I think of him some.  His tongue is straight; he makes no
+lies.  His heart is fire; his arms are strong; he has no fear.  He does
+not love Pierre; but he does not pretend to love him.  He does not think
+of me like the rest.  So much the more when his trouble comes I help him.
+I help him to the death if he needs me.  To make him my friend--that is
+good.  Eh?  Perhaps.  You see, Galbraith?"
+
+The old man nodded thoughtfully, and after a little pause said: "I have
+killed Injins myself;" and he made a motion of his head backward,
+suggestive of the past.
+
+With a shrug of his shoulders the other replied "Yes, so have I--
+sometimes.  But the government was different then, and there were no
+Riders of the Plains."  His white teeth showed menacingly under his
+slight moustache.  Then there was another pause.  Pierre was watching the
+other.
+
+"What's that you're doing, Galbraith?"
+
+"Rubbin' laudanum on my gums for this toothache.  Have to use it for
+nuralgy, too."
+
+Galbraith put the little vial back in his waistcoat pocket, and presently
+said: "What will you have to drink, Pretty Pierre?"  That was his way of
+showing gratitude.
+
+"I am reform.  I will take coffee, if Jen Galbraith will make some.  Too
+much broke glass inside is not good.  Yes."
+
+Galbraith went into the sitting-room to ask Jen to make the coffee.
+Pierre, still sitting on the bar-counter, sang to himself a verse of a
+rough-and-ready, satirical prairie ballad:
+
+    "The Riders of the Plains, my boys, are twenty thousand strong
+          Oh, Lordy, don't they make the prairies howl!
+     'Tis their lot to smile on virtue and to collar what is wrong,
+          And to intercept the happy flowin' bowl.
+
+     They've a notion, that in glory, when we wicked ones have chains
+          They will all be major-generals--and that!
+     They're a lovely band of pilgrims are the Riders of the Plains
+          Will some sinner please to pass around the hat?"
+
+As he reached the last two lines of the verse the door opened and
+Sergeant Tom entered.  Pretty Pierre did not stop singing.  His eyes
+simply grew a little brighter, his cheek flushed ever so slightly, and
+there was an increase of vigour in the closing notes.
+
+Sergeant Tom smiled a little grimly, then he nodded and said: "Been at it
+ever since, Pretty Pierre?  You were singing the same song on the same
+spot when I passed here six months ago."
+
+"Eh, Sergeant Tom, it is you?  What brings you so far from your straw-bed
+at Fort Desire?"  From underneath his hat-brim Pierre scanned the face of
+the trooper closely.
+
+"Business.  Not to smile on virtue, but to collar what is wrong.  I guess
+you ought to be ready by this time to go into quarters, Pierre.  You've
+had a long innings."
+
+"Not yet, Sergeant Tom, though I love the Irish, and your company would
+make me happy.  But I am so innocent, and the world--it cannot spare me
+yet.  But I think you come to smile on virtue, all the same, Sergeant
+Tom.  She is beautiful is Jen Galbraith.  Ah, that makes your eye bright
+--so!  You Riders of the Plains, you do two things at one time.  You make
+this hour someone happy, and that hour someone unhappy.  In one hand the
+soft glove of kindness, in the other, voila!  the cold glove of steel.
+We cannot all be great like that, Sergeant Tom."
+
+"Not great, but clever.  Voila, the Pretty Pierre!  In one hand he holds
+the soft paper, the pictures that deceive--kings, queens, and knaves; in
+the other, pictures in gold and silver--money won from the pockets of
+fools.  And so, as you say, 'bien,' and we each have our way, bedad!"
+
+Sergeant Tom noticed that the half-breed's eyes nearly closed, as if to
+hide the malevolence that was in them.  He would not have been surprised
+to see a pistol drawn.  But he was quite fearless, and if it was not his
+duty to provoke a difficulty, his fighting nature would not shrink from
+giving as good as he got.  Besides, so far as that nature permitted, he
+hated Pretty Pierre.  He knew the ruin that this gambler had caused here
+and there in the West, and he was glad that Fort Desire, at any rate,
+knew him less than it did formerly.
+
+Just then Peter Galbraith entered with the coffee, followed by Jen.  When
+the old man saw his visitor he stood still with sudden fear; but catching
+a warning look from the eye of the half-breed, he made an effort to be
+steady, and said: "Well, Jen, if it isn't Sergeant Tom!  And what brings
+you down here, Sergeant Tom?  After some scalawag that's broke the law?"
+
+Sergeant Tom had not noticed the blanched anxiety in the father's face;
+for his eyes were seeking those of the daughter.  He answered the
+question as he advanced towards Jen: "Yes and no, Galbraith; I'm only
+takin' orders to those who will be after some scalawag by daylight in
+the mornin', or before.  The hand of a traveller to you, Miss Jen."
+
+Her eyes replied to his in one language; her lips spoke another.  "And
+who is the law-breaker, Sergeant Tom"? she said, as she took his hand.
+
+Galbraith's eyes strained towards the soldier till the reply came:
+"And I don't know that; not wan o' me.  I'd ridden in to Fort Desire from
+another duty, a matter of a hundred miles, whin the major says to me,
+'There's murder been done at Moose Horn.  Take these orders down to
+Archangel's Rise, and deliver them and be back here within forty-eight
+hours.'  And here I am on the way, and, if I wasn't ready to drop for
+want of a bite and sup, I'd be movin' away from here to the south at this
+moment."
+
+Galbraith was trembling with excitement.  Pierre warned him by a look,
+and almost immediately afterward gave him a reassuring nod, as if an
+important and favourable idea had occurred to him.
+
+Jen, looking at the Sergeant's handsome face, said: "It's six months to a
+day since you were here, Sergeant Tom."
+
+"What an almanac you are, Miss!"
+
+Pretty Pierre sipping his coffee here interrupted musingly: "But her
+almanac is not always so reliable.  So I think.  When was I here last,
+Ma'm'selle?"
+
+With something like menace in her eyes Jen replied: "You were here six
+months ago to-day, when you won thirty dollars from our Val; and then
+again, just thirty days after that."
+
+"Ah, so!  You remember with a difference."
+
+A moment after, Sergeant Tom being occupied in talking to Jen, Pierre
+whispered to Peter Galbraith: "His horse--then the laudanum!"
+
+Galbraith was puzzled for a moment, but soon nodded significantly, and
+the sinister droop to his eyes became more marked.  He turned to the
+Sergeant and said, "Your horse must be fed as well as yourself, Sergeant
+Tom.  I'll look after the beast, and Jen will take care of you.  There's
+some fresh coffee, isn't there, Jen?"
+
+Jen nodded an affirmative.  Galbraith knew that the Sergeant would trust
+no one to feed his horse but himself, and the offer therefore was made
+with design.
+
+Sergeant Tom replied instantly: "No, I'll do it if someone will show me
+the grass pile."
+
+Pierre slipped quietly from the counter, and said, "I know the way,
+Galbraith.  I will show."
+
+Jen turned to the sitting-room, and Sergeant Tom moved to the tavern
+door, followed by Pierre, who, as he passed Galbraith, touched the old
+man's waistcoat pocket, and said: "Thirty drops in the coffee."
+
+Then he passed out, singing softly:
+
+         "And he sleepeth so well, and he sleepeth so long
+               The fight it was hard, my dear;
+          And his foes were many and swift and strong
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"
+
+There was danger ahead for Sergeant Thomas Gellatly.  Galbraith followed
+his daughter to the sitting-room.  She went to the kitchen and brought
+bread, and cold venison, and prairie fowl, and stewed dried apples--the
+stay and luxury of all rural Canadian homes.  The coffee-pot was then
+placed on the table.  Then the old man said: "Better give him some of
+that old cheese, Jen, hadn't you?  It's in the cellar."  He wanted to be
+rid of her for a few moments.  "S'pose I had," and Jen vanished.
+
+Now was Galbraith's chance.  He took the vial of laudanum from his
+pocket, and opened the coffee-pot.  It was half full.  This would not
+suit.  Someone else--Jen--might drink the coffee also!  Yet it had to be
+done.  Sergeant Tom should not go on.  Inspector Jules and his Riders of
+the Plains must not be put upon the track of Val.  Twelve hours would
+make all the difference.  Pour out a cup of coffee?--Yes, of course, that
+would do.  It was poured out quickly, and then thirty drops of laudanum
+were carefully counted into it.  Hark, they are coming back!--Just in
+time.  Sergeant Tom and Pierre enter from outside, and then Jen from the
+kitchen.  Galbraith is pouring another cup of coffee as they enter, and
+he says: "Just to be sociable I'm goin' to have a cup of coffee with you,
+Sergeant Tom.  How you Riders of the Plains get waited on hand and foot!"
+Did some warning flash through Sergeant Tom's mind or body, some mental.
+shock or some physical chill?  For he distinctly shivered, though he was
+not cold.  He seemed suddenly oppressed with a sense of danger.  But his
+eyes fell on Jen, and the hesitation, for which he did not then try to
+account, passed.  Jen, clear-faced and true, invited him to sit and eat,
+and he, starting half-abstractedly, responded to her "Draw nigh, Sergeant
+Tom," and sat down.  Commonplace as the words were, they thrilled him,
+for he thought of a table of his own in a home of his own, and the same
+words spoken everyday, but without the "Sergeant,"--simply "Tom."
+
+He ate heartily and sipped his coffee slowly, talking meanwhile to Jen
+and Galbraith.  Pretty Pierre watched them all.  Presently the gambler
+said: "Let us go and have our game of euchre, Galbraith.  Ma'm'selle can
+well take care of Sergeant Tom."
+
+Galbraith drank the rest of his coffee, rose, and passed with Pierre into
+the bar-room.  Then the halfbreed said to him, "You were careful--thirty
+drops?"
+
+"Yes, thirty drops."  The latent cruelty of the old man's nature was
+awake.
+
+"That is right.  It is sleep; not death.  He will sleep so sound for half
+a day, perhaps eighteen hours, and then!--Val will have a long start."
+
+In the sitting-room Sergeant Tom was saying: "Where is your brother, Miss
+Galbraith?"  He had no idea that the order in his pocket was for the
+arrest of that brother.  He merely asked the question to start the talk.
+
+He and Jen had met but five or six times; but the impression left on the
+minds of both was pleasant--ineradicable.  Yet, as Sergeant Tom often
+asked himself during the past six months, why should he think of her?
+The life he led was one of severe endurance, and harshness, and
+austerity.  Into it there could not possibly enter anything of home.  He
+was but a noncommissioned officer of the Mounted Police, and beyond that
+he had nothing.  Ireland had not been kind to him.  He had left her
+inhospitable shores, and after years of absence he had but a couple of
+hundred dollars laid up--enough to purchase his discharge and something
+over, but nothing with which to start a home.  Ranching required capital.
+No, it couldn't be thought of; and yet he had thought of it, try as he
+would not to do so.  And she?  There was that about this man who had
+lived life on two continents, in whose blood ran the warm and chivalrous
+Celtic fire, which appealed to her.  His physical manhood was noble, if
+rugged; his disposition genial and free, if schooled, but not entirely,
+to that reserve which his occupation made necessary--a reserve he would
+have been more careful to maintain, in speaking of his mission a short
+time back in the bar-room, if Jen had not been there.  She called out the
+frankest part of him; she opened the doors of his nature; she attracted
+confidence as the sun does the sunflower.
+
+To his question she replied: "I do not know where our Val is.  He went on
+a hunting expedition up north.  We never can tell about him, when he will
+turn up or where he will be to-morrow.  He may walk in any minute.  We
+never feel uneasy.  He always has such luck, and comes out safe and sound
+wherever he is.  Father says Val's a hustler, and that nothing can keep
+in the road with him.  But he's a little wild--a little.  Still, we don't
+hector him, Sergeant Tom; hectoring never does any good, does it?"
+
+"No, hectoring never does any good.  And as for the wildness, if the
+heart of him's right, why that's easy out of him whin he's older.  It's a
+fine lad I thought him, the time I saw him here.  It's his freedom I wish
+I had--me that has to travel all day and part of the night, and thin part
+of the day and all night back again, and thin a day of sleep and the same
+thing over again.  And that's the life of me, sayin' nothin' of the frost
+and the blizzards, and no home to go to, and no one to have a meal for me
+like this whin I turn up."  And the sergeant wound up with, "Whooroo!
+there's a speech for you, Miss!" and laughed good-humouredly.  For all
+that, there was in his eyes an appeal that went straight to Jen's heart.
+
+But, woman-like, she would not open the way for him to say anything more
+definite just yet.  She turned the subject.  And yet again, woman-like,
+she knew it would lead to the same conclusion:
+
+"You must go to-night?"
+
+"Yes, I must."
+
+"Nothing--nothing would keep you?"
+
+"Nothing.  Duty is duty, much as I'd like to stay, and you givin' me the
+bid.  But my orders were strict.  You don't know what discipline means,
+perhaps.  It means obeyin' commands if you die for it; and my commands
+were to take a letter to Inspector Jules at Archangel's Rise to-night.
+It's a matter of murder or the like, and duty must be done, and me that
+sleepy, not forgettin' your presence, as ever a man was and looked the
+world in the face."
+
+He drank the rest of the coffee and mechanically set the cup down, his
+eyes closing heavily as he did so.  He made an effort, however, and
+pulled himself together.  His eyes opened, and he looked at Jen steadily
+for a moment.  Then he leaned over and touched her hand gently with his
+fingers,--Pierre's glove of kindness,--and said: "It's in my heart to
+want to stay; but a sight of you I'll have on my way back.  But I must go
+on now, though I'm that drowsy I could lie down here and never stir
+again."
+
+Jen said to herself: "Poor fellow, poor fellow, how tired he is!  I
+wish"--but she withdrew her hand.  He put his hand to his head, and said,
+absently: "It's my duty and it's orders, and .  .  .  what was I sayin'?
+The disgrace of me if, if .  .  .  bedad!  the sleep's on me; I'm awake,
+but I can't open my eyes.  .  .  .  If the orders of me--and a good meal
+.  .  .  and the disgrace .  .  .  to do me duty-looked the world in the
+face--"
+
+During this speech he staggered to his feet, Jen watching him anxiously
+the while.  No suspicion of the cause of his trouble crossed her mind.
+She set it down to extreme natural exhaustion.  Presently feeling the
+sofa behind him, he dropped upon it, and, falling back, began to breathe
+heavily.  But even in this physical stupefaction he made an effort to
+reassert himself, to draw himself back from the coming unconsciousness.
+His eyes opened, but they were blind with sleep; and as if in a dream,
+he said: "My duty .  .  .  disgrace .  .  .  a long sleep .  .  .  Jen,
+dearest"--how she started then!--"it must be done .  .  .  my Jen!" and
+he said no more.
+
+But these few words had opened up a world for her--a new-created world on
+the instant.  Her life was illuminated.  She felt the fulness of a great
+thought suffusing her face.  A beautiful dream was upon her.  It had come
+to her out of his sleep.  But with its splendid advent there came the
+other thing that always is born with woman's love--an almost pathetic
+care of the being loved.  In the deep love of women the maternal and
+protective sense works in the parallels of mutual regard.  In her life
+now it sprang full-statured in action; love of him, care of him; his
+honour her honour; his life her life.  He must not sleep like this if it
+was his duty to go on.  Yet how utterly worn he must be!  She had seen
+men brought in from fighting prairie fires for three days without sleep;
+had watched them drop on their beds, and lie like logs for thirty-six
+hours.  This sleep of her lover was, therefore, not so strange to her.
+but it was perilous to the performance of his duty.
+
+"Poor Sergeant Tom," she said.  "Poor Tom," she added; and then, with a
+great flutter at the heart at last, "My Tom!"  Yes, she said that; but
+she said it to the beacon, to the Prairie Star, burning outside brighter,
+it seemed to her, than it had ever done be fore.  Then she sat down and
+watched him for many minutes, thinking at the end of each that she would
+wake him.  But the minutes passed, his breathing grew heavier, and he did
+not stir.  The Prairie Star made quivering and luminous curtains of red
+for the windows, and Jen's mind was quivering in vivid waves of feeling
+just the same.  It seemed to her as if she was looking at life now
+through an atmosphere charged with some rare, refining essence, and that
+in it she stood exultingly.  Perhaps she did not define it so; but that
+which we define she felt.  And happy are they who feel it, and, feeling
+it, do not lose it in this world, and have the hope of carrying it into
+the next.
+
+After a time she rose, went over to him and touched his shoulder.  It
+seemed strange to her to do this thing.  She drew back timidly from the
+pleasant shock of a new experience.  Then she remembered that he ought to
+be on his way, and she shook him gently, then, with all her strength, and
+called to him quietly all the time, as if her low tones ought to wake
+him, if nothing else could.  But he lay in a deep and stolid slumber.  It
+was no use.  She went to her seat and sat down to think.  As she did so,
+her father entered the room.
+
+"Did you call, Jen"? he said; and turned to the sofa.  "I was calling to
+Sergeant Tom.  He's asleep there; dead-gone, father.  I can't wake him."
+
+"Why should you wake him?  He is tired."
+
+The sinister lines in Galbraith's face had deepened greatly in the last
+hour.  He went over and looked closely at the Sergeant, followed
+languidly by Pierre, who casually touched the pulse of the sleeping man,
+and said as casually:
+
+"Eh, he sleep well; his pulse is like a baby; he was tired, much.
+He has had no sleep for one, two, three nights, perhaps; and a good meal,
+it makes him comfortable, and so you see!"
+
+Then he touched lightly the triple chevron on Sergeant Tom's arm, and
+said:
+
+"Eh, a man does much work for that.  And then, to be moral and the friend
+of the law all the time!"  Pierre here shrugged his shoulders.  "It is
+easier to be wicked and free, and spend when one is rich, and starve when
+one is poor, than to be a sergeant and wear the triple chevron.  But the
+sleep will do him good just the same, Jen Galbraith."
+
+"He said that he must go to Archangel's Rise tonight, and be back at Fort
+Desire to-morrow night."
+
+"Well, that's nothing to us, Jen," replied Galbraith, roughly.  "He's got
+his own business to look after.  He and his tribe are none too good to us
+and our tribe.  He'd have your old father up to-morrow for selling a
+tired traveller a glass of brandy; and worse than that, ay, a great sight
+worse than that, mind you, Jen."
+
+Jen did not notice, or, at least, did not heed, the excited emphasis on
+the last words.  She thought that perhaps her father had been set against
+the Sergeant by Pierre.
+
+"There, that'll do, father," she said.  "It's easy to bark at a dead
+lion.  Sergeant Tom's asleep, and you say things that you wouldn't say if
+he was awake.  He never did us any harm, and you know that's true,
+father."
+
+Galbraith was about to reply with anger; but he changed his mind and
+walked into the bar-room, followed by Pierre.
+
+In Jen's mind a scheme had been hurriedly and clearly formed; and with
+her, to form it was to put it into execution.  She went to Sergeant Tom,
+opened his coat, felt in the inside pocket, and drew forth an official
+envelope.  It was addressed to Inspector Jules at Archangel's Rise.  She
+put it back and buttoned up the coat again.  Then she said, with her
+hands firmly clenching at her side,--"I'll do it."
+
+She went into the adjoining room and got a quilt, which she threw over
+him, and a pillow, which she put under his head.  Then she took his cap
+and the cloak which he had thrown over a chair, as if to carry them away.
+But another thought occurred to her, for she looked towards the bar-room
+and put them down again.  She glanced out of the window and saw that her
+father and Pierre had gone to lessen the volume of gas which was feeding
+the flame.  This, she knew, meant that her father would go to bed when he
+came back to the house; and this suited her purpose.  She waited till
+they had entered the bar-room again, and then she went to them, and said:
+"I guess he's asleep for all night.  Best leave him where he is.  I'm
+going.  Good-night."
+
+When she got back to the sitting-room she said to herself: "How old
+father's looking!  He seems broken up to-day.  He isn't what he used to
+be."  She turned once more to look at Sergeant Tom, then she went to her
+room.
+
+A little later Peter Galbraith and Pretty Pierre went to the sitting-
+room, and the old man drew from the Sergeant's pocket the envelope which
+Jen had seen.  Pierre took it from him.  "No, Pete Galbraith.  Do not be
+a fool.  Suppose you steal that paper.  Sergeant Tom will miss it.  He
+will understand.  He will guess about the drug, then you will be in
+trouble.  Val will be safe now.  This Rider of the Plains will sleep long
+enough for that.  There, I put the paper back.  He sleeps like a log.  No
+one can suspect the drug, and it is all as we like.  No, we will not
+steal; that is wrong--quite wrong"--here Pretty Pierre showed his teeth.
+"We will go to bed.  Come!"
+
+Jen heard them ascend the stairs.  She waited a half-hour, then she stole
+into Val's bedroom, and when she emerged again she had a bundle of
+clothes across her arm.  A few minutes more and she walked into the
+sitting-room dressed in Val's clothes, and with her hair closely wound on
+the top of her head.
+
+The house was still.  The Prairie Star made the room light enough for her
+purpose.  She took Sergeant Tom's cap and cloak and put them on.  She
+drew the envelope from his pocket and put it in her bosom--she showed the
+woman there, though for the rest of this night she was to be a Rider of
+the Plains, She of the Triple Chevron.
+
+She went towards the door, hesitated, drew back, then paused, stooped
+down quickly, tenderly touched the soldier's brow with her lips, and
+said: "I'll do it for you.  You shall not be disgraced--Tom."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+This was at half-past ten o'clock.  At two o'clock a jaded and blown
+horse stood before the door of the barracks at Archangel's Rise.  Its
+rider, muffled to the chin, was knocking, and at the same time pulling
+his cap down closely over his head.  "Thank God the night is dusky," he
+said.  We have heard that voice before.  The hat and cloak are those of
+Sergeant Tom, but the voice is that of Jen Galbraith.  There is some
+danger in this act; danger for her lover, contempt for herself if she is
+discovered.  Presently the door opens and a corporal appears.  "Who's
+there?  Oh," he added, as he caught sight of the familiar uniform; "where
+from?"
+
+"From Fort Desire.  Important orders to Inspector Jules.  Require fresh
+horse to return with; must leave mine here.  Have to go back at once."
+
+"I say," said the corporal, taking the papers--"what's your name?"
+
+"Gellatly--Sergeant Gellatly."
+
+"Say, Sergeant Gellatly, this isn't accordin' to Hoyle--come in the night
+and go in the night and not stay long enough to have a swear at the
+Gover'ment.  Why, you're comin' in, aren't you?  You're comin' across the
+door-mat for a cup of coffee and a warm while the horse is gettin' ready,
+aren't you, Sergeant--Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly?  I've heard
+of you, but--yes; I will hurry.  Here, Waugh, this to Inspector Jules!
+If you won't step in and won't drink and will be unsociable, sergeant,
+why, come on and you shall have a horse as good as the one you've
+brought.  I'm Corporal Galna."
+
+Jen led the exhausted horse to the stables.  Fortunately there was no
+lantern used, and therefore little chance for the garrulous corporal to
+study the face of his companion, even if he wished to do so.  The risk
+was considerable; but Jen Galbraith was fired by that spirit of self-
+sacrifice which has held a world rocking to destruction on a balancing
+point of safety.
+
+The horse was quickly saddled, Jen meanwhile remaining silent.  While she
+was mounting, Corporal Galna drew and struck a match to light his pipe.
+He held it up for a moment as though to see the face of Sergeant
+Gellatly.  Jen had just given a good-night, and the horse the word and a
+touch of the spur at the instant.  Her face, that is, such of it as could
+be seen above the cloak and under the cap, was full in the light.  Enough
+was seen, however, to call forth, in addition to Corporal Galna's good-
+night, the exclamation," Well, I'm blowed!"
+
+As Jen vanished into the night a moment after, she heard a voice calling
+--not Corporal Galna's--"Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly!"  She
+supposed it was Inspector Jules, but she would not turn back now.  Her
+work was done.
+
+A half-hour later Corporal Galna confided to Private Waugh that Sergeant
+Gellatly was too damned pretty for the force--wondered if they called him
+Beauty at Fort Desire--couldn't call him Pretty Gellatly, for there was
+Pretty Pierre who had right of possession to that title--would like to
+ask him what soap he used for his complexion--'twasn't this yellow bar-
+soap of the barracks, which wouldn't lather, he'd bet his ultimate
+dollar.
+
+Waugh, who had sometime seen Sergeant Gellatly, entered into a
+disputation on the point.  He said that "Sergeant Tom was good-looking,
+a regular Irish thoroughbred; but he wasn't pretty, not much!--guessed
+Corporal Galna had nightmare, and finally, as the interest in the theme
+increased in fervour, announced that Sergeant Tom could loosen the teeth
+of, and knock the spots off, any man among the Riders, from Archangel's
+Rise to the Cypress Hills.  Pretty--not much--thoroughbred all over!"
+
+And Corporal Galna replied, sarcastically,--"That he might be able for
+spot dispersion of such a kind, but he had two as pretty spots on his
+cheek, and as white and touch-no-tobacco teeth as any female ever had."
+Private Waugh declared then that Corporal Galna would be saying Sergeant
+Gellatly wasn't a man at all, and wore earrings, and put his hair into
+papers; and when he could find no further enlargement of sarcasm,
+consigned the Corporal to a fiery place of future torment reserved
+for lunatics.
+
+At this critical juncture Waugh was ordered to proceed to Inspector
+Jules.  A few minutes after, he was riding away toward Soldier's Knee,
+with the Inspector and another private, to capture Val Galbraith, the
+slayer of Snow Devil, while four other troopers also started off in
+different directions.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It was six o'clock when Jen drew rein in the yard at Galbraith's Place.
+Through the dank humours of the darkest time of the night she had watched
+the first grey streaks of dawn appear.  She had caught her breath with
+fear at the thought that, by some accident, she might not get back before
+seven o'clock, the hour when her father rose.  She trembled also at the
+supposition of Sergeant Tom awaking and finding his papers gone.  But her
+fearfulness and excitement was not that of weakness, rather that of a
+finely nervous nature, having strong elements of imagination, and,
+therefore, great capacities for suffering as for joy; but yet elastic,
+vigorous, and possessing unusual powers of endurance.  Such natures
+rebuild as fast as they are exhausted.  In the devitalising time
+preceding the dawn she had felt a sudden faintness come over her for a
+moment; but her will surmounted it, and, when she saw the ruddy streaks
+of pink and red glorify the horizon, she felt a sudden exaltation of
+physical strength.  She was a child of the light, she loved the warm
+flame of the sun, the white gleam of the moon.  Holding in her horse to
+give him a five minutes' rest, she rose in her saddle and looked round.
+She was alone in her circle of vision, she and her horse.  The long
+hillocks of prairie rolled away like the sea to the flushed morning, and
+the far-off Cypress Hills broke the monotonous skyline of the south.
+Already the air was dissipated of its choking weight, and the vast
+solitude was filling with that sense of freedom which night seems to shut
+in as with four walls, and day to widen gloriously.  Tears sprang to her
+eyes from a sudden rush of feeling; but her lips were smiling.  The world
+was so different from what it was yesterday.  Something had quickened her
+into a glowing life.
+
+Then she urged the horse on, and never halted till she reached home.  She
+unsaddled the animal that had shared with her the hardship of the long,
+hard ride, hobbled it, and entered the house quickly.  No one was
+stirring.  Sergeant Tom was still asleep.  This she saw, as she hurriedly
+passed in and laid the cap and cloak where she had found them.  Then,
+once again, she touched the brow of the sleeper with her lips, and went
+to her room to divest herself of Val's clothes.  The thing had been done
+without anyone knowing of her absence.  But she was frightened as she
+looked into the mirror.  She was haggard, and her eyes were bloodshot.
+Eight hours or nearly in the saddle, at ten miles an hour, had told on
+her severely; as well it might.  Even a prairie-born woman, however,
+understands the art and use of grooming better than a man.  Warm water
+quickly heated at the gas, with a little acetic acid in it, used
+generally for her scouring,--and then cold water with oatmeal flour, took
+away in part the dulness and the lines in the flesh.  But the eyes!  Jen
+remembered the vial of tincture of myrrh left by a young Englishman a
+year ago, and used by him for refreshing his eyes after a drinking bout.
+She got it, tried the tincture, and saw and felt an immediate benefit.
+Then she made a cup of strong green tea, and in ten minutes was like
+herself again.  Now for the horse.  She went quickly out where she could
+not be seen from the windows of the house, and gave him a rubbing down
+till he was quite dry.  Then she gave him a little water and some feed.
+The horse was really the touchstone of discovery.  But Jen trusted in her
+star.  If the worst came she would tell the tale.  It must be told anyway
+to Sergeant Tom--but that was different now.  Even if the thing became
+known it would only be a thing to be teased about by her father and
+others, and she could stop that.  Poor girl, as though that was the worst
+that was to come from her act!
+
+Sergeant Tom slept deeply and soundly.  He had not stirred.  His
+breathing was unnaturally heavy, Jen thought, but, no suspicion of foul
+play came to her mind yet.  Why should it?  She gave herself up to a
+sweet and simple sense of pride in the deed she had done for him,
+disturbed but slightly by the chances of discovery, and the remembrance
+of the match that showed her face at Archangel's Rise.  Her hands touched
+the flaxen hair of the soldier, and her eyes grew luminous.  One night
+had stirred all her soul to its depths.  A new woman had been born in
+her.  Val was dear to her--her brother Val; but she realised now that
+another had come who would occupy a place that neither father, nor
+brother, nor any other could fill.  Yet it was a most weird set of tragic
+circumstances.  This man before her had been set to do a task which might
+deprive her brother of his life, certainly of his freedom; that would
+disgrace him; her father had done a great wrong too, had put in danger
+the life of the man she loved, to save his son; she herself in doing this
+deed for her lover had placed her brother in jeopardy, had crossed swords
+with her father's purposes, had done the one thing that stood between
+that father's son and safety; Pretty Pierre, whom she hated and despised,
+and thought to be the enemy of her brother and of her home, had proved
+himself a friend; and behind it all was the brother's crime committed to
+avenge an insult to her name.
+
+But such is life.  Men and women are unwittingly their own executioners,
+and the executioners of those they love.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+An hour passed, and then Galbraith and Pierre appeared.  Jen noticed that
+her father went over to Sergeant Tom and rather anxiously felt his pulse.
+Once in the night the old man had come down and done the same thing.
+Pierre said something in an undertone.  Did they think he was ill?  That
+was Jon's thought.  She watched them closely; but the half-breed knew
+that she was watching, and the two said nothing more to each other.  But
+Pierre said, in a careless way: "It is good he have that sleep.  He was
+played out, quite."
+
+Jon replied, a secret triumph at her heart: "But what about his orders,
+the papers he was to carry to Archangel's Rise?  What about his being
+back at Fort Desire in the time given him?"
+
+"It is not much matter about the papers.  The poor devil that Inspector
+Jules would arrest--well, he will get off, perhaps, but that does no one
+harm.  Eh, Galbraith?  The law is sometimes unkind.  And as for obeying
+orders, why, the prairie is wide, it is a hard ride, horses go wrong;
+--a little tale of trouble to Inspector Jules, another at Fort Desire,
+and who is to know except Pete Galbraith, Jen Galbraith, and Pierre?
+Poor Sergeant Tom.  It was good he sleep so."
+
+Jen felt there was irony behind the smooth words of the gambler.  He had
+a habit of saying things, as they express it in that country, between his
+teeth.  That signifies what is animal-like and cruel.  Galbraith stood
+silent during Pierre's remarks, but, when he had finished, said:
+
+"Yes, it's all right if he doesn't sleep too long; but there's the
+trouble--too long!"
+
+Pierre frowned a warning, and then added, with unconcern: "I remember
+when you sleep thirty hours, Galbraith--after the prairie fire, three
+years ago, eh!"
+
+"Well, that's so; that's so as you say it.  We'll let him sleep till
+noon, or longer--or longer, won't we, Pierre?"
+
+"Yes, till noon is good, or longer."
+
+"But he shall not sleep longer if I can wake him," said Jen.  "You do not
+think of the trouble all this sleeping may make for him."
+
+"But then--but then, there is the trouble he will make for others, if he
+wakes.  Think.  A poor devil trying to escape the law!"
+
+"But we have nothing to do with that, and justice is justice, Pierre."
+
+"Eh, well, perhaps, perhaps!"  Galbraith was silent.
+
+Jen felt that so far as Sergeant Tom's papers were concerned he was safe;
+but she felt also that by noon he ought to be on his way back to Fort
+Desire--after she had told him what she had done.  She was anxious for
+his honour.  That her lover shall appear well before the world, is a
+thing deep in the heart of every woman.  It is a pride for which she will
+deny herself, even of the presence of that lover.
+
+"Till noon," Jen said, "and then he must go."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Jen watched to see if her father or Pierre would notice that the horse
+was changed, had been travelled during the night, or that it was a
+different one altogether.  As the morning wore away she saw that they did
+not notice the fact.  This ignorance was perhaps owing largely to the
+appearance of several ranchmen from near the American border.  They spent
+their time in the bar-room, and when they left it was nearly noon.  Still
+Sergeant Tom slept.  Jen now went to him and tried to wake him.  She
+lifted him to a sitting position, but his head fell on her shoulder.
+Disheartened, she laid him down again.  But now at last an undefined
+suspicion began to take possession of her.  It made her uneasy; it filled
+her with a vague sense of alarm.  Was this sleep natural?  She remembered
+that, when her father and others had slept so long after the prairie
+fire, she had waked them once to give them drink and a little food, and
+they did not breathe so heavily as he was doing.  Yet what could be done?
+What was the matter?  There was not a doctor nearer than a hundred miles.
+She thought of bleeding,--the old-fashioned remedy still used on the
+prairies--but she decided to wait a little.  Somehow she felt that she
+would receive no help from her father or Pierre.  Had they anything to
+do with this sleep?  Was it connected with the papers?  No, not that, for
+they had not sought to take them, and had not made any remark about their
+being gone.  This showed their unconcern on that point.  She could not
+fathom the mystery, but the suspicion of something irregular deepened.
+Her father could have no reason for injuring Sergeant Tom; but Pretty
+Pierre--that was another matter.  Yet she remembered too that her father
+had appeared the more anxious of the two about the Sergeant's sleep.  She
+recalled that he said: "Yes, it's all right, if he doesn't sleep too
+long."
+
+But Pierre could play a part, she knew, and could involve others in
+trouble, and escape himself.  He was a man with a reputation for
+occasional wickednesses of a naked, decided type.  She knew that he was
+possessed of a devil, of a very reserved devil, but liable to bold action
+on occasions.  She knew that he valued the chances of life or death no
+more than he valued the thousand and one other chances of small
+importance, which occur in daily experience.  It was his creed that one
+doesn't go till the game is done and all the cards are played.  He had a
+stoic indifference to events.
+
+He might be capable of poisoning--poisoning! ah, that thought! of
+poisoning Sergeant Tom for some cause.  But her father?  The two seemed
+to act alike in the matter.  Could her father approve of any harm
+happening to Tom?  She thought of the meal he had eaten, of the coffee
+he had drunk.  The coffee-was that the key?  But she said to herself that
+she was foolish, that her love had made her so.  No, it could not be.
+
+But a fear grew upon her, strive as she would against it.  She waited
+silently and watched, and twice or thrice made ineffectual efforts to
+rouse him.  Her father came in once.  He showed anxiety; that was
+unmistakable, but was it the anxiety of guilt of any kind?  She said
+nothing.  At five o'clock matters abruptly came to a climax.  Jen was in
+the kitchen, but, hearing footsteps in the sitting-room, she opened the
+door quietly.  Her father was bending over Sergeant Tom, and Pierre was
+speaking: "No, no, Galbraith, it is all right.  You are a fool.  It could
+not kill him."
+
+"Kill him--kill him," she repeated gaspingly to herself.
+
+"You see he was exhausted; he may sleep for hours yet.  Yes, he is safe,
+I think."
+
+"But Jen, she suspects something, she--"
+
+"Hush!" said Pretty Pierre.  He saw her standing near.  She had glided
+forward and stood with flashing eyes turned, now upon the one, and now
+upon the other.  Finally they rested on Galbraith.
+
+"Tell me what you have done to him; what you and Pretty Pierre have done
+to him.  You have some secret.  I will know."  She leaned forward,
+something of the tigress in the poise of her body.  "I tell you, I will
+know."  Her voice was low, and vibrated with fierceness and
+determination.  Her eyes glowed, and her nostrils trembled with disdain
+and indignation.  As they drew back,--the old man sullenly, the gambler
+with a slight gesture of impatience,--she came a step nearer to them and
+waited, the cords of her shapely throat swelling with excitement.  A
+moment so, and then she said in a tone that suggested menace,
+determination:
+
+"You have poisoned him.  Tell me the truth.  Do you hear, father--the
+truth, or I will hate you.  I will make you repent it till you die."
+
+"But--" Pierre began.
+
+She interrupted him.  "Do not speak, Pretty Pierre.  You are a devil.
+You will lie.  Father--!"  She waited.  "What difference does it make to
+you, Jen?"  "What difference--what difference to me?  That you should be
+a murderer?"
+
+"But that is not so, that is a dream of yours, Ma'm'selle," said Pierre.
+
+She turned to her father again.  "Father, will you tell the truth to me?
+I warn you it will be better for you both."
+
+The old man's brow was sullen, and his lips were twitching nervously.
+"You care more for him than you do for your own flesh and blood, Jen.
+There's nothing to get mad about like that.  I'll tell you when he's
+gone.  .  .  .  Let's--let's wake him," he added, nervously.
+
+He stooped down and lifted the sleeping man to a sitting posture.  Pierre
+assisted him.
+
+Jen saw that the half-breed believed Sergeant Tom could be wakened, and
+her fear diminished slightly, if her indignation did not.  They lifted
+the soldier to his feet.  Pierre pressed the point of a pin deep into his
+arm.  Jen started forward, woman-like, to check the action, but drew
+back, for she saw heroic measures might be necessary to bring him to
+consciousness.  But, nevertheless, her anger broke bounds, and she said:
+"Cowards--cowards!  What spite made you do this?"
+
+"Damnation, Jen," said the father, "you'll hector me till I make you
+sorry.  What's this Irish policeman to you?  What's he beside your own
+flesh and blood, I say again."
+
+"Why does my own flesh and blood do such wicked tricks to an Irish
+soldier?  Why does it give poison to an Irish soldier?"
+
+"Poison, Jen?  You needn't speak so ghost-like.  It was only a dose of
+laudanum; not enough to kill him.  Ask Pierre."
+
+Inwardly she believed him, and said a Thank-God to herself, but to the
+half-breed she remarked: "Yes, ask Pierre--you are behind all this!
+It is some evil scheme of yours.  Why did you do it?  Tell the truth for
+once."  Her eyes swam angrily with Pierre's.
+
+Pierre was complacent; he admired her wild attacks.  He smiled, and
+replied: "My dear, it was a whim of mine; but you need not tell him, all
+the same, when he wakes.  You see this is your father's house, though the
+whim is mine.  But look: he is waking-the pin is good.  Some cold water,
+quick!"
+
+The cold water was brought and dashed into the face of the soldier.  He
+showed signs of returning consciousness.  The effect of the laudanum had
+been intensified by the thoroughly exhausted condition of the body.
+
+But the man was perfectly healthy, and this helped to resist the danger
+of a fatal result.
+
+Pierre kept up an intermittent speech.  "Yes, it was a mere whim of mine.
+Eh, he will think he has been an ass to sleep so long, and on duty, and
+orders to carry to Archangel's Rise!"  Here he showed his teeth again,
+white and regular like a dog's.  That was the impression they gave, his
+lips were so red, and the contrast was so great.  One almost expected to
+find that the roof of his mouth was black, like that of a well-bred
+hound; but there is no evidence available on the point.
+
+"There, that is good," he said.  "Now set him down, Pete Galbraith.
+Yes--so, so!  Sergeant Tom, ah, you will wake well, soon.  Now the eyes
+a little wider.  Good.  Eh, Sergeant Tom, what is the matter?  It is
+breakfast time--quite."
+
+Sergeant Tom's eyes opened slowly and looked dazedly before him for a
+minute.  Then they fell on Pierre.  At first there was no recognition,
+then they became consciously clearer.  "Pretty Pierre, you here in the
+barracks!" he said.  He put his hand to his head, then rubbed his eyes
+roughly and looked up again.  This time he saw Jen and her father.  His
+bewilderment increased.  Then he added: "What is the matter?  Have I been
+asleep?  What--!"  He remembered.  He staggered to his feet and felt his
+pockets quickly and anxiously for his letter.  It was gone.
+
+"The letter!" he said.  "My orders!  Who has robbed me?  Faith, I
+remember.  I could not keep awake after I drank the coffee.  My papers
+are gone, I tell you, Galbraith," he said, fiercely.
+
+Then he turned to Jen: "You are not in this, Jen.  Tell me."
+
+She was silent for a moment, then was about to answer, when he turned
+to the gambler and said: "You are at the bottom of this.  Give me my
+papers."  But Pierre and Galbraith were as dumbfounded as the Sergeant
+himself to know that the letter was gone.  They were stunned beyond
+speech when Jen said, flushing: "No, Sergeant Tom, I am the thief.  When
+I could not wake you, I took the letter from your pocket and carried it
+to Inspector Jules last night,--or, rather, Sergeant Gellatly carried
+them.  I wore his cap and cloak and passed for him."
+
+"You carried that letter to Inspector Jules last night, Jen"? said the
+soldier, all his heart in his voice.
+
+Jen saw her father blanch, his mouth open blankly, and his lips refuse to
+utter the words on them.  For the first time she comprehended some danger
+to him, to herself--to Val!
+
+"Father, father," she said,--" what is it?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders and rejoined: "Eh, the devil!  Such
+mistakes of women.  They are fools--all."  The old man put out a shaking
+hand and caught his daughter's arm.  His look was of mingled wonder and
+despair, as he said, in a gasping whisper, "You carried that letter to
+Archangel's Rise?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, faltering now; "Sergeant Tom had said how important
+it was, you remember.  That it was his duty to take it to Inspector
+Jules, and be back within forty-eight hours.  He fell asleep.  I could
+not wake him.  I thought, what if he were my brother--our Val.  So, when
+you and Pretty Pierre went to bed, I put on Val's clothes, took Sergeant
+Tom's cloak and hat, carried the orders to Jules, and was back here by
+six o'clock this morning."
+
+Sergeant Tom's eyes told his tale of gratitude.  He made a step towards
+her; but the old man, with a strange ferocity, motioned him back, saying,
+
+"Go away from this house.  Go quick.  Go now, I tell you, or by God,--
+I'll--"
+
+Here Pretty Pierre touched his arm.
+
+Sergeant Tom drew back, not because he feared but as if to get a mental
+perspective of the situation.  Galbraith again said to his daughter,--
+"Jen, you carried them papers?  You! for him--for the Law!"  Then he
+turned from her, and with hand clenched and teeth set spoke to the
+soldier: "Haven't you heard enough?  Curse you, why don't you go?"
+
+Sergeant Tom replied coolly: "Not so fast, Galbraith.  There's some
+mystery in all this.  There's my sleep to be accounted for yet.  You had
+some reason, some"--he caught the eyes of Pierre.  He paused.  A light
+began to dawn on his mind, and he looked at Jen, who stood rigidly pale,
+her eyes fixed fearfully, anxiously, upon him.  She too was beginning to
+frame in her mind a possible horror; the thing that had so changed her
+father, the cause for drugging the soldier.  There was a silence in which
+Pierre first, and then all, detected the sound of horses' hoofs.  Pierre
+went to the door and looked out.  He turned round again, and shrugged his
+shoulders with an expression of helplessness.  But as he saw Jen was
+about to speak, and Sergeant Tom to move towards the door, he put up his
+hand to stay them both, and said: "A little--wait!"
+
+Then all were silent.  Jen's fingers nervously clasped and unclasped, and
+her eyes were strained towards the door.  Sergeant Tom stood watching her
+pityingly; the old man's head was bowed.  The sound of galloping grew
+plainer.  It stopped.  An instant and then three horsemen appeared before
+the door.  One was Inspector Jules, one was Private Waugh, and the other
+between them was--let Jen tell who he was.  With an agonised cry she
+rushed from the house and threw herself against the saddle, and with her
+arms about the prisoner, cried: "Oh, Val, Val, it was you!  It was you
+they were after.  It was you that--oh no, no, no!  My poor Val, and I
+can't tell you--I can't tell you!"
+
+Great as was her grief and self-reproach, she felt it would be cruel to
+tell him the part she had taken in placing him in this position.  She
+hated herself, but why deepen his misery?  His face was pale, but it had
+its old, open, fearless look, which dissipation had not greatly marred.
+His eyelids quivered, but he smiled, and touching her with his steel-
+bound hands, gently said:
+
+"Never mind, Jen.  It isn't so bad.  You see it was this way: Snow Devil
+said something about someone that belonged to me, that cares more about
+me than I deserve.  Well, he died sudden, and I was there at the time.
+That's all.  I was trying with the help of Pretty Pierre to get out of
+the country"--and he waved his hand towards the half-breed.
+
+"With Pretty Pierre--Pierre"? she said.
+
+"Yes, he isn't all gambler.  But they were too quick for me, and here I
+am.  Jules is a hustler on the march.  But he said he'd stop here and let
+me see you and dad as we go up to Fort Desire, and--there, don't mind,
+Sis--don't mind it so!"
+
+Her sobs had ceased, but she clung to him as if she could never let him
+go.  Her father stood near her, all the lines in his face deepened into
+bitterness.  To him Val said: "Why, dad, what's the matter?  Your hand
+is shaky.  Don't you get this thing eatin' at your heart.
+
+"It isn't worth it.  That Injin would have died if you'd been in my place,
+I guess.  Between you and me, I expect to give Jules the slip before we
+get there."  And he laughed at the Inspector, who laughed a little
+austerely too, and in his heart wished that it was anyone else he had as
+a prisoner than Val Galbraith, who was a favourite with the Riders of the
+Plains.
+
+Sergeant Tom had been standing in the doorway regarding this scene, and
+working out in his mind the complications that had led to it.  At this
+point he came forward, and Inspector Jules said to him, after a curt
+salutation:
+
+"You were in a hurry last night, Sergeant Gellatly.  You don't seem so
+pushed for time now.  Usual thing.  When a man seems over-zealous--drink,
+cards, or women behind it.  But your taste is good, even if, under
+present circumstances"--He stopped, for he saw a threatening look in the
+eyes of the other, and that other said: "We won't discuss that matter,
+Inspector, if you please.  I'm going on to Fort Desire now.  I couldn't
+have seen you if I'd wanted to last night."
+
+"That's nonsense.  If you had waited one minute longer at the barracks
+you could have done so.  I called to you as you were leaving, but you
+didn't turn back."
+
+"No. I didn't hear you."
+
+All were listening to this conversation, and none more curiously than
+Private Waugh.  Many a time in days to come he pictured the scene for the
+benefit of his comrades.  Pretty Pierre, leaning against the hitching-
+post near the bar-room, said languidly:
+
+"But, Inspector, he speaks the truth--quite: that is a virtue of the
+Riders of the Plains."  Val had his eyes on the half-breed, and a look of
+understanding passed between them.  While Val and his father and sister
+were saying their farewells in few words, but with homely demonstrations,
+Sergeant Tom brought his horse round and mounted it.  Inspector Jules
+gave the word to move on.  As they started, Gellatly, who fell behind the
+others slightly, leaned down and whispered: "Forgive me, Jen.  You did
+a noble act for me, and the life of me would prove to you that I'm
+grateful.  It's sorry, sorry I am.  But I'll do what I can for Val,
+as sure as the heart's in me.  Good-bye, Jen."
+
+She looked up with a faint hope in her eyes.  "Goodbye!" she said.
+"I believe you .  .  .  Good-bye!"
+
+In a few minutes there was only a cloud of dust on the prairie to tell
+where the Law and its quarry were.  And of those left behind, one was a
+broken-spirited old man with sorrow melting away the sinister look in his
+face; one, a girl hovering between the tempest of bitterness and a storm
+of self-reproach; and one a half-breed gambler, who again sat on the bar-
+counter smoking a cigarette and singing to himself, as indolently as if
+he were not in the presence of a painful drama of life, perhaps a
+tragedy.  But was the song so pointless to the occasion, after all, and
+was the man so abstracted and indifferent as he seemed?  For thus the
+song ran:
+
+         "Oh, the bird in a cage and the bird on a tree
+               Voila! 'tis a different fear!
+          The maiden weeps and she bends the knee
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
+          But the bird in a cage has a friend in the tree,
+               And the maiden she dries her tear:
+          And the night is dark and no moon you see
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!
+          When the doors are open the bird is free
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+These words kept ringing in Jen's ears as she stood again in the doorway
+that night with her face turned to the beacon.  How different it seemed
+now!  When she saw it last night it was a cheerful spirit of light--a
+something suggesting comfort, companionship, aspiration, a friend to the
+traveller, and a mysterious, but delightful, association.  In the morning
+when she returned from that fortunate, yet most unfortunate, ride, it was
+still burning, but its warm flame was exhausted in the glow of the life-
+giving sun; the dream and delight of the night robbed of its glamour by
+the garish morning; like her own body, its task done, sinking before the
+unrelieved scrutiny of the day.  To-night it burned with a different
+radiance.  It came in fiery palpitations from the earth.  It made a sound
+that was now like the moan of pine trees, now like the rumble of far-off
+artillery.  The slight wind that blew spread the topmost crest of flame
+into strands of ruddy hair, and, looking at it, Jen saw herself rocked to
+and fro by tumultuous emotions, yet fuller of strength and larger of life
+than ever she had been.  Her hot veins beat with determination, with a
+love which she drove back by another, cherished now more than it had ever
+been, because danger threatened the boy to whom she had been as a mother.
+In twenty-four hours she had grown to the full stature of love and
+suffering.
+
+There were shadows that betrayed less roundness to her face; there were
+lines that told of weariness; but in her eyes there was a glowing light
+of hope.  She raised her face to the stars and unconsciously paraphrasing
+Pierre's song said: "Oh, the God that dost save us, hear!"
+
+A hand touched her arm, and a voice said, huskily, "Jen, I wanted to save
+him and--and not let you know of it; that's all.  You're not keepin' a
+grudge agin me, my girl?"
+
+She did not move nor turn her head.  "I've no grudge, father; but--if--
+if you had told me, 'twouldn't be on my mind that I had made it worse for
+Val."
+
+The kindness in the voice reassured him, and he ventured to say: "I
+didn't think you'd be carin' for one of the Riders of the Plains, Jen."
+
+Then the old man trembled lest she should resent his words.  She seemed
+about to do so, but the flush faded from her brow, and she said, simply:
+"I care for Val most, father.  But he didn't know he was getting Val into
+trouble."
+
+She suddenly quivered as a wave of emotion passed through her; and she
+said, with a sob in her voice: "Oh, it's all scrub country, father, and
+no paths, and--and I wish I had a mother!"
+
+The old man sat down in the doorway and bowed his grey head in his arms.
+Then, after a moment, he whispered:
+
+"She's been dead twenty-two years, Jen.  The day Val was born she went
+away.  I'd a-been a better man if she'd a-lived, Jen; and a better
+father."
+
+This was an unusual demonstration between these two.  She watched him
+sadly for a moment, and then, leaning over and touching him gently on the
+shoulder, said: "It's worse for you than it is for me, father.  Don't
+feel so bad.  Perhaps we shall save him yet."
+
+He caught a gleam of hope in her words: "Mebbe, Jen, mebbe!" and he
+raised his face to the light.
+
+This ritual of affection was crude and unadorned; but it was real.  They
+sat there for half-an-hour, silent.
+
+Then a figure came out of the shadows behind the house and stood before
+them.  It was Pierre.
+
+"I go to-morrow morning, Galbraith," he said.  The old man nodded, but
+did not reply.
+
+"I go to Fort Desire," the gambler added.
+
+Jen faced him.  "What do you go there for, Pretty Pierre?"
+
+"It is my whim.  Besides, there is Val.  He might want a horse some dark
+night."
+
+"Pierre, do you mean that?"
+
+"As much as Sergeant Tom means what he says.  Every man has his friends.
+Pretty Pierre has a fancy for Val Galbraith--a little.  It suits him to
+go to Fort Desire.  Jen Galbraith, you make a grand ride last night.  You
+do a bold thing--all for a man.  We shall see what he will do for you.
+And if he does nothing--ah! you can trust the tongue of Pretty Pierre.
+He will wish he could die, instead of--Eh, bien, good-night!"  He moved
+away.  Jen followed him.  She held out her hand.  It was the first time
+she had ever done so to this man.
+
+"I believe you," she said.  "I believe that you mean well to our Val.  I
+am sorry that I called you a devil."  He smiled.  "Ma'm'selle, that is
+nothing.  You spoke true.  But devils have their friends--and their
+whims.  So you see, good-night."
+
+"Mebbe it will come out all right, Jen--mebbe!" said the old man.
+
+But Jen did not reply.  She was thinking hard, her eyes upon the Prairie
+Star.  Living life to the hilt greatly illumines the outlook of the mind.
+She was beginning to understand that evil is not absolute, and that good
+is often an occasion more than a condition.
+
+There was a long silence again.  At last the old man rose to go and
+reduce the volume of flame for the night; but Jen stopped him.  "No,
+father, let it burn all it can to-night.  It's comforting."
+
+"Mebbe so--mebbe!" he said.
+
+A faint refrain came to them from within the house:
+
+              "When doors are open the bird is free
+               Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+It was a lovely morning.  The prairie billowed away endlessly to the
+south, and heaved away in vastness to the north; and the fresh, sharp air
+sent the blood beating through the veins.  In the bar-room some early
+traveller was talking to Peter Galbraith.  A wandering band of Indians
+was camped about a mile away, the only sign of humanity in the waste.
+Jen sat in the doorway culling dried apples.  Though tragedies occur in
+lives of the humble, they must still do the dull and ordinary task.  They
+cannot stop to cherish morbidness, to feed upon their sorrow; they must
+care for themselves and labour for others.  And well is it for them that
+it is so.
+
+The Indian camp brings unpleasant memories to Jen's mind.  She knows it
+belongs to old Sun-in-the-North, and that he will not come to see her
+now, nor could she, or would she, go to him.  Between her and that race
+there can never again be kindly communion.  And now she sees, for the
+first time, two horsemen riding slowly in the track from Fort Desire
+towards Galbraith's Place.  She notices that one sits upright, and one
+seems leaning forward on his horse's neck.  She shades her eyes with her
+hand, but she cannot distinguish who they are.  But she has seen men tied
+to their horses ride as that man is riding, when stricken with fever,
+bruised by falling timber, lacerated by a grizzly, wounded by a bullet,
+or crushed by a herd of buffaloes.  She remembered at that moment the
+time that a horse had struck Val with its forefeet, and torn the flesh
+from his chest, and how he had been brought home tied to a broncho's
+back.
+
+The thought of this drove her into the house, to have Val's bed prepared
+for the sufferer, whoever he was.  Almost unconsciously she put on the
+little table beside the bed a bunch of everlasting prairie flowers, and
+shaded the light to the point of quiet and comfort.
+
+Then she went outside again.  The travellers now were not far away.  She
+recognised the upright rider.  It was Pretty Pierre.  The other--she
+could not tell.  She called to her father.  She had a fear which she did
+not care to face alone.  "See, see, father," she said, "Pretty Pierre
+and--and can it be Val?"  For the moment she seemed unable to stir.  But
+the old man shook his head, and said: "No, Jen, it can't be.  It ain't
+Val."
+
+Then another thought possessed her.  Her lips trembled, and, throwing her
+head back as does a deer when it starts to shake off its pursuers by
+flight, she ran swiftly towards the riders.  The traveller standing
+beside Galbraith said: "That man is hurt, wounded probably.  I didn't
+expect to have a patient in the middle of the plains.  I'm a doctor.
+Perhaps I can be of use here?"  When a hundred yards away Jen recognised
+the recumbent rider.  A thousand thoughts flashed through her brain.
+What had happened?  Why was he dressed in civilian's clothes?  A moment,
+and she was at his horse's head.  Another, and her warm hand clasped the
+pale, moist, and wrinkled one which hung by the horse's neck.  His coat
+at the shoulder was stained with blood, and there was a handkerchief
+about his head.  This--this was Sergeant Tom Gellatly!
+
+She looked up at Pierre, an agony of inquiry in her eyes, and pointing
+mutely to the wounded man.  Pierre spoke with a tone of seriousness not
+common to his voice: "You see, Jen Galbraith, it was brave.  Sergeant Tom
+one day resigns the Mounted Police.  He leaves the Riders of the Plains.
+That is not easy to understand, for he is in much favour with the
+officers.  But he buys himself out, and there is the end of the Sergeant
+and his triple chevron.  That is one day.  That night, two men on a ferry
+are crossing the Saskatchewan at Fort Desire.  They are fired at from the
+shore behind.  One man is hit twice.  But they get across, cut the ferry
+loose, mount horses, and ride away together.  The man that was hit--yes,
+Sergeant Tom.  The other that was not hit was Val Galbraith."
+
+Jen gave a cry of mingled joy and pain, and said, with Tom Gellatly's
+cold hand clasped to her bosom: "Val, our Val, is free, is safe."
+
+"Yes, Val is free and safe-quite.  The Riders of the Plains could not
+cross the river.  It was too high.  And so Tom Gellatly and Val got away.
+Val rides straight for the American border, and the other rides here."
+They were now near the house, but Jen said, eagerly: "Go on.  Tell me
+all."
+
+"I knew what had happened soon, and I rode away, too, and last night I
+found Tom Gellatly lying beside his horse on the prairie.  I have brought
+him here to you.  You two are even now, Jen Galbraith."
+
+They were at the tavern door.  The traveller and Pierre lifted, down the
+wounded and unconscious man, and brought him and laid him on Val
+Galbraith's bed.
+
+The traveller examined the wounds in the shoulder and the head, and said:
+"The head is all right.  If I can get the bullet out of the shoulder
+he'll be safe enough--in time."
+
+The surgery was skilful but rude, for proper instruments were not at
+hand; and in a few hours he, whom we shall still call Sergeant Tom, lay
+quietly sleeping, the pallor gone from his face and the feeling of death
+from his hand.
+
+It was near midnight when he waked.  Jen was sitting beside him.  He
+looked round and saw her.  Her face was touched with the light that shone
+from the Prairie Star.  "Jen," he said, and held out his hand.
+
+She turned from the window and stood beside his bed.  She took his
+outstretched hand.  "You are better, Sergeant Tom"? she said, gently.
+
+"Yes, I'm better; but it's not Sergeant Tom I am any longer, Jen."
+
+"I forgot that."
+
+"I owed you a great debt, Jen.  I couldn't remain one of the Riders of
+the Plains and try to pay it.  I left them.  Then I tried to save Val,
+and I did.  I knew how to do it without getting anyone else into trouble.
+It is well to know the trick of a lock and the hour that guard is
+changed.  I had left, but I relieved guard that night just the same.
+It was a new man on watch.  It's only a minute I had; for the regular
+relief watch was almost at my heels.  I got Val out just in time.  They
+discovered us, and we had a run for it.  Pretty Pierre has told you.
+That's right.  Val is safe now--"
+
+In a low strained voice, interrupting him, she said, "Did Val leave you
+wounded so on the prairie?"
+
+"Don't let that ate at your heart.  No, he didn't.  I hurried him off,
+and he didn't know how bad I was hit.  But I--I've paid my debt, haven't
+I, Jen?"  With eyes that could not see for tears, she touched pityingly,
+lovingly, the wounds on his head and shoulder, and said: "These pay a
+greater debt than you ever owed me.  You risked your life for me--yes,
+for me.  You have given up everything to do it.  I can't pay you the
+great difference.  No, never!"
+
+"Yes--yes, you can, if you will, Jen.  It's as aisy!  If you'll say what
+I say, I'll give you quit of that difference, as you call it, forever and
+ever."
+
+"First, tell me.  Is Val quite, quite safe?"
+
+"Yes, he's safe over the border by this time; and to tell you the truth,
+the Riders of the Plains wouldn't be dyin' to arrest him again if he was
+in Canada, which he isn't.  It's little they wanted to fire at us,
+I know, when we were crossin' the river, but it had to be done, you see,
+and us within sight.  Will you say what I ask you, Jen?"
+
+She did not speak, but pressed his hand ever so slightly.
+
+"Tom Gellatly, I promise," he said.
+
+"Tom Gellatly, I promise--"
+
+"To give you as much--"
+
+"To give you as much--"
+
+"Love--"
+
+There was a pause, and then she falteringly said, "Love--"
+
+"As you give to me-"
+
+"As you give to me--"
+
+"And I'll take you poor as you are--"
+
+"And I'll take you poor as you are--"
+
+"To be my husband as long as you live--"
+
+"To be my husband as long as you live--"
+
+"So help me, God."
+
+"So help me, God."
+
+She stooped with dropping tears, and he kissed her once.  Then what was
+girl in her timidly drew back, while what was woman in her, and therefore
+maternal, yearned over the sufferer.
+
+They had not seen the figure of an old man at the door.  They did not
+hear him enter.  They only knew of Peter Galbraith's presence when he
+said: "Mebbe--mebbe I might say Amen!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE OUTLAWS
+
+The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. was violently in earnest.
+Before he piously followed the latest and most amply endowed batch of
+settlers, who had in turn preceded the new railway to the Fort, the word
+scandal had no place in the vocabulary of the citizens.  The H. B. C. had
+never imported it into the Chinook language, the common meeting-ground of
+all the tribes of the North; and the British men and native-born, who
+made the Fort their home, or place of sojourn, had never found need for
+its use.  Justice was so quickly distributed, men were so open in their
+conduct, good and bad, that none looked askance, nor put their actions in
+ambush, nor studied innuendo.  But this was not according to the new
+dispensation--that is, the dispensation which shrewdly followed the
+settlers, who as shrewdly preceded the railway.  And, the dispensation
+and the missionary were known also as the Reverend Ezra Badgley, who, on
+his own declaration, in times past had "a call" to preach, and in the far
+East had served as local preacher, then probationer, then went on
+circuit, and now was missionary in a district of which the choice did
+credit to his astuteness, and gave room for his piety and for his holy
+rage against the Philistines.  He loved a word for righteous mouthing,
+and in a moment of inspiration pagan and scandal came to him.  Upon these
+two words he stamped, through them he perspired mightily, and with them
+he clenched his stubby fingers--such fingers as dug trenches, or snatched
+lewdly at soft flesh, in days of barbarian battle.  To him all men were
+Pagans who loved not the sound of his voice, nor wrestled with him in
+prayer before the Lord, nor fed him with rich food, nor gave him much
+strong green tea to drink.  But these men were of opaque stuff, and were
+not dismayed, and they called him St. Anthony, and with a prophetic and
+deadly patience waited.  The time came when the missionary shook his
+denouncing finger mostly at Pretty Pierre, who carefully nursed his
+silent wrath until the occasion should arrive for a delicate revenge
+which hath its hour with every man, if, hating, he knows how to bide the
+will of Fate.
+
+The hour came.  A girl had been found dying on the roadside beyond the
+Fort by the drunken doctor of the place and Pierre.  Pierre was with her
+when she died.
+
+"An' who's to bury her, the poor colleen"? said Shon McGann afterwards.
+
+Pierre musingly replied: "She is a Protestant.  There is but one man."
+
+After many pertinent and vigorous remarks, Shon added, "A Pagan is it, he
+calls you, Pierre, you that's had the holy water on y'r forehead, and the
+cross on the water, and that knows the book o' the Mass like the cards in
+a pack?  Sinner y' are, and so are we all, God save us!  say I; and
+weavin' the stripes for our backs He may be, and little I'd think of Him
+failin' in that: but Pagan--faith, it's black should be the white of the
+eyes of that preachin' sneak, and a rattle of teeth in his throat--divils
+go round me!"
+
+The half-breed, still musing, replied: "An eye for an eye, and a tooth
+for a tooth--is that it, Shon?"  "Nivir a word truer by song or by book,
+and stand by the text, say I.  For Papist I am, and Papist are you; and
+the imps from below in y'r fingers whip poker is the game; and outlaws as
+they call us both--you for what it doesn't concern me, and I for a wild
+night in ould Donegal--but Pagan, wurra! whin shall it be, Pierre?"
+
+"When shall it to be?"
+
+"True for you.  The teeth in his throat and a lump to his eye, and what
+more be the will o' God.  Fightin' there'll be, av coorse; but by you
+I'll stand, and sorra inch will I give, if they'll do it with sticks or
+with guns, and not with the blisterin' tongue that's lied of me and me
+frinds--for frind I call you, Pierre, that loved me little in days gone
+by.  And proud I am not of you, nor you of me; but we've tasted the
+bitter of avil days together, and divils surround me, if I don't go down
+with you or come up with you, whichever it be!  For there's dirt, as I
+say on their tongues, and over their shoulder they look at you, and not
+with an eye full front."
+
+Pierre was cool, even pensive.  His lips parted slightly once or twice,
+and showed a row of white, malicious teeth.  For the rest, he looked as
+if he were politely interested but not moved by the excitement of the
+other.  He slowly rolled a cigarette and replied: "He says it is a
+scandal that I live at Fort Anne.  Well, I was here before he came, and I
+shall be here after he goes--yes.  A scandal--tsh!  what is that?  You
+know the word 'Raca' of the Book?  Well, there shall be more 'Raca; soon
+--perhaps.  No, there shall not be fighting as you think, Shon; but--"
+here Pierre rose, came over, and spread his fingers lightly on Shon's
+breast "but this thing is between this man and me, Shon McGann, and you
+shall see a great matter.  Perhaps there will be blood, perhaps not--
+perhaps only an end."  And the half-breed looked up at the Irishman from
+under his dark brows so covertly and meaningly that Shon saw visions of a
+trouble as silent as a plague, as resistless as a great flood.  This
+noiseless vengeance was not after his own heart.  He almost shivered as
+the delicate fingers drummed on his breast.
+
+"Angels begird me, Pretty Pierre, but it's little I'd like you for enemy
+o' mine; for I know that you'd wait for y'r foe with death in y'r hand,
+and pity far from y'r heart; and y'd smile as you pulled the black-cap on
+y'r head, and laugh as you drew the life out of him, God knows how!
+Arrah, give me, sez I, the crack of a stick, the bite of a gun, or the
+clip of a sabre's edge, with a shout in y'r mouth the while!"
+
+Though Pierre still listened lazily, there was a wicked fire in his eyes.
+His words now came from his teeth with cutting precision.  "I have a
+great thought tonight, Shon McGann.  I will tell you when we meet again.
+But, my friend, one must not be too rash--no, not too brutal.  Even the
+sabre should fall at the right time, and then swift and still.  Noise is
+not battle.  Well, 'au revoir!'  To-morrow I shall tell you many things."
+He caught Shon's hand quickly, as quickly dropped it, and went out
+indolently singing a favourite song,--"Voici le sabre de mon Pere!"
+
+It was dark.  Pretty Pierre stood still, and thought for a while.  At
+last he spoke aloud: "Well, I shall do it, now I have him--so!"  And he
+opened and shut his hand swiftly and firmly.  He moved on, avoiding the
+more habited parts of the place, and by a roundabout came to a house
+standing very close to the bank of the river.  He went softly to the door
+and listened.  Light shone through the curtain of a window.  He went to
+the window and looked beneath the curtain.  Then he came back to the
+door, opened it very gently, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.
+
+A man seated at a table, eating, rose; a man on whom greed had set its
+mark--greed of the flesh, greed of men's praise, greed of money.  His
+frame was thick-set, his body was heavily nourished, his eye was shifty
+but intelligent; and a close observer would have seen something elusive,
+something furtive and sinister, in his face.  His lips were greasy with
+meat as he stood up, and a fear sprang to his face, so that its fat
+looked sickly.  But he said hoarsely, and with an attempt at being brave
+--"How dare you enter my house with out knocking?  What do you want?"
+
+The half-breed waved a hand protestingly towards him.  "Pardon!" he
+said.  "Be seated, and finish your meal.  Do you know me?"
+
+"Yes, I know you."
+
+"Well, as I said, do not stop your meal.  I have come to speak with you
+very quietly about a scandal--a scandal, you understand.  This is Sunday
+night, a good time to talk of such things."  Pierre seated himself at the
+table, opposite the man.
+
+But the man replied: "I have nothing to say to you.  You are--"
+
+The half-breed interrupted: "Yes, I know, a Pagan fattening--" here he
+smiled, and looked at his thin hands--"fattening for the shambles of the
+damned, as you have said from the pulpit, Reverend Ezra Badgley.  But you
+will permit me--a sinner as you say--to speak to you like this while you
+sit down and eat.  I regret to disturb you, but you will sit, eh?"
+
+Pierre's tone was smooth and low, almost deferential, and his eyes, wide
+open now, and hot with some hidden purpose, were fixed compellingly on
+the man.  The missionary sat, and, having recovered slightly, fumbled
+with a knife and fork.  A napkin was still beneath his greasy chin.  He
+did not take it away.
+
+Pierre then spoke slowly: "Yes, it is a scandal concerning a sinner--and
+a Pagan.  .  .  .  Will you permit me to light a cigarette?  Thank you
+.  .  .  .  You have said many harsh things about me: well, as you see,
+I am amiable.  I lived at Fort Anne before you came.  They call me Pretty
+Pierre.  Why is my cheek so?  Because I drink no wine; I eat not much.
+Pardon, pork like that on your plate--no! no!  I do not take green tea
+as there in your cup; I do not love women, one or many.  Again, pardon,
+I say."
+
+The other drew his brows together with an attempt at pious frowning and
+indignation; but there was a cold, sneering smile now turned upon him,
+and it changed the frown to anxiety, and made his lips twitch, and the
+food he had eaten grow heavy within him.
+
+"I come to the scandal slowly.  The woman?  She was a young girl
+travelling from the far East, to search for a man who had--spoiled her.
+She was found by me and another.  Ah, you start so!  .  .  .  Will you
+not listen?  .  .  .  Well, she died to-night."
+
+Here the missionary gasped, and caught with both hands at the table.
+
+"But before she died she gave two things into my hands: a packet of
+letters--a man is a fool to write such letters--and a small bottle of
+poison--laudanum, old-fashioned but sure.  The letters were from the man
+at Fort Anne--the man, you hear!  The other was for her death, if he
+would not take her to his arms again.  Women are mad when they love.
+And so she came to Fort Anne, but not in time.  The scandal is great,
+because the man is holy--sit down!"
+
+The half-breed said the last two words sharply, but not loudly.  They
+both sat down slowly again, looking each other in the eyes.  Then Pierre
+drew from his pocket a small bottle and a packet of letters, and held
+them before him.  "I have this to say: there are citizens of Fort Anne
+who stand for justice more than law; who have no love for the ways of
+St.  Anthony.  There is a Pagan, too, an outlaw, who knows when it is
+time to give blow for blow with the holy man.  Well, we understand each
+other, 'hein?'"
+
+The elusive, sinister look in the missionary's face was etched in strong
+lines now.  A dogged sullenness hung about his lips.  He noticed that one
+hand only of Pretty Pierre was occupied with the relics of the dead girl;
+the other was free to act suddenly on a hip pocket.  "What do you want
+me to do"? he said, not whiningly, for beneath the selfish flesh and
+shallow outworks there were the elements of a warrior--all pulpy now,
+but they were there.
+
+"This," was the reply: "for you to make one more outlaw at Fort Anne by
+drinking what is in this bottle--sit down, quick, by God!"  He placed the
+bottle within reach of the other.  "Then you shall have these letters;
+and there is the fire.  After?  Well, you will have a great sleep, the
+good people will find you, they will bury you, weeping much, and no one
+knows here but me.  Refuse that, and there is the other, the Law--ah,
+the poor girl was so very young!--and the wild Justice which is sometimes
+quicker than Law.  Well? well?"
+
+The missionary sat as if paralysed, his face all grey, his eyes fixed on
+the half-breed.  "Are you man or devil"? he groaned at length.
+
+With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: "It was said that a
+devil entered into me at birth, but that was mere scandal--'peut-etre.'
+You shall think as you will."
+
+There was silence.  The sullenness about the missionary's lips became
+charged with a contempt more animal than human.  The Reverend Ezra
+Badgley knew that the man before him was absolute in his determination,
+and that the Pagans of Fort Anne would show him little mercy, while his
+flock would leave him to his fate.  He looked at the bottle.  The silence
+grew, so that the ticking of the watch in the missionary's pocket could
+be heard plainly, having for its background of sound the continuous swish
+of the river.  Pretty Pierre's eyes were never taken off the other, whose
+gaze, again, was fixed upon the bottle with a terrible fascination.  An
+hour, two hours, passed.  The fire burned lower.  It was midnight; and
+now the watch no longer ticked; it had fulfilled its day's work.  The
+missionary shuddered slightly at this.  He looked up to see the resolute
+gloom of the half-breed's eyes, and that sneering smile, fixed upon him
+still.  Then he turned once more to the bottle.  .  .  .  His heavy hand
+moved slowly towards it.  His stubby fingers perspired and showed sickly
+in the light.  .  .  .  They closed about the bottle.  Then suddenly he
+raised it, and drained it at a draught.  He sighed once heavily and as if
+a great inward pain was over.  Rising he took the letters silently pushed
+towards him, and dropped them into the fire.  He went to the window,
+raised it, and threw the bottle into the river.  The cork was left:
+Pierre pointed to it.  He took it up with a strange smile and thrust it
+into the coals.  Then he sat down by the table, leaning his arms upon it,
+his eyes staring painfully before him, and the forgotten napkin still
+about his neck.  Soon the eyes closed, and, with a moan on his lips, his
+head dropped forward on his arms.  .  .  .  Pierre rose, and, looking at
+the figure soon to be breathless as the baked meats about it, said:
+"'Bien,' he was not all coward.  No."
+
+Then he turned and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Delicate revenge which hath its hour with every man
+Good is often an occasion more than a condition
+He does not love Pierre; but he does not pretend to love him
+It is not Justice that fills the gaols, but Law
+It is not much to kill or to die--that is in the game
+Men and women are unwittingly their own executioners
+Noise is not battle
+She was beginning to understand that evil is not absolute
+The Government cherish the Injin much in these days
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 3.
+
+
+SHON MCGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE
+PERE CHAMPAGNE
+THE SCARLET HUNTER
+THE STONE
+
+
+
+
+SHON McGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE
+
+         "Oh, it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
+               With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men;
+          With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes,
+               And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen!
+
+          "And it's back with the ring of the chain and the spur,
+               And it's back with the sun on the hill and the moor,
+          And it's back is the thought sets my pulses astir!
+               But I'll never go back to Farcalladen more."
+
+
+Shon McGann was lying on a pile of buffalo robes in a mountain hut,--an
+Australian would call it a humpey,--singing thus to himself with his pipe
+between his teeth.  In the room, besides Shon, were Pretty Pierre, Jo
+Gordineer, the Hon. Just Trafford, called by his companions simply "The
+Honourable," and Prince Levis, the owner of the establishment.  Not that
+Monsieur Levis, the French Canadian, was really a Prince.  The name was
+given to him with a humorous cynicism peculiar to the Rockies.  We have
+little to do with Prince Levis here; but since he may appear elsewhere,
+this explanation is made.
+
+Jo Gordineer had been telling The Honourable about the ghost of Guidon
+Mountain, and Pretty Pierre was collaborating with their host in the
+preparation of what, in the presence of the Law--that is of the North-
+West Mounted Police--was called ginger-tea, in consideration of the
+prohibition statute.
+
+Shon McGann had been left to himself--an unusual thing; for everyone had
+a shot at Shon when opportunity occurred; and never a bull's-eye could
+they make on him.  His wit was like the shield of a certain personage of
+mythology.
+
+He had wandered on from verse to verse of the song with one eye on the
+collaborators and an ear open to The Honourable's polite exclamations of
+wonder.  Jo had, however, come to the end of his weird tale--for weird it
+certainly was, told at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in a
+region of vast solitudes--the pair of chemists were approaching "the
+supreme union of unctuous elements," as The Honourable put it, and in the
+silence that fell for a moment there crept the words of the singer:
+
+         "And it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
+               And it's swift as an arrow and straight as a spear--"
+
+Jo Gordineer interrupted.  "Say, Shon, when'll you be through that
+tobogan ride of yours?  Aint there any end to it?"
+
+But Shon was looking with both eyes now at the collaborators, and he sang
+softly on:
+
+         "And it's keen as the frost when the summer-time dies,
+               That we rode to the glen and with never a fear."
+
+Then he added: "The end's cut off, Joey, me boy; but what's a tobogan
+ride, annyway?"
+
+"Listen to that, Pierre.  I'll be eternally shivered if he knows what a
+tobogan ride is!"
+
+"Hot shivers it'll be for you, Joey, me boy, and no quinine over the bar
+aither," said Shon.
+
+"Tell him what a tobogan ride is, Pierre."
+
+And Pretty Pierre said: "Eh, well, I will tell you.  It is like-no, you
+have the word precise, Joseph.  Eh?  What?"
+
+Pierre then added something in French.  Shon did not understand it, but
+he saw The Honourable smile, so with a gentle kind of contempt he went on
+singing:
+
+         "And it's hey for the hedge, and it's hey for the wall!
+               And it's over the stream with an echoing cry;
+          And there's three fled for ever from old Donegal,
+               And there's two that have shown how bold Irishmen die."
+
+The Honourable then said, "What is that all about, Shon?  I never heard
+the song before."
+
+"No more you did.  And I wish I could see the lad that wrote that song,
+livin' or dead.  If one of ye's will tell me about your tobogan rides,
+I'll unfold about Farcalladen Rise."
+
+Prince Levis passed the liquor.  Pretty Pierre, seated on a candle-box,
+with a glass in his delicate fingers, said: "Eh, well, the Honourable has
+much language.  He can speak, precise--this would be better with a little
+lemon, just a little,--the Honourable, he, perhaps, will tell.  Eh?"
+
+Pretty Pierre was showing his white teeth.  At this stage in his career,
+he did not love the Honourable.  The Honourable understood that, but he
+made clear to Shon's mind what toboganing is.
+
+And Shon, on his part, with fresh and hearty voice, touched here and
+there by a plaintive modulation, told about that ride on Farcalladen
+Rise; a tale of broken laws, and fight and fighting, and death and exile;
+and never a word of hatred in it all.
+
+"And the writer of the song, who was he"? asked the Honourable.
+
+"A gentleman after God's own heart.  Heaven rest his soul, if he's dead,
+which I'm thinkin' is so, and give him the luck of the world if he's
+livin', say I.  But it's little I know what's come to him.  In the heart
+of Australia I saw him last; and mates we were together after gold.  And
+little gold did we get but what was in the heart of him.  And we parted
+one day, I carryin' the song that he wrote for me of Farcalladen Rise,
+and the memory of him; and him givin' me the word,'I'll not forget you,
+Shon, me boy, whatever comes; remember that.  And a short pull of the
+Three-Star together for the partin' salute,' says he.  And the Three-Star
+in one sup each we took, as solemn as the Mass, and he went away towards
+Cloncurry and I to the coast; and that's the last that I saw of him, now
+three years gone.  And here I am, and I wish I was with him wherever he
+is."
+
+"What was his name"? said the Honourable.
+
+"Lawless."
+
+The fingers of the Honourable trembled on his cigar.  "Very interesting,
+Shon," he said, as he rose, puffing hard till his face was in a cloud of
+smoke.  "You had many adventures together, I suppose," he continued.
+
+"Adventures we had and sufferin' bewhiles, and fun, too, to the neck and
+flowin' over."
+
+"You'll spin us a long yarn about them another night, Shon"? said the
+Honourable.
+
+"I'll do it now--a yarn as long as the lies of the Government; and proud
+of the chance."
+
+"Not to-night, Shon" (there was a kind of huskiness in the voice of the
+Honourable); "it's time to turn in.  We've a long tramp over the glacier
+to-morrow, and we must start at sunrise."
+
+The Honourable was in command of the party, though Jo Gordineer was the
+guide, and all were, for the moment, miners, making for the little Goshen
+Field over in Pipi Valley.--At least Pretty Pierre said he was a miner.
+
+No one thought of disputing the authority of the Honourable, and they all
+rose.
+
+In a few minutes there was silence in the hut, save for the oracular
+breathing of Prince Levis and the sparks from the fire.  But the
+Honourable did not sleep well; he lay and watched the fire through most
+of the night.
+
+The day was clear, glowing, decisive.  Not a cloud in the curve of azure,
+not a shiver of wind down the canon, not a frown in Nature, if we except
+the lowering shadows from the shoulders of the giants of the range.
+Crowning the shadows was a splendid helmet of light, rich with the dyes
+of the morning; the pines were touched with a brilliant if austere
+warmth.  The pride of lofty lineage and severe isolation was regnant over
+all.  And up through the splendour, and the shadows, and the loneliness,
+and the austere warmth, must our travellers go.  Must go?  Scarcely that,
+but the Honourable had made up his mind to cross the glacier and none
+sought to dissuade him from his choice; the more so, because there was
+something of danger in the business.  Pretty Pierre had merely shrugged
+his shoulders at the suggestion, and had said:
+
+"'Nom de Dieu,' the higher we go the faster we live, that is something."
+
+"Sometimes we live ourselves to death too quickly.  In my schooldays I
+watched a mouse in a jar of oxygen do that;" said the Honourable.
+
+"That is the best way to die," remarked the halfbreed--"much."
+
+Jo Gordineer had been over the path before.  He was confident of the way,
+and proud of his office of guide.
+
+"Climb Mont Blanc, if you will," said the Honourable, "but leave me these
+white bastions of the Selkirks."
+
+Even so.  They have not seen the snowy hills of God who have yet to look
+upon the Rocky Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely grave.
+
+Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on together.  They being well away
+from the other two, the Honourable turned and said to Shon: "What was the
+name of the man who wrote that song of yours, again, Shon?"
+
+"Lawless."
+
+"Yes, but his first name?"
+
+"Duke--Duke Lawless."
+
+There was a pause, in which the other seemed to be intently studying the
+glacier above them.  Then he said: "What was he like?--in appearance, I
+mean."
+
+"A trifle more than your six feet, about your colour of hair and eyes,
+and with a trick of smilin' that would melt the heart of an exciseman,
+and O'Connell's own at a joke, barrin' a time or two that he got hold of
+a pile of papers from the ould country.  By the grave of St. Shon!  thin
+he was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting paper.  And he said at last,
+before he was aisy and free again, 'Shon,' says he, 'it's better to burn
+your ships behind ye, isn't it?'
+
+"And I, havin' thought of a glen in ould Ireland that I'll never see
+again, nor any that's in it, said: 'Not, only burn them to the water's
+edge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul that they never lived but
+in the dreams of the night.'
+
+"'You're right there, Shon,' says he, and after that no luck was bad
+enough to cloud the gay heart of him, and bad enough it was sometimes."
+
+"And why do you fear that he is not alive?"
+
+"Because I met an old mate of mine one day on the Frazer, and he said
+that Lawless had never come to Cloncurry; and a hard, hard road it was to
+travel."
+
+Jo Gordineer was calling to them, and there the conversation ended.
+In a few minutes the four stood on the edge of the glacier.  Each man had
+a long hickory stick which served as alpenstock, a bag hung at his side,
+and tied to his back was his gold-pan, the hollow side in, of course.
+Shon's was tied a little lower down than the others.
+
+They passed up this solid river of ice, this giant power at endless
+strife with the high hills, up towards its head.  The Honourable was the
+first to reach the point of vantage, and to look down upon the vast and
+wandering fissures, the frigid bulwarks, the great fortresses of ice, the
+ceaseless snows, the aisles of this mountain sanctuary through which
+Nature's splendid anthems rolled.  Shon was a short distance below, with
+his hand over his eyes, sweeping the semi-circle of glory.
+
+Suddenly there was a sharp cry from Pierre: "Mon Dieu!  Look!"
+
+Shon McGann had fallen on a smooth pavement of ice.  The gold-pan was
+beneath him, and down the glacier he was whirled-whirled, for Shon had
+thrust his heels in the snow and ice, and the gold-pan performed a series
+of circles as it sped down the incline.  His fingers clutched the ice and
+snow, but they only left a red mark of blood behind.  Must he go the
+whole course of that frozen slide, plump into the wild depths below?
+
+"'Mon Dieu!--mon Dieu!'"  said Pretty Pierre, piteously.  The face of the
+Honourable was set and tense.
+
+Jo Gordineer's hand clutched his throat as if he choked.  Still Shon
+sped.  It was a matter of seconds only.  The tragedy crowded to the awful
+end.
+
+But, no.
+
+There was a tilt in the glacier, and the gold-pan, suddenly swirling,
+again swung to the outer edge, and shot over.
+
+As if hurled from a catapult, the Irishman was ejected from the white
+monster's back.  He fell on a wide shelf of ice, covered with light snow,
+through which he was tunnelled, and dropped on another ledge below, near
+the path by which he and his companions had ascended.  "Shied from the
+finish, by God!" said Jo Gordineer.  "'Le pauvre Shon!'"  added Pretty
+Pierre.
+
+The Honourable was making his way down, his brain haunted by the words,
+"He'll never go back to Farcalladen more."
+
+But Jo was right.
+
+For Shon McGann was alive.  He lay breathless, helpless, for a moment;
+then he sat up and scanned his lacerated fingers: he looked up the path
+by which he had come; he looked down the path he seemed destined to go;
+he started to scratch his head, but paused in the act, by reason of his
+fingers.
+
+Then he said: "It's my mother wouldn't know me from a can of cold meat
+if I hadn't stopped at this station; but wurrawurra, what a car it was to
+come in!"  He examined his tattered clothes and bare elbows; then he
+unbuckled the gold-pan, and no easy task was it with his ragged fingers.
+"'Twas not for deep minin' I brought ye," he said to the pan, "nor for
+scrapin' the clothes from me back."
+
+Just then the Honourable came up.  "Shon, my man .  .  .  alive, thank
+God!  How is it with you?"
+
+"I'm hardly worth the lookin' at.  I wouldn't turn my back to ye for a
+ransom."
+
+"It's enough that you're here at all."
+
+"Ah, 'voila!'  this Irishman!" said Pretty Pierre, as his light fingers
+touched Shon's bruised arm gently.  This from Pretty Pierre!
+
+There was that in the voice which went to Shon's heart.  Who could have
+guessed that this outlaw of the North would ever show a sign of sympathy
+or friendship for anybody?  But it goes to prove that you can never be
+exact in your estimate of character.  Jo Gordineer only said jestingly:
+"Say, now, what are you doing, Shon, bringing us down here, when we might
+be well into the Valley by this time?"
+
+"That in your face and the hair aff your head," said Shon; "it's little
+you know a tobogan ride when you see one.  I'll take my share of the
+grog, by the same token."
+
+The Honourable uncorked his flask.  Shon threw back his head with a
+laugh.
+
+         "For it's rest when the gallop is over, me men!
+          And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last;
+          And it's here's--"
+
+But Shon had fainted with the flask in his hand and this snatch of a song
+on his lips.
+
+They reached shelter that night.  Had it not been for the accident, they
+would have got to their destination in the Valley; but here they were
+twelve miles from it.  Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate may be
+seen later.  Comfortably bestowed in this mountain tavern, after they had
+toasted and eaten their venison and lit their pipes, they drew about the
+fire.
+
+Besides the four, there was a figure that lay sleeping in a corner on a
+pile of pine branches, wrapped in a bearskin robe.  Whoever it was slept
+soundly.
+
+"And what was it like--the gold-pan flyer--the tobogan ride, Shon?"
+remarked Jo Gordineer.
+
+"What was it like?--what was it like"? replied Shon.  "Sure, I couldn't
+see what it was like for the stars that were hittin' me in the eyes.
+There wasn't any world at all.  I was ridin' on a streak of lightnin',
+and nivir a rubber for the wheels; and my fingers makin' stripes of blood
+on the snow; and now the stars that were hittin' me were white, and thin
+they were red, and sometimes blue--"
+
+"The Stars and Stripes," inconsiderately remarked Jo Gordineer.
+
+"And there wasn't any beginning to things, nor any end of them; and whin
+I struck the snow and cut down the core of it like a cat through a glass,
+I was willin' to say with the Prophet of Ireland--"
+
+"Are you going to pass the liniment, Pretty Pierre?"  It was Jo Gordineer
+said that.
+
+What the Prophet of Israel did say--Israel and Ireland were identical to
+Shon--was never told.
+
+Shon's bubbling sarcasm was full-stopped by the beneficent savour that,
+rising now from the hands of the four, silenced all irrelevant speech.
+It was a function of importance.  It was not simply necessary to say How!
+or Here's reformation! or I look towards you!  As if by a common
+instinct, the Honourable, Jo Gordineer, and Pretty Pierre, turned towards
+Shon and lifted their glasses.  Jo Gordineer was going to say: "Here's a
+safe foot in the stirrups to you," but he changed his mind and drank in
+silence.
+
+Shon's eye had been blazing with fun, but it took on, all at once, a
+misty twinkle.  None of them had quite bargained for this.  The feeling
+had come like a wave of soft lightning, and had passed through them.  Did
+it come from the Irishman himself?  Was it his own nature acting through
+those who called him "partner"?
+
+Pretty Pierre got up and kicked savagely at the wood in the big
+fireplace.  He ostentatiously and needlessly put another log of Norfolk-
+pine upon the fire.
+
+The Honourable gaily suggested a song.
+
+"Sing us 'Avec les Braves Sauvages,' Pierre," said Jo Gordineer.
+
+But Pierre waved his fingers towards Shon: "Shon, his song--he did not
+finish--on the glacier.  It is good we hear all.  'Hein?'"
+
+And so Shon sang:
+
+         "Oh it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise."
+
+The sleeper on the pine branches stirred nervously, as if the song were
+coming through a dream to him.  At the third verse he started up, and an
+eager, sun-burned face peered from the half-darkness at the singer.  The
+Honourable was sitting in the shadow, with his back to the new actor in
+the scene.
+
+         "For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men I
+          And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last!
+          And it's here's--"
+
+Shon paused.  One of those strange lapses of memory came to him which
+come at times to most of us concerning familiar things.  He could get no
+further than he did on the mountain side.  He passed his hand over his
+forehead, stupidly:--"Saints forgive me; but it's gone from me, and sorra
+the one can I get it; me that had it by heart, and the lad that wrote it
+far away.  Death in the world, but I'll try it again!
+
+         "For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men!
+          And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last!
+          And it's here's--"
+
+Again he paused.
+
+But from the half-darkness there came a voice, a clear baritone:
+
+         "And here's to the lasses we leave in the glen,
+          With a smile for the future, a sigh for the past."
+
+At the last words the figure strode down into the firelight.
+
+"Shon, old friend, don't you know me?"
+
+Shon had started to his feet at the first note of the voice, and stood as
+if spellbound.
+
+There was no shaking of hands.  Both men held each other hard by the
+shoulders, and stood so for a moment looking steadily eye to eye.
+
+Then Shon said: "Duke Lawless, there's parallels of latitude and
+parallels of longitude, but who knows the tomb of ould Brian Borhoime?"
+
+Which was his way of saying, "How come you here"? Duke Lawless turned to
+the others before he replied.  His eyes fell on the Honourable.  With a
+start and a step backward, and with a peculiar angry dryness in his
+voice, he said:
+
+"Just Trafford!"
+
+"Yes," replied the Honourable, smiling, "I have found you."
+
+"Found me!  And why have you sought me?  Me, Duke Lawless?  I should have
+thought--"
+
+The Honourable interrupted: "To tell you that you are Sir Duke Lawless."
+
+"That?  You sought me to tell me that?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You are sure?  And for naught else?"
+
+"As I live, Duke."
+
+The eyes fixed on the Honourable were searching.  Sir Duke hesitated,
+then held out his hand.  In a swift but cordial silence it was taken.
+Nothing more could be said then.  It is only in plays where gentlemen
+freely discuss family affairs before a curious public.  Pretty Pierre was
+busy with a decoction.  Jo Gordineer was his associate.  Shon had drawn
+back, and was apparently examining the indentations on his gold-pan.
+
+"Shon, old fellow, come here," said Sir Duke Lawless.
+
+But Shon had received a shock.  "It's little I knew Sir Duke Lawless--"
+he said.
+
+"It's little you needed to know then, or need to know now, Shon, my
+friend.  I'm Duke Lawless to you here and henceforth, as ever I was then,
+on the wallaby track."
+
+And Shon believed him.  The glasses were ready.
+
+"I'll give the toast," said the Honourable with a gentle gravity.  "To
+Shon McGann and his Tobogan Ride!"
+
+"I'll drink to the first half of it with all my heart," said Sir Duke.
+"It's all I know about."
+
+"Amen to that divorce," rejoined Shon.
+
+"But were it not for the Tobogan Ride we shouldn't have stopped here,"
+said the Honourable; "and where would this meeting have been?"
+
+"That alters the case," Sir Duke remarked.  "I take back the 'Amen,'"
+said Shon.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Whatever claims Shon had upon the companionship of Sir Duke Lawless,
+he knew there were other claims that were more pressing.  After the toast
+was finished, with an emphasised assumption of weariness, and a hint of a
+long yarn on the morrow, he picked up his blanket and started for the
+room where all were to sleep.  The real reason of this early departure
+was clear to Pretty Pierre at once, and in due time it dawned upon Jo
+Gordineer.
+
+The two Englishmen, left alone, sat for a few moments silent and smoking
+hard.  Then the Honourable rose, got his knapsack, and took out a small
+number of papers, which he handed to Sir Duke, saying, "By slow postal
+service to Sir Duke Lawless.  Residence, somewhere on one of five
+continents."
+
+An envelope bearing a woman's writing was the first thing that met Sir
+Duke's eye.  He stared, took it out, turned it over, looked curiously at
+the Honourable for a moment, and then began to break the seal.
+
+"Wait, Duke.  Do not read that.  We have something to say to each other
+first."
+
+Sir Duke laid the letter down.  "You have some explanation to make," he
+said.
+
+"It was so long ago; mightn't it be better to go over the story again?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Then it is best you should tell it.  I am on my defence, you know."
+
+Sir Duke leaned back, and a frown gathered on his forehead.  Strikingly
+out of place on his fresh face it seemed.  Looking quickly from the fire
+to the face of the Honourable and back again earnestly, as if the full
+force of what was required came to him, he said: "We shall get the
+perspective better if we put the tale in the third person.  Duke Lawless
+was the heir to the title and estates of Trafford Court.  Next in
+succession to him was Just Trafford, his cousin.  Lawless had an income
+sufficient for a man of moderate tastes.  Trafford had not quite that,
+but he had his profession of the law.  At college they had been fast
+friends, but afterwards had drifted apart, through no cause save
+difference of pursuits and circumstances.  Friends they still were and
+likely to be so always.  One summer, when on a visit to his uncle,
+Admiral Sir Clavel Lawless, at Trafford Court, where a party of people
+had been invited for a month, Duke Lawless fell in love with Miss Emily
+Dorset.  She did him the honour to prefer him to any other man--at least,
+he thought so.  Her income, however, was limited like his own.  The
+engagement was not announced, for Lawless wished to make a home before he
+took a wife.  He inclined to ranching in Canada, or a planter's life in
+Queensland.  The eight or ten thousand pounds necessary was not, however,
+easy to get for the start, and he hadn't the least notion of discounting
+the future, by asking the admiral's help.  Besides, he knew his uncle did
+not wish him to marry unless he married a woman plus a fortune.  While
+things were in this uncertain state, Just Trafford arrived on a visit to
+Trafford Court.  The meeting of the old friends was cordial.  Immediately
+on Trafford's arrival, however, the current of events changed.  Things
+occurred which brought disaster.  It was noticeable that Miss Emily
+Dorset began to see a deal more of Admiral Lawless and Just Trafford,
+and a deal less of the younger Lawless.  One day Duke Lawless came back
+to the house unexpectedly, his horse having knocked up on the road.
+On entering the library he saw what turned the course of his life."
+Sir Duke here paused, sighed, shook the ashes out of his pipe with a
+grave and expressive anxiety which did not properly belong to the action,
+and remained for a moment, both arms on his knees, silent, and looking at
+the fire.  Then he continued:
+
+"Just Trafford sat beside Emily Dorset in an attitude of--say,
+affectionate consideration.  She had been weeping, and her whole manner
+suggested very touching confidences.  They both rose on the entrance of
+Lawless; but neither tried to say a word.  What could they say?  Lawless
+apologised, took a book from the table which he had not come for, and
+left."
+
+Again Sir Duke paused.
+
+"The book was an illustrated Much Ado About Nothing," said the
+Honourable.
+
+"A few hours after, Lawless had an interview with Emily Dorset.
+He demanded, with a good deal of feeling, perhaps,--for he was romantic
+enough to love the girl,--an explanation.  He would have asked it of
+Trafford first if he had seen him.  She said Lawless should trust her;
+that she had no explanation at that moment to give.  If he waited--but
+Lawless asked her if she cared for him at all, if she wished or intended
+to marry him?  She replied lightly, 'Perhaps, when you become Sir Duke
+Lawless.'  Then Lawless accused her of heartlessness, and of encouraging
+both his uncle and Just Trafford.  She amusingly said, 'Perhaps she had,
+but it really didn't matter, did it?'  For reply, Lawless said her
+interest in the whole family seemed active and impartial.  He bade her
+not vex herself at all about him, and not to wait until he became Sir
+Duke Lawless, but to give preference to seniority and begin with the
+title at once; which he has reason since to believe that she did.  What
+he said to her he has been sorry for, not because he thinks it was
+undeserved, but because he has never been able since to rouse himself to
+anger on the subject, nor to hate the girl and Just Trafford as he ought.
+Of the dead he is silent altogether.  He never sought an explanation from
+Just Trafford, for he left that night for London, and in two days was on
+his way to Australia.  The day he left, however, he received a note from
+his banker saying that L8000 had been placed to his credit by Admiral
+Lawless.  Feeling the indignity of what he believed was the cause of the
+gift, Lawless neither acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of it.
+Five years have gone since then, and Lawless has wandered over two
+continents, a self-created exile.  He has learned much that he didn't
+learn at Oxford; and not the least of all, that the world is not so bad
+as is claimed for it, that it isn't worth while hating and cherishing
+hate, that evil is half-accidental, half-natural, and that hard work in
+the face of nature is the thing to pull a man together and strengthen him
+for his place in the universe.  Having burned his ships behind him, that
+is the way Lawless feels.  And the story is told."
+
+Just Trafford sat looking musingly but imperturbably at Sir Duke for a
+minute; then he said:
+
+"That is your interpretation of the story, but not the story.  Let us
+turn the medal over now.  And, first, let Trafford say that he has the
+permission of Emily Dorset--"
+
+Sir Duke interrupted: "Of her who was Emily Dorset."
+
+"Of Miss Emily Dorset, to tell what she did not tell that day five years
+ago.  After this other reading of the tale has been rendered, her letter
+and those documents are there for fuller testimony.  Just Trafford's part
+in the drama begins, of course, with the library scene.  Now Duke Lawless
+had never known Trafford's half-brother, Hall Vincent.  Hall was born in
+India, and had lived there most of his life.  He was in the Indian
+Police, and had married a clever, beautiful, but impossible kind of girl,
+against the wishes of her parents.  The marriage was not a very happy
+one.  This was partly owing to the quick Lawless and Trafford blood,
+partly to the wife's wilfulness.  Hall thought that things might go
+better if he came to England to live.  On their way from Madras to
+Colombo he had some words with his wife one day about the way she
+arranged her hair, but nothing serious.  This was shortly after tiffin.
+That evening they entered the harbour at Colombo; and Hall going to his
+cabin to seek his wife, could not find her; but in her stead was her
+hair, arranged carefully in flowing waves on the pillow, where through
+the voyage her head had lain.  That she had cut it off and laid it there
+was plain; but she could not be found, nor was she ever found.  The large
+porthole was open; this was the only clue.  But we need not go further
+into that.  Hall Vincent came home to England.  He told his brother the
+story as it has been told to you, and then left for South America, a
+broken-spirited man.  The wife's family came on to England also.  They
+did not meet Hall Vincent; but one day Just Trafford met at a country
+seat in Devon, for the first time, the wife's sister.  She had not known
+of the relationship between Hall Vincent and the Traffords; and on a
+memorable afternoon he told her the full story of the married life and
+the final disaster, as Hall had told it to him."
+
+Sir Duke sprang to his feet.  "You mean, Just, that--"
+
+"I mean that Emily Dorset was the sister of Hall Vincent's wife."
+
+Sir Duke's brown fingers clasped and unclasped nervously.  He was about
+to speak, but the Honourable said: "That is only half the story--wait.
+
+"Emily Dorset would have told Lawless all in due time, but women don't
+like to be bullied ever so little, and that, and the unhappiness of the
+thing, kept her silent in her short interview with Lawless.  She could
+not have guessed that Lawless would go as he did.  Now, the secret of her
+diplomacy with the uncle--diplomacy is the best word to use--was Duke
+Lawless's advancement.  She knew how he had set his heart on the ranching
+or planting life.  She would have married him without a penny, but she
+felt his pride in that particular, and respected it.  So, like a clever
+girl, she determined to make the old chap give Lawless a cheque on his
+possible future.  Perhaps, as things progressed, the same old chap got an
+absurd notion in his head about marrying her to Just Trafford, but that
+was meanwhile all the better for Lawless.  The very day that Emily Dorset
+and Just Trafford succeeded in melting Admiral Lawless's heart to the
+tune of eight thousand, was the day that Duke Lawless doubted his friend
+and challenged the loyalty of the girl he loved."
+
+Sir Duke's eyes filled.  "Great Heaven!  Just--" he said.
+
+"Be quiet for a little.  You see she had taken Trafford into her scheme
+against his will, for he was never good at mysteries and theatricals, and
+he saw the danger.  But the cause was a good one, and he joined the sweet
+conspiracy, with what result these five years bear witness.  Admiral
+Lawless has been dead a year and a half, his wife a year.  For he married
+out of anger with Duke Lawless; but he did not marry Emily Dorset, nor
+did he beget a child."
+
+"In Australia I saw a paragraph speaking of a visit made by him and Lady
+Lawless to a hospital, and I thought--"
+
+"You thought he had married Emily Dorset and--well, you had better read
+that letter now."
+
+Sir Duke's face was flushing with remorse and pain.  He drew his hand
+quickly across his eyes.  "And you've given up London, your profession,
+everything, just to hunt for me, to tell me this--you who would have
+profited by my eternal absence!  What a beast and ass I've been!"
+
+"Not at all; only a bit poetical and hasty, which is not unnatural in the
+Lawless blood.  I should have been wild myself, maybe, if I had been in
+your position; only I shouldn't have left England, and I should have
+taken the papers regularly and have asked the other fellow to explain.
+The other fellow didn't like the little conspiracy.  Women, however, seem
+to find that kind of thing a moral necessity.  By the way, I wish when
+you go back you'd send me out my hunting traps.  I've made up my mind
+to--oh, quite so--read the letter--I forgot!"
+
+Sir Duke opened the letter and read it, putting it away from him now and
+then as if it hurt him, and taking it up a moment after to continue the
+reading.  The Honourable watched him.
+
+At last Sir Duke rose.  "Just--"
+
+"Yes?  Go on."
+
+"Do you think she would have me now?"
+
+"Don't know.  Your outfit is not so beautiful as it used to be."
+
+"Don't chaff me."
+
+"Don't be so funereal, then."
+
+Under the Honourable's matter of fact air Sir Duke's face began to clear.
+"Tell me, do you think she still cares for me?"
+
+"Well, I don't know.  She's rich now--got the grandmother's stocking.
+Then there's Pedley, of the Scots Guards; he has been doing loyal service
+for a couple of years.  What does the letter say?"
+
+"It only tells the truth, as you have told it to me, but from her
+standpoint; not a word that says anything but beautiful reproach and
+general kindness.  That is all."
+
+"Quite so.  You see it was all four years ago, and Pedley--"
+
+But the Honourable paused.  He had punished his friend enough.  He
+stepped forward and laid his hand on Sir Duke's shoulder.  "Duke, you
+want to pick up the threads where they were dropped.  You dropped them.
+Ask me nothing about the ends that Emily Dorset held.  I conspire no
+more.  But go you and learn your fate.  If one remembers, why should the
+other forget?"
+
+Sir Duke's light heart and eager faith came back with a rush.  "I'll
+start for England at once.  I'll know the worst or the best of it before
+three months are out."  The Honourable's slow placidity turned.
+
+"Three months.--Yes, you may do it in that time.  Better go from Victoria
+to San Francisco and then overland.  You'll not forget about my hunting
+traps, and--oh, certainly, Gordineer; come in."
+
+"Say," said Gordineer.  "I don't want to disturb the meeting, but Shon's
+in chancery somehow; breathing like a white pine, and thrashing about!
+He's red-hot with fever."
+
+Before he had time to say more, Sir Duke seized the candle and entered
+the room.  Shon was moving uneasily and suppressing the groans that shook
+him.  "Shon, old friend, what is it?"
+
+"It's the pain here, Lawless," laying his hand on his chest.
+
+After a moment Sir Duke said, "Pneumonia!"
+
+From that instant thoughts of himself were sunk in the care and thought
+of the man who in the heart of Queensland had been mate and friend and
+brother to him.  He did not start for England the next day, nor for many
+a day.
+
+Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party carried Sir Duke's letters
+over into the Pipi Valley, from where they could be sent on to the coast.
+Pierre came back in a few days to see how Shon was, and expressed his
+determination of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be.
+
+Shon hovered between life and death.  It was not alone the pneumonia
+that racked his system so; there was also the shock he had received in
+his flight down the glacier.  In his delirium he seemed to be always
+with Lawless:
+
+"'For it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise'--It's share and share
+even, Lawless, and ye'll ate the rest of it, or I'll lave ye--Did ye say
+ye'd found water--Lawless--water!--Sure you're drinkin' none yourself--
+I'll sing it again for you then--'And it's back with the ring of the
+chain and the spur'--'But burn all your ships behind you'--'I'll never go
+back to Farcalladen more!'"
+
+Sir Duke's fingers had a trick of kindness, a suggestion of comfort,
+a sense of healing, that made his simple remedies do more than natural
+duty.  He was doctor, nurse,--sleepless nurse,--and careful apothecary.
+And when at last the danger was past and he could relax watching, he
+would not go, and he did not go, till they could all travel to the Pipi
+Valley.
+
+In the blue shadows of the firs they stand as we take our leave of one
+of them.  The Honourable and Sir Duke have had their last words, and Sir
+Duke has said he will remember about the hunting traps.  They understand
+each other.  There is sunshine in the face of all--a kind of Indian
+summer sunshine, infused with the sadness of a coming winter; and theirs
+is the winter of parting.  Yet it is all done quietly.
+
+"We'll meet again, Shon," said Sir Duke, "and you'll remember your
+promise to write to me."
+
+"I'll keep my promise, and I hope the news that'll please you best is
+what you'll send us first from England.  And if you should go to ould
+Donegal--I've no words for me thoughts at all!"
+
+"I know them.  Don't try to say them.  We've not had the luck together,
+all kinds and all weathers, for nothing."
+
+Sir Duke's eyes smiled a good-bye into the smiling eyes of Shon.  They
+were much alike, these two, whose stations were so far apart.  Yet
+somewhere, in generations gone, their ancestors may have toiled, feasted,
+or governed, in the same social hemisphere; and here in the mountains
+life was levelled to one degree again.
+
+Sir Duke looked round.  The pines were crowding up elate and warm towards
+the peaks of the white silence.  The river was brawling over a broken
+pathway of boulders at their feet; round the edge of a mighty mountain
+crept a mule train; a far-off glacier glistened harshly in the lucid
+morning, yet not harshly either, but with the rugged form of a vast
+antiquity, from which these scarred and grimly austere hills had grown.
+Here Nature was filled with a sense of triumphant mastery--the mastery
+of ageless experience.  And down the great piles there blew a wind of
+stirring life, of the composure of great strength, and touched the four,
+and the man that mounted now was turned to go.  A quick good-bye from him
+to all; a God-speed-you from the Honourable; a wave of the hand between
+the rider and Shon, and Sir Duke Lawless was gone.
+
+"You had better cook the last of that bear this morning, Pierre," said
+the Honourable.  And their life went on.
+
+                    ........................
+
+It was eight months after that, sitting in their hut after a day's
+successful mining, the Honourable handed Shon a newspaper to read.
+A paragraph was marked.  It concerned the marriage of Miss Emily Dorset
+and Sir Duke Lawless.
+
+And while Shon read, the Honourable called into the tent: "Have you any
+lemons for the whisky, Pierre?"
+
+A satisfactory reply being returned, the Honourable proceeded: "We'll
+begin with the bottle of Pommery, which I've been saving months for
+this."
+
+The royal-flush toast of the evening belonged to Shon.
+
+"God bless him!  To the day when we see him again!"
+
+And all of them saw that day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PERE CHAMPAGNE
+
+"Is it that we stand at the top of the hill and the end of the travel has
+come, Pierre?  Why don't you spake?"
+
+"We stand at the top of the hill, and it is the end."
+
+"And Lonely Valley is at our feet and Whiteface Mountain beyond?"
+
+"One at our feet, and the other beyond, Shon McGann."
+
+"It's the sight of my eyes I wish I had in the light of the sun this
+mornin'.  Tell me, what is't you see?"
+
+"I see the trees on the foot-hills, and all the branches shine with
+frost.  There is a path--so wide!--between two groves of pines.  On
+Whiteface Mountain lies a glacier-field . . .  and all is still." . . .
+
+"The voice of you is far-away-like, Pierre--it shivers as a hawk cries.
+It's the wind, the wind, maybe."
+
+"There's not a breath of life from hill or valley."
+
+"But I feel it in my face."
+
+"It is not the breath of life you feel."
+
+"Did you not hear voices coming athwart the wind? . . .  Can you see the
+people at the mines?"
+
+"I have told you what I see."
+
+"You told me of the pine-trees, and the glacier, and the snow--"
+
+"And that is all."
+
+"But in the Valley, in the Valley, where all the miners are?"
+
+"I cannot see them."
+
+"For love of heaven, don't tell me that the dark is fallin' on your eyes
+too."
+
+"No, Shon, I am not growing blind."
+
+"Will you not tell me what gives the ache to your words?"
+
+"I see in the Valley--snow . . . snow."
+
+"It's a laugh you have at me in your cheek, whin I'd give years of my
+ill-spent life to watch the chimney smoke come curlin' up slow through
+the sharp air in the Valley there below."
+
+"There is no chimney and there is no smoke in all the Valley."
+
+"Before God, if you're a man, you'll put your hand on my arm and tell me
+what trouble quakes your speech."
+
+"Shon McGann, it is for you to make the sign of the Cross . . . there,
+while I put my hand on your shoulder--so!"
+
+"Your hand is heavy, Pierre."
+
+"This is the sight of the eyes that see.  In the Valley there is snow;
+in the snow of all that was, there is one poppet-head of the mine that
+was called St. Gabriel .  .  .  upon the poppet-head there is the figure
+of a woman."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"She does not move--"
+
+"She will never move?"
+
+"She will never move."
+
+"The breath o' my body hurts me.  .  .  .  There is death in the Valley,
+Pierre?"
+
+"There is death."
+
+"It was an avalanche--that path between the pines?"
+
+"And a great storm after."
+
+"Blessed be God that I cannot behold that thing this day!  .  .  .  And
+the woman, Pierre, the woman aloft?"
+
+"She went to watch for someone coming, and as she watched, the avalanche
+came--and she moves not."
+
+"Do we know that woman?"
+
+"Who can tell?"
+
+"What was it you whispered soft to yourself, then, Pierre?"
+
+"I whispered no word."
+
+"There, don't you hear it, soft and sighin'?  .  .  .  Nathalie!"
+
+"'Mon Dieu!'  It is not of the world."
+
+"It's facin' the poppet-head where she stands I'd be."
+
+"Your face is turned towards her."
+
+"Where is the sun?"
+
+"The sun stands still above her head."
+
+"With the bitter over, and the avil past, come rest for her and all that
+lie there."
+
+"Eh, 'bien,' the game is done!"
+
+"If we stay here we shall die also."
+
+"If we go we die, perhaps."  .  .  .
+
+"Don't spake it.  We will go, and we will return when the breath of
+summer comes from the South."
+
+"It shall be so."
+
+"Hush!  Did you not hear--?"
+
+"I did not hear.  I only see an eagle, and it flies towards Whiteface
+Mountain."
+
+And Shon McGann and Pretty Pierre turned back from the end of their
+quest--from a mighty grave behind to a lonely waste before; and though
+one was snow-blind, and the other knew that on him fell the chiefer
+weight of a great misfortune, for he must provide food and fire and be as
+a mother to his comrade--they had courage; without which, men are as the
+standing straw in an unreaped field in winter; but having become like the
+hooded pine, that keepeth green in frost, and hath the bounding blood in
+all its icy branches.
+
+And whence they came and wherefore was as thus:
+
+A French Canadian once lived in Lonely Valley.  One day great fortune
+came to him, because it was given him to discover the mine St. Gabriel.
+And he said to the woman who loved him, "I will go with mules and much
+gold, that I have hewn and washed and gathered, to a village in the East
+where my father and my mother are.  They are poor, but I will make them
+rich; and then I will return to Lonely Valley, and a priest shall come
+with me, and we will dwell here at Whiteface Mountain, where men are men
+and not children."  And the woman blessed him, and prayed for him, and
+let him go.
+
+He travelled far through passes of the mountains, and came at last where
+new cities lay upon the plains, and where men were full of evil and of
+lust of gold.  And he was free of hand and light of heart; and at a place
+called Diamond City false friends came about him, and gave him champagne
+wine to drink, and struck him down and robbed him, leaving him for dead.
+
+And he was found, and his wounds were all healed: all save one, and that
+was in the brain.  Men called him mad.
+
+He wandered through the land, preaching to men to drink no wine, and to
+shun the sight of gold.  And they laughed at him, and called him Pere
+Champagne.
+
+But one day much gold was found at a place called Reef o' Angel; and
+jointly with the gold came a plague which scars the face and rots the
+body; and Indians died by hundreds and white men by scores; and Pere
+Champagne, of all who were not stricken down, feared nothing, and did not
+flee, but went among the sick and dying, and did those deeds which gold
+cannot buy, and prayed those prayers which were never sold.  And who can
+count how high the prayers of the feckless go!
+
+When none was found to bury the dead, he gave them place himself beneath
+the prairie earth,--consecrated only by the tears of a fool,--and for
+extreme unction he had but this: "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
+
+Now it happily chanced that Pierre and Shon McGann, who travelled
+westward, came upon this desperate battle-field, and saw how Pere
+Champagne dared the elements of scourge and death; and they paused and
+laboured with him--to save where saving was granted of Heaven, and to
+bury when the Reaper reaped and would not stay his hand.  At last the
+plague ceased, because winter stretched its wings out swiftly o'er the
+plains from frigid ranges in the West.  And then Pere Champagne fell ill
+again.
+
+And this last great sickness cured his madness: and he remembered whence
+he had come, and what befell him at Diamond City so many moons ago.  And
+he prayed them, when he knew his time was come, that they would go to
+Lonely Valley and tell his story to the woman whom he loved; and say that
+he was going to a strange but pleasant Land, and that there he would
+await her coming.  He begged them that they would go at once, that she
+might know, and not strain her eyes to blindness, and be sick at heart
+because he came not.  And he told them her name, and drew the coverlet up
+about his head and seemed to sleep; but he waked between the day and
+dark, and gently cried: "The snow is heavy on the mountain .  .  .  and
+the Valley is below. . . . 'Gardez,  mon  Pere!' . . .  Ah,  Nathalie!"
+And they buried him between the dark and dawn.
+
+Though winds were fierce, and travel full of peril, they kept their word,
+and passed along wide steppes of snow, until they entered passes of the
+mountains, and again into the plains; and at last one 'poudre' day, when
+frost was shaking like shreds of faintest silver through the air, Shon
+McGann's sight fled.  But he would not turn back--a promise to a dying
+man was sacred, and he could follow if he could not lead; and there was
+still some pemmican, and there were martens in the woods, and wandering
+deer that good spirits hunted into the way of the needy; and Pierre's
+finger along the gun was sure.
+
+Pierre did not tell Shon that for many days they travelled woods where no
+sunshine entered; where no trail had ever been, nor foot of man had trod:
+that they had lost their way.  Nor did he make his comrade know that one
+night he sat and played a game of solitaire to see if they would ever
+reach the place called Lonely Valley.  Before the cards were dealt, he
+made a sign upon his breast and forehead.  Three times he played, and
+three times he counted victory; and before three suns had come and gone,
+they climbed a hill that perched over Lonely Valley.  And of what they
+saw and their hearts felt we know.
+
+And when they turned their faces eastward they were as men who go to meet
+a final and a conquering enemy; but they had kept their honour with the
+man upon whose grave-tree Shon McGann had carved beneath his name these
+words:
+
+                    "A Brother of Aaron."
+
+Upon a lonely trail they wandered, the spirits of lost travellers
+hungering in their wake--spirits that mumbled in cedar thickets, and
+whimpered down the flumes of snow.  And Pierre, who knew that evil things
+are exorcised by mighty conjuring, sang loudly, from a throat made thin
+by forced fasting, a song with which his mother sought to drive away the
+devils of dreams that flaunted on his pillow when a child: it was the
+song of the Scarlet Hunter.  And the charm sufficed; for suddenly of a
+cheerless morning they came upon a trapper's hut in the wilderness, where
+their sufferings ceased, and the sight of Shon's eyes came back.  When
+strength returned also, they journeyed to an Indian village, where a
+priest laboured.  Him they besought; and when spring came they set forth
+to Lonely Valley again that the woman and the smothered dead--if it might
+chance so--should be put away into peaceful graves.  But thither coming
+they only saw a grey and churlish river; and the poppet-head of the mine
+of St. Gabriel, and she who had knelt thereon, were vanished into
+solitudes, where only God's cohorts have the rights of burial.  .  .  .
+
+But the priest prayed humbly for their so swiftly summoned souls.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SCARLET HUNTER
+
+"News out of Egypt!" said the Honourable Just Trafford.  "If this is
+true, it gives a pretty finish to the season.  You think it possible,
+Pierre?  It is every man's talk that there isn't a herd of buffaloes in
+the whole country; but this-eh?"
+
+Pierre did not seem disposed to answer.  He had been watching a man's
+face for some time; but his eyes were now idly following the smoke of his
+cigarette as it floated away to the ceiling in fading circles.  He seemed
+to take no interest in Trafford's remarks, nor in the tale that Shangi
+the Indian had told them; though Shangi and his tale were both
+sufficiently uncommon to justify attention.
+
+Shon McGann was more impressionable.  His eyes swam; his feet shifted
+nervously with enjoyment; he glanced frequently at his gun in the corner
+of the hut; he had watched Trafford's face with some anxiety, and
+accepted the result of the tale with delight.  Now his look was occupied
+with Pierre.
+
+Pierre was a pretty good authority in all matters concerning the prairies
+and the North.  He also had an instinct for detecting veracity, having
+practised on both sides of the equation.  Trafford became impatient, and
+at last the half-breed, conscious that he had tried the temper of his
+chief so far as was safe, lifted his eyes, and, resting them casually on
+the Indian, replied: "Yes, I know the place.  .  .  .  No, I have not
+been there, but I was told-ah, it was long ago!  There is a great valley
+between hills, the Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men.  The woods
+are deep and dark; there is but one trail through them, and it is old.
+On the highest hill is a vast mound.  In that mound are the forefathers
+of a nation that is gone.  Yes, as you say, they are dead, and there is
+none of them alive in the valley--which is called the White Valley--where
+the buffalo are.  The valley is green in summer, and the snow is not deep
+in winter; the noses of the buffalo can find the tender grass.  The Injin
+speaks the truth, perhaps.  But of the number of buffaloes, one must see.
+The eye of the red man multiplies."
+
+Trafford looked at Pierre closely.  "You seem to know the place very
+well.  It is a long way north where--ah yes, you said you had never been
+there; you were told.  Who told you?"
+
+The half-breed raised his eyebrows slightly as he replied: "I can
+remember a long time, and my mother, she spoke much and sang many songs
+at the campfires."  Then he puffed his cigarette so that the smoke
+clouded his face for a moment, and went on,--"I think there may be
+buffaloes."
+
+"It's along the barrel of me gun I wish I was lookin' at thim now," said
+McGann.
+
+"'Tiens,' you will go"? inquired Pierre of Trafford.  "To have a shot at
+the only herd of wild buffaloes on the continent!  Of course I'll go.
+I'd go to the North Pole for that.  Sport and novelty I came here to see;
+buffalo-hunting I did not expect.  I'm in luck, that's all.  We'll start
+to-morrow morning, if we can get ready, and Shangi here will lead us; eh,
+Pierre?"
+
+The half-breed again was not polite.  Instead of replying he sang almost
+below his breath the words of a song unfamiliar to his companions, though
+the Indian's eyes showed a flash of understanding.  These were the words:
+
+    "They ride away with a waking wind, away, away!
+     With laughing lip and with jocund mind at break of day.
+     A rattle of hoofs and a snatch of song, they ride, they ride!
+     The plains are wide and the path is long,--so long, so wide!"
+
+Just Trafford appeared ready to deal with this insolence, for the half-
+breed was after all a servant of his, a paid retainer.  He waited,
+however.  Shon saw the difficulty, and at once volunteered a reply.
+"It's aisy enough to get away in the mornin', but it's a question how far
+we'll be able to go with the horses.  The year is late; but there's dogs
+beyand, I suppose, and bedad, there y' are!"
+
+The Indian spoke slowly: "It is far off.  There is no colour yet in the
+leaf of the larch.  The river-hen still swims northward.  It is good that
+we go.  There is much buffalo in the White Valley."
+
+Again Trafford looked towards his follower, and again the half-breed,
+as if he were making an effort to remember, sang abstractedly:
+
+    "They follow, they follow a lonely trail, by day, by night,
+     By distant sun, and by fire-fly pale, and northern light.
+     The ride to the Hills of the Mighty Men, so swift they go!
+     Where buffalo feed in the wilding glen in sun and snow."
+
+"Pierre," said Trafford, sharply, "I want an answer to my question."
+
+"'Mais, pardon,' I was thinking .  .  .  well, we can ride until the deep
+snows come, then we can walk; and Shangi, he can get the dogs, maybe, one
+team of dogs."
+
+"But," was the reply, "one team of dogs will not be enough.  We'll bring
+meat and hides, you know, as well as pemmican.  We won't cache any
+carcases up there.  What would be the use?  We shall have to be back in
+the Pipi Valley by the spring-time."
+
+"Well," said the half-breed with a cold decision, "one team of dogs will
+be enough; and we will not cache, and we shall be back in the Pipi Valley
+before the spring, perhaps."  But this last word was spoken under his
+breath.
+
+And now the Indian spoke, with his deep voice and dignified manner:
+"Brothers, it is as I have said, the trail is lonely and the woods are
+deep and dark.  Since the time when the world was young, no white man
+hath been there save one, and behold sickness fell on him; the grave is
+his end.  It is a pleasant land, for the gods have blessed it to the
+Indian forever.  No heathen shall possess it.  But you shall see the
+White Valley and the buffalo.  Shangi will lead, because you have been
+merciful to him, and have given him to sleep in your wigwam, and to eat
+of your wild meat.  There are dogs in the forest.  I have spoken."
+
+Trafford was impressed, and annoyed too.  He thought too much sentiment
+was being squandered on a very practical and sportive thing.  He disliked
+functions; speech-making was to him a matter for prayer and fasting.  The
+Indian's address was therefore more or less gratuitous, and he hastened
+to remark: "Thank you, Shangi; that's very good, and you've put it
+poetically.  You've turned a shooting-excursion into a mediaeval romance.
+But we'll get down to business now, if you please, and make the romance a
+fact, beautiful enough to send to the 'Times' or the New York 'Call'.
+Let's see, how would they put it in the Call?--'Extraordinary Discovery
+--Herd of buffaloes found in the far North by an Englishman and his
+Franco-Irish Party--Sport for the gods--Exodus of 'brules' to White
+Valley!'--and so on, screeching to the end."
+
+Shon laughed heartily.  "The fun of the world is in the thing," he said;
+"and a day it would be for a notch on a stick and a rasp of gin in the
+throat.  And if I get the sight of me eye on a buffalo-ruck, it's down on
+me knees I'll go, and not for prayin' aither.  Here's both hands up for a
+start in the mornin'!"
+
+Long before noon next day they were well on their way.  Trafford could
+not understand why Pierre was so reserved, and, when speaking, so
+ironical.  It was noticeable that the half-breed watched the Indian
+closely, that he always rode behind him, that he never drank out of the
+same cup.  The leader set this down to the natural uncertainty of
+Pierre's disposition.  He had grown to like Pierre, as the latter had
+come in course to respect him.  Each was a man of value after his kind.
+Each also had recognised in the other qualities of force and knowledge
+having their generation in experiences which had become individuality,
+subterranean and acute, under a cold surface.  It was the mutual
+recognition of these equivalents that led the two men to mutual trust,
+only occasionally disturbed, as has been shown; though one was regarded
+as the most fastidious man of his set in London, the fairest-minded of
+friends, the most comfortable of companions; while the other was an
+outlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the
+joyous god of Chance.  Pierre was essentially a gamester.  He would have
+extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on
+the trumping of an ace.  His only honour was the honour of the game.
+
+Now, with all the swelling prairie sloping to the clear horizon, and the
+breath of a large life in their nostrils, these two men were caught up
+suddenly, as it were, by the throbbing soul of the North, so that the
+subterranean life in them awoke and startled them.  Trafford conceived
+that tobacco was the charm with which to exorcise the spirits of the
+past.  Pierre let the game of sensations go on, knowing that they pay
+themselves out in time.  His scheme was the wiser.  The other found that
+fast riding and smoking were not sufficient.  He became surrounded by the
+ghosts of yesterdays; and at length he gave up striving with them, and
+let them storm upon him, until a line of pain cut deeply across his
+forehead, and bitterly and unconsciously he cried aloud,--"Hester, ah,
+Hester!"
+
+But having spoken, the spell was broken, and he was aware of the beat of
+hoofs beside him, and Shangi the Indian looking at him with a half smile.
+Something in the look thrilled him; it was fantastic, masterful.  He
+wondered that he had not noticed this singular influence before.  After
+all, he was only a savage with cleaner buckskin than his race usually
+wore.  Yet that glow, that power in the face--was he Piegan, Blackfoot,
+Cree, Blood?  Whatever he was, this man had heard the words which broke
+so painfully from him.
+
+He saw the Indian frame her name upon his lips, and then came the words,
+"Hester--Hester Orval!"
+
+He turned sternly, and said, "Who are you?  What do you know of Hester
+Orval?"
+
+The Indian shook his head gravely, and replied, "You spoke her name, my
+brother."
+
+"I spoke one word of her name.  You have spoken two."
+
+"One does not know what one speaks.  There are words which are as sounds,
+and words which are as feelings.  Those come to the brain through the
+ear; these to the soul through sign, which is more than sound.  The
+Indian hath knowledge, even as the white man; and because his heart is
+open, the trees whisper to him; he reads the language of the grass and
+the wind, and is taught by the song of the bird, the screech of the hawk,
+the bark of the fox.  And so he comes to know the heart of the man who
+hath sickness, and calls upon someone, even though it be a weak woman,
+to cure his sickness; who is bowed low as beside a grave, and would stand
+upright.  Are not my words wise?  As the thoughts of a child that dreams,
+as the face of the blind, the eye of the beast, or the anxious hand of
+the poor, are they not simple, and to be understood?"
+
+Just Trafford made no reply.  But behind, Pierre was singing in the
+plaintive measure of a chant:
+
+              "A hunter rideth the herd abreast,
+               The Scarlet Hunter from out of the West,
+               Whose arrows with points of flame are drest,
+               Who loveth the beast of the field the best,
+               The child and the young bird out of the nest,
+               They ride to the hunt no more, no more!"
+
+They travelled beyond all bounds of civilisation; beyond the northernmost
+Indian villages, until the features of the landscape became more rugged
+and solemn, and at last they paused at a place which the Indian called
+Misty Mountain, and where, disappearing for an hour, he returned with a
+team of Eskimo dogs, keen, quick-tempered, and enduring.  They had all
+now recovered from the disturbing sentiments of the first portion of the
+journey; life was at full tide; the spirit of the hunter was on them.
+
+At length one night they camped in a vast pine grove wrapped in coverlets
+of snow and silent as death.  Here again Pierre became moody and alert
+and took no part in the careless chat at the camp-fire led by Shon
+McGann.  The man brooded and looked mysterious.  Mystery was not pleasing
+to Trafford.  He had his own secrets, but in the ordinary affairs of life
+he preferred simplicity.  In one of the silences that fell between Shon's
+attempts to give hilarity to the occasion, there came a rumbling far-off
+sound, a sound that increased in volume till the earth beneath them
+responded gently to the vibration.  Trafford looked up inquiringly at
+Pierre, and then at the Indian, who, after a moment, said slowly: "Above
+us are the hills of the Mighty Men, beneath us is the White Valley.  It
+is the tramp of buffalo that we hear.  A storm is coming, and they go to
+shelter in the mountains."
+
+The information had come somewhat suddenly, and McGann was the first to
+recover from the pleasant shock: "It's divil a wink of sleep I'll get
+this night, with the thought of them below there ripe for slaughter, and
+the tumble of fight in their beards."
+
+Pierre, with a meaning glance from his half-closed eyes, added: "But it
+is the old saying of the prairies that you do not shout dinner till you
+have your knife in the loaf.  Your knife is not yet in the loaf, Shon
+McGann."
+
+The boom of the trampling ceased, and now there was a stirring in the
+snow-clad tree tops, and a sound as if all the birds of the North were
+flying overhead.  The weather began to moan and the boles of the pines to
+quake.  And then there came war,--a trouble out of the north, a wave of
+the breath of God to show inconsequent man that he who seeks to live by
+slaughter hath slaughter for his master.
+
+They hung over the fire while the forest cracked round them, and the
+flame smarted with the flying snow.  And now the trees, as if the
+elements were closing in on them, began to break close by, and one
+lurched forward towards them.  Trafford, to avoid its stroke, stepped
+quickly aside right into the line of another which he did not see.
+Pierre sprang forward and swung him clear, but was himself struck
+senseless by an outreaching branch.
+
+As if satisfied with this achievement, the storm began to subside.  When
+Pierre recovered consciousness Trafford clasped his hand and said,--
+"You've a sharp eye, a quick thought, and a deft arm, comrade."
+
+"Ah, it was in the game.  It is good play to assist your partner," the
+half-breed replied sententiously.  Through all, the Indian had remained
+stoical.  But McGann, who swore by Trafford--as he had once sworn by
+another of the Trafford race--had his heart on his lips, and said:
+
+         "There's a swate little cherub that sits up aloft,
+          Who cares for the soul of poor Jack!"
+
+It was long after midnight ere they settled down again, with the wreck of
+the forest round them.  Only the Indian slept; the others were alert and
+restless.  They were up at daybreak, and on their way before sunrise,
+filled with desire for prey.  They had not travelled far before they
+emerged upon a plateau.  Around them were the hills of the Mighty Men--
+austere, majestic; at their feet was a vast valley on which the light
+newly-fallen snow had not hidden all the grass.  Lonely and lofty, it was
+a world waiting chastely to be peopled!  And now it was peopled, for
+there came from a cleft of the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowly
+down the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs stirring the snow into a
+feathery scud.
+
+The eyes of Trafford and McGann swam; Pierre's face was troubled, and
+strangely enough he made the sign of the cross.
+
+At that instant Trafford saw smoke issuing from a spot on the mountain
+opposite.  He turned to the Indian: "Someone lives there"? he said.
+
+"It is the home of the dead, but life is also there."
+
+"White man, or Indian?"
+
+But no reply came.  The Indian pointed instead to the buffalo rumbling
+down the valley.  Trafford forgot the smoke, forgot everything except
+that splendid quarry.  Shon was excited.  "Sarpints alive," he said,
+"look at the troops of thim!  Is it standin' here we are with our tongues
+in our cheeks, whin there's bastes to be killed, and mate to be got, and
+the call to war on the ground below!  Clap spurs with your heels, sez I,
+and down the side of the turf together and give 'em the teeth of our
+guns!"  The Irishman dashed down the slope.  In an instant, all followed,
+or at least Trafford thought all followed, swinging their guns across
+their saddles to be ready for this excellent foray.  But while Pierre
+rode hard, it was at first without the fret of battle in him, and he
+smiled strangely, for he knew that the Indian had disappeared as they
+rode down the slope, though how and why he could not tell.  There ran
+through his head tales chanted at camp-fires when he was not yet in
+stature so high as the loins that bore him.  They rode hard, and yet they
+came no nearer to that flying herd straining on with white streaming
+breath and the surf of snow rising to their quarters.  Mile upon mile,
+and yet they could not ride these monsters down!
+
+Now Pierre was leading.  There was a kind of fury in his face, and he
+seemed at last to gain on them.  But as the herd veered close to a wall
+of stalwart pines, a horseman issued from the trees and joined the
+cattle.  The horseman was in scarlet from head to foot; and with his
+coming the herd went faster, and ever faster, until they vanished into
+the mountain-side; and they who pursued drew in their trembling horses
+and stared at each other with wonder in their faces.
+
+"In God's name what does it mean"? Trafford cried.
+
+"Is it a trick of the eye or the hand of the devil"? added Shon.
+
+"In the name of God we shall know perhaps.  If it is the hand of the
+devil it is not good for us," remarked Pierre.
+
+"Who was the man in scarlet who came from the woods"? asked Trafford of
+the half-breed.
+
+"'Voila,' it is strange!  There is an old story among the Indians!  My
+mother told many tales of the place and sang of it, as I sang to you.
+The legend was this:--In the hills of the North which no white man, nor
+no Injin of this time hath seen, the forefathers of the red men sleep;
+but some day they will wake again and go forth and possess all the land;
+and the buffalo are for them when that time shall come, that they may
+have the fruits of the chase, and that it be as it was of old, when the
+cattle were as clouds on the horizon.  And it was ordained that one of
+these mighty men who had never been vanquished in fight, nor done an evil
+thing, and was the greatest of all the chiefs, should live and not die,
+but be as a sentinel, as a lion watching, and preserve the White Valley
+in peace until his brethren waked and came into their own again.  And him
+they called the Scarlet Hunter; and to this hour the red men pray to him
+when they lose their way upon the plains, or Death draws aside the
+curtains of the wigwam to call them forth."
+
+"Repeat the verses you sang, Pierre," said Trafford.  The half-breed did
+so.  When he came to the words, "Who loveth the beast of the field the
+best," the Englishman looked round.  "Where is Shangi"? he asked.
+McGann shook his head in astonishment and negation.  Pierre explained:
+"On the mountain-side where we ride down he is not seen--he vanish . . .
+'mon Dieu,' look!"
+
+On the slope of the mountain stood the Scarlet Hunter with drawn bow.
+From it an arrow flew over their heads with a sorrowful twang, and fell
+where the smoke rose among the pines; then the mystic figure disappeared.
+
+McGann shuddered, and drew himself together.  "It is the place of
+spirits," he said; "and it's little I like it, God knows; but I'll follow
+that Scarlet Hunter, or red devil, or whatever he is, till I drop, if the
+Honourable gives the word.  For flesh and blood I'm not afraid of; and
+the other we come to, whether we will or not, one day."
+
+But Trafford said: "No, we'll let it stand where it is for the present.
+Something has played our eyes false, or we're brought here to do work
+different from buffalo-hunting.  Where that arrow fell among the smoke
+we must go first.  Then, as I read the riddle, we travel back the way we
+came.  There are points in connection with the Pipi Valley superior to
+the hills of the Mighty Men."
+
+They rode away across the glade, and through a grove of pines upon a
+hill, till they stood before a log but with parchment windows.
+
+Trafford knocked, but there was no response.  He opened the door and
+entered.  He saw a figure rise painfully from a couch in a corner,--the
+figure of a woman young and beautiful, but wan and worn.  She seemed
+dazed and inert with suffering, and spoke mournfully: "It is too late.
+Not you, nor any of your race, nor anything on earth can save him.  He is
+dead--dead now."
+
+At the first sound of her voice Trafford started.  He drew near to her,
+as pale as she was, and wonder and pity were in his face.  "Hester," he
+said, "Hester Orval!"
+
+She stared at him like one that had been awakened from an evil dream,
+then tottered towards him with the cry,--"Just, Just, have you come to
+save me?  O Just!"  His distress was sad to see, for it was held in deep
+repression, but he said calmly and with protecting gentleness: "Yes, I
+have come to save you.  Hester, how is it you are here in this strange
+place--you?"
+
+She sobbed so that at first she could not answer; but at last she cried:
+"O Just, he is dead .  .  .  in there, in there!  .  .  .  Last night, it
+was last night; and he prayed that I might go with him.  But I could not
+die unforgiven, and I was right, for you have come out of the world to
+help me, and to save me."
+
+"Yes, to help you and to save you,--if I can," he added in a whisper to
+himself, for he was full of foreboding.  He was of the earth, earthy, and
+things that had chanced to him this day were beyond the natural and
+healthy movements of his mind.  He had gone forth to slay, and had been
+foiled by shadows; he had come with a tragic, if beautiful, memory
+haunting him, and that memory had clothed itself in flesh and stood
+before him, pitiful, solitary,--a woman.  He had scorned all legend and
+superstition, and here both were made manifest to him.  He had thought of
+this woman as one who was of this world no more, and here she mourned
+before him and bade him go and look upon her dead, upon the man who had
+wronged him, into whom, as he once declared, the soul of a cur had
+entered,--and now what could he say?  He had carried in his heart the
+infinite something that is to men the utmost fulness of life, which,
+losing, they must carry lead upon their shoulders where they thought the
+gods had given pinions.
+
+McGann and Pierre were nervous.  This conjunction of unusual things was
+easier to the intelligences of the dead than the quick.  The outer air
+was perhaps less charged with the unnatural, and with a glance towards
+the room where death was quartered, they left the hut.
+
+Trafford was alone with the woman through whom his life had been turned
+awry.  He looked at her searchingly; and as he looked the mere man in him
+asserted itself for a moment.  She was dressed in coarse garments; it
+struck him that her grief had a touch of commonness about it; there was
+something imperfect in the dramatic setting.  His recent experiences had
+had a kind of grandeur about them; it was not thus that he had remembered
+her in the hour when he had called upon her in the plains, and the Indian
+had heard his cry.  He felt, and was ashamed in feeling, that there was
+a grim humour in the situation.  The fantastic, the melodramatic, the
+emotional, were huddled here in too marked a prominence; it all seemed,
+for an instant, like the tale of a woman's first novel.  But immediately
+again there was roused in him the latent force of loyalty to himself and
+therefore to her; the story of her past, so far as he knew it, flashed
+before him, and his eyes grew hot.
+
+He remembered the time he had last seen her in an English country-house
+among a gay party in which royalty smiled, and the subject was content
+beneath the smile.  But there was one rebellious subject, and her name
+was Hester Orval.  She was a wilful girl who had lived life selfishly
+within the lines of that decorous yet pleasant convention to which she
+was born.  She was beautiful,--she knew that, and royalty had graciously
+admitted it.  She was warm-thoughted, and possessed the fatal strain of
+the artistic temperament.  She was not sure that she had a heart; and
+many others, not of her sex, after varying and enthusiastic study of the
+matter, were not more confident than she.  But it had come at last that
+she had listened with pensive pleasure to Trafford's tale of love; and
+because to be worshipped by a man high in all men's, and in most women's,
+esteem, ministered delicately to her sweet egotism, and because she was
+proud of him, she gave him her hand in promise, and her cheek in
+privilege, but denied him--though he knew this not--her heart and the
+service of her life.  But he was content to wait patiently for that
+service, and he wholly trusted her, for there was in him some fine spirit
+of the antique world.
+
+There had come to Falkenstowe, this country-house and her father's home,
+a man who bore a knightly name, but who had no knightly heart; and he
+told Ulysses' tales, and covered a hazardous and cloudy past with that
+fascinating colour which makes evil appear to be good, so that he roused
+in her the pulse of art, which she believed was soul and life, and her
+allegiance swerved.  And when her mother pleaded with her, and when her
+father said stern things, and even royalty, with uncommon use, rebuked
+her gently, her heart grew hard; and almost on the eve of her wedding-day
+she fled with her lover, and married him, and together they sailed away
+over the seas.
+
+The world was shocked and clamorous for a matter of nine days, and then
+it forgot this foolish and awkward circumstance; but Just Trafford never
+forgot it.  He remembered all vividly until the hour, a year later, when
+London journals announced that Hester Orval and her husband had gone down
+with a vessel wrecked upon the Alaskan and Canadian coast.  And there new
+regret began, and his knowledge of her ended.
+
+But she and her husband had not been drowned; with a sailor they had
+reached the shore in safety.  They had travelled inland from the coast
+through the great mountains by unknown paths, and as they travelled, the
+sailor died; and they came at last through innumerable hardships to the
+Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men, and there they stayed.  It was
+not an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in winter nor wanton heat in
+summer.  But they never saw a human face, and everything was lonely and
+spectral.  For a time they strove to go eastwards or southwards but the
+mountains were impassable, and in the north and west there was no hope.
+Though the buffalo swept by them in the valley they could not slay them,
+and they lived on forest fruits until in time the man sickened.  The
+woman nursed him faithfully, but still he failed; and when she could go
+forth no more for food, some unseen dweller of the woods brought buffalo
+meat, and prairie fowl, and water from the spring, and laid them beside
+her door.
+
+She had seen the mounds upon the hill, the wide couches of the sleepers,
+and she remembered the things done in the days when God seemed nearer to
+the sons of men than now; and she said that a spirit had done this thing,
+and trembled and was thankful.  But the man weakened and knew that he
+should die, and one night when the pain was sharp upon him he prayed
+bitterly that he might pass, or that help might come to snatch him from
+the grave.  And as they sobbed together, a form entered at the door,--
+a form clothed in scarlet,--and he bade them tell the tale of their lives
+as they would some time tell it unto heaven.  And when the tale was told
+he said that succour should come to them from the south by the hand of
+the Scarlet Hunter, that the nation sleeping there should no more be
+disturbed by their moaning.  And then he had gone forth, and with his
+going there was a storm such as that in which the man had died, the storm
+that had assailed the hunters in the forest yesterday.
+
+This was the second part of Hester Orval's life as she told it to Just
+Trafford.  And he, looking into her eyes, knew that she had suffered, and
+that she had sounded her husband's unworthiness.  Then he turned from her
+and went into the room where the dead man lay.  And there all hardness
+passed from him, and he understood that in the great going forth man
+reckons to the full with the deeds done in that brief pilgrimage called
+life; and that in the bitter journey which this one took across the dread
+spaces between Here and There, he had repented of his sins, because they,
+and they only, went with him in mocking company; the good having gone
+first to plead where evil is a debtor and hath a prison.  And the woman
+came and stood beside Trafford, and whispered, "At first--and at the
+last--he was kind."
+
+But he urged her gently from the room: "Go away," he said; "go away.  We
+cannot judge him.  Leave me alone with him."
+
+They buried him upon the hill-side, far from the mounds where the Mighty
+Men waited for their summons to go forth and be the lords of the North
+again.  At night they buried him when the moon was at its full; and he
+had the fragrant pines for his bed, and the warm darkness to cover him;
+and though he is to those others resting there a heathen and an alien,
+it may be that he sleeps peacefully.
+
+When Trafford questioned Hester Orval more deeply of her life there, the
+unearthly look quickened in her eyes, and she said: "Oh, nothing, nothing
+is real here, but suffering; perhaps it is all a dream, but it has
+changed me, changed me.  To hear the tread of the flying herds, to see no
+being save him, the Scarlet Hunter, to hear the voices calling in the
+night!  .  .  .  Hush!  There, do you not hear them?  It is midnight--
+listen!"
+
+He listened, and Pierre and Shon McGann looked at each other
+apprehensively, while Shon's fingers felt hurriedly along the beads of a
+rosary which he did not hold.  Yes, they heard it, a deep sonorous sound:
+"Is the daybreak come?"  "It is still the night," came the reply as of
+one clear voice.  And then there floated through the hills more softly:
+"We sleep--we sleep!"  And the sounds echoed through the valley--"Sleep
+--sleep!"
+
+Yet though these things were full of awe, the spirit of the place held
+them there, and the fever of the hunter descended on them hotly.  In the
+morning they went forth, and rode into the White Valley where the buffalo
+were feeding, and sought to steal upon them; but the shots from their
+guns only awoke the hills, and none were slain.  And though they rode
+swiftly, the wide surf of snow was ever between them and the chase, and
+their striving availed nothing.  Day after day they followed that flying
+column, and night after night they heard the sleepers call from the
+hills.  The desire of the thing wasted them, and they forgot to eat and
+ceased to talk among themselves.  But one day Shon McGann, muttering aves
+as he rode, gained on the cattle, until once again the Scarlet Hunter
+came forth from a cleft of the mountains, and drove the herd forward with
+swifter feet.  But the Irishman had learned the power in this thing, and
+had taught Trafford, who knew not those availing prayers, and with these
+sacred conjurations on their lips they gained on the cattle length by
+length, though the Scarlet Hunter rode abreast of the thundering horde.
+Within easy range, Trafford swung his gun shoulder-wards to fire, but at
+that instant a cloud of snow rose up between him and his quarry so that
+they all were blinded.  And when they came into the clear sun again the
+buffalo were gone; but flaming arrows from some unseen hunter's bow came
+singing over their heads towards the south; and they obeyed the sign,
+and went back to where Hester wore her life out with anxiety for them,
+because she knew the hopelessness of their quest.  Women are nearer to
+the heart of things.  And now she begged Trafford to go southwards before
+winter froze the plains impassably, and the snow made tombs of the
+valleys.  Thereupon he gave the word to go, and said that he had done
+wrong--for now the spell was falling from him.
+
+But she, seeing his regret, said: "Ah, Just, it could not have been
+different.  The passion of it was on you as it was on us, as if to teach
+us that hunger for happiness is robbery, and that the covetous desire of
+man is not the will of the gods.  The herds are for the Mighty Men when
+they awake, not for the stranger and the Philistine."
+
+"You have grown wise, Hester," he replied.
+
+"No, I am sick in brain and body; but it may be that in such sickness
+there is wisdom."
+
+"Ah," he said, "it has turned my head, I think.  Once I laughed at all
+such fanciful things as these.  This Scarlet Hunter, how many times have
+you seen him?"
+
+"But once."
+
+"What were his looks?"
+
+"A face pale and strong, with noble eyes; and in his voice there was
+something strange."
+
+Trafford thought of Shangi, the Indian,--where had he gone?  He had
+disappeared as suddenly as he had come to their camp in the South.
+
+As they sat silent in the growing night, the door opened and the Scarlet
+Hunter stood before them.  "There is food," he said, "on the threshold--
+food for those who go upon a far journey to the South in the morning.
+Unhappy are they who seek for gold at the rainbow's foot, who chase the
+fire-fly in the night, who follow the herds in the White Valley.  Wise
+are they who anger not the gods, and who fly before the rising storm.
+There is a path from the valley for the strangers, the path by which they
+came; and when the sun stares forth again upon the world, the way shall
+be open, and there shall be safety for you until your travel ends in the
+quick world whither you go.  You were foolish; now you are wise.  It is
+time to depart; seek not to return, that we may have peace and you
+safety.  When the world cometh to her spring again we shall meet."  Then
+he turned and was gone, with Trafford's voice ringing after him,--"
+Shangi!  Shangi!"
+
+They ran out swiftly, but he had vanished.  In the valley where the
+moonlight fell in icy coldness a herd of cattle was moving, and their
+breath rose like the spray from sea-beaten rocks, and the sound of their
+breathing was borne upwards to the watchers.
+
+At daybreak they rode down into the valley.  All was still.  Not a trace
+of life remained; not a hoofmark in the snow, nor a bruised blade of
+grass.  And when they climbed to the plateau and looked back, it seemed
+to Trafford and his companions, as it seemed in after years, that this
+thing had been all a fantasy.  But Hester's face was beside them, and it
+told of strange and unsubstantial things.  The shadows of the middle
+world were upon her.  And yet again when they turned at the last there
+was no token.  It was a northern valley, with sun and snow, and cold blue
+shadows, and the high hills,--that was all.
+
+Then Hester said: "O Just, I do not know if this is life or death--and
+yet it must be death, for after death there is forgiveness to those who
+repent, and your face is forgiving and kind."
+
+And he--for he saw that she needed much human help and comfort--gently
+laid his hand on hers and replied: "Hester, this is life, a new life for
+both of us.  Whatever has been was a dream; whatever is now"--and he
+folded her hand in his--"is real; and there is no such thing as
+forgiveness to be spoken of between us.  There shall be happiness
+for us yet, please God!"
+
+"I want to go to Falkenstowe.  Will--will my mother forgive me?"
+
+"Mothers always forgive, Hester, else half the world had slain itself in
+shame."
+
+And then she smiled for the first time since he had seen her.  This was
+in the shadows of the scented pines; and a new life breathed upon her,
+as it breathed upon them all, and they knew that the fever of the White
+Valley had passed away from them forever.
+
+After many hardships they came in safety to the regions of the south
+country again; and the tale they told, though doubted by the race of
+pale-faces, was believed by the heathen; because there was none among
+them but, as he cradled at his mother's breasts, and from his youth up,
+had heard the legend of the Scarlet Hunter.
+
+For the romance of that journey, it concerned only the man and woman to
+whom it was as wine and meat to the starving.  Is not love more than
+legend, and a human heart than all the beasts of the field or any joy of
+slaughter?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STONE
+
+The Stone hung on a jutting crag of Purple Hill.  On one side of it, far
+beneath, lay the village, huddled together as if, through being close
+compacted, its handful of humanity should not be a mere dust in the
+balance beside Nature's portentousness.  Yet if one stood beside The
+Stone, and looked down, the flimsy wooden huts looked like a barrier at
+the end of a great flume.  For the hill hollowed and narrowed from The
+Stone to the village, as if giants had made this concave path by
+trundling boulders to that point like a funnel where the miners' houses
+now formed a cul-de-sac.  On the other side of the crag was a valley
+also; but it was lonely and untenanted; and at one flank of The Stone
+were serried legions of trees.
+
+The Stone was a mighty and wonderful thing.  Looked at from the village
+direct, it had nothing but the sky for a background.  At times, also, it
+appeared to rest on nothing; and many declared that they could see clean
+between it and the oval floor of the crag on which it rested.  That was
+generally in the evening, when the sun was setting behind it.  Then the
+light coiled round its base, between it and its pedestal, thus making it
+appear to hover above the hill-point, or, planet-like, to be just
+settling on it.  At other times, when the light was perfectly clear and
+not too strong, and the village side of the crag was brighter than the
+other, more accurate relations of The Stone to its pedestal could be
+discovered.  Then one would say that it balanced on a tiny base, a toe of
+granite.  But if one looked long, especially in the summer, when the air
+throbbed, it evidently rocked upon that toe; if steadily, and very long,
+he grew tremulous, perhaps afraid.  Once, a woman who was about to become
+a mother went mad, because she thought The Stone would hurtle down the
+hill at her great moment and destroy her and her child.  Indians would
+not live either on the village side of The Stone or in the valley beyond.
+They had a legend that, some day, one, whom they called The Man Who
+Sleeps, would rise from his hidden couch in the mountains, and, being
+angry that any dared to cumber his playground, would hurl The Stone upon
+them that dwelt at Purple Hill.  But white men pay little heed to Indian
+legends.  At one time or another every person who had come to the village
+visited The Stone.  Colossal as it was, the real base on which its weight
+rested was actually very small: the view from the village had not been
+all deceitful.  It is possible, indeed, that at one time it had really
+rocked, and that the rocking had worn for it a shallow cup, or socket, in
+which it poised.  The first man who came to Purple Valley prospecting had
+often stopped his work and looked at The Stone in a half-fear that it
+would spring upon him unawares.  And yet he had as often laughed at
+himself for doing so, since, as he said, it must have been there hundreds
+of thousands of years.  Strangers, when they came to the village, went to
+sleep somewhat timidly the first night of their stay, and not
+infrequently left their beds to go and look at The Stone, as it hung
+there ominously in the light of the moon; or listened towards it if it
+was dark.  When the moon rose late, and The Stone chanced to be directly
+in front of it, a black sphere seemed to be rolling into the light to
+blot it out.
+
+But none who lived in the village looked upon The Stone in quite the same
+fashion as did that first man who had come to the valley.  He had seen it
+through three changing seasons, with no human being near him, and only
+occasionally a shy, wandering elk, or a cloud of wild ducks whirring down
+the pass, to share his companionship with it.  Once he had waked in the
+early morning, and, possessed of a strange feeling, had gone out to look
+a The Stone.  There, perched upon it, was an eagle; and though he said to
+himself that an eagle's weight was to The Stone as a feather upon the
+world, he kept his face turned towards it all day; for all day the eagle
+stayed.  He was a man of great stature and immense strength.  The thews
+of his limbs stood out like soft unbreakable steel.  Yet, as if to cast
+derision on his strength and great proportions, God or Fate turned his
+bread to ashes, gave failure into his hands where he hugely grasped at
+fortune, and hung him about with misery.  He discovered gold, but others
+gathered it.  It was his daughter that went mad, and gave birth to a dead
+child in fearsome thought of The Stone.  Once, when he had gone over the
+hills to another mining field, and had been prevented from coming back by
+unexpected and heavy snows, his wife was taken ill, and died alone of
+starvation, because none in the village remembered of her and her needs.
+Again, one wild night, long after, his only son was taken from his bed
+and lynched for a crime that was none of his, as was discovered by his
+murderers next day.  Then they killed horribly the real criminal, and
+offered the father such satisfaction as they could.  They said that any
+one of them was ready there to be killed by him; and they threw a weapon
+at his feet.  At this he stood looking upon them for a moment, his great
+breast heaving, and his eyes glowering; but presently he reached out his
+arms, and taking two of them by the throat, brought their heads together
+heavily, breaking their skulls; and, with a cry in his throat like a
+wounded animal, left them, and entered the village no more.  But it
+became known that he had built a rude but on Purple Hill, and that he had
+been seen standing beside The Stone or sitting among the boulders below
+it, with his face bent upon the village.  Those who had come near to him
+said that he had greatly changed; that his hair and beard had grown long
+and strong, and, in effect, that he looked like some rugged fragment of
+an antique world.
+
+The time came when they associated The Man with The Stone: they grew to
+speak of him simply as The Man.  There was something natural and apt in
+the association.  Then they avoided these two singular dwellers on the
+height.  What had happened to The Man when he lived in the village became
+almost as great a legend as the Indian fable concerning The Stone.  In
+the minds of the people one seemed as old as the other.  Women who knew
+the awful disasters which had befallen The Man brooded at times most
+timidly, regarding him as they did at first--and even still--The Stone.
+Women who carried life unborn about with them had a strange dread of both
+The Stone and The Man.  Time passed on, and the feeling grew that The
+Man's grief must be a terrible thing, since he lived alone with The Stone
+and God.  But this did not prevent the men of the village from digging
+gold, drinking liquor, and doing many kinds of evil.  One day, again,
+they did an unjust and cruel thing.  They took Pierre, the gambler, whom
+they had at first sought to vanquish at his own art, and, possessed
+suddenly of the high duty of citizenship, carried him to the edge of a
+hill and dropped him over, thinking thereby to give him a quick death,
+while the vultures would provide him a tomb.  But Pierre was not killed,
+though to his grave--unprepared as yet--he would bear an arm which should
+never be lifted higher than his shoulder.  When he waked from the
+crashing gloom which succeeded the fall, he was in the presence of a
+being whose appearance was awesome and massive--an outlawed god: whose
+hair and beard were white, whose eye was piercing, absorbing, painful,
+in the long perspective of its woe.  This being sat with his great hand
+clasped to the side of his head.  The beginning of his look was the
+village, and--though the vision seemed infinite--the village was the end
+of it too.  Pierre, looking through the doorway beside which he lay, drew
+in his breath sharply, for it seemed at first as if The Man was an
+unnatural fancy, and not a thing.  Behind The Man was The Stone, which
+was not more motionless nor more full of age than this its comrade.
+Indeed, The Stone seemed more a thing of life as it poised above the
+hill: The Man was sculptured rock.  His white hair was chiselled on his
+broad brow, his face was a solemn pathos petrified, his lips were curled
+with an iron contempt, an incalculable anger.
+
+The sun went down, and darkness gathered about The Man.  Pierre reached
+out his hand, and drank the water and ate the coarse bread that had been
+put near him.  He guessed that trees or protruding ledges had broken his
+fall, and that he had been rescued and brought here.  As he lay thinking,
+The Man entered the doorway, stooping much to do so.  With flints he
+lighted a wick which hung from a wooden bowl of bear's oil; then
+kneeling, held it above his head, and looked at Pierre.  And Pierre, who
+had never feared anyone, shrank from the look in The Man's eyes.  But
+when the other saw that Pierre was awake, a distant kindness came upon
+his face, and he nodded gravely; but he did not speak.  Presently a great
+tremor as of pain shook all his limbs, and he set the candle on the
+ground, and with his stalwart hands arranged afresh the bandages about
+Pierre's injured arm and leg.  Pierre spoke at last.
+
+"You are The Man"? he said.  The other bowed his head.
+
+"You saved me from those devils in the valley?"  A look of impregnable
+hardness came into The Man's face, but he pressed Pierre's hand for
+answer; and though the pressure was meant to be gentle, Pierre winced
+painfully.  The candle spluttered, and the hut filled with a sickly
+smoke.  The Man brought some bear skins and covered the sufferer, for,
+the season being autumn, the night was cold.  Pierre, who had thus spent
+his first sane and conscious hour in many days, fell asleep.  What time
+it was when he waked he was not sure, but it was to hear a metallic
+click-click come to him through the clear air of night.  It was a
+pleasant noise as of steel and rock: the work of some lonely stone-cutter
+of the hills.  The sound reached him with strange, increasing
+distinctness.  Was this Titan that had saved him sculpturing some figure
+from the metal hill?  Click-click!  it vibrated as regularly as the keen
+pulse of a watch.  He lay and wondered for a long time, but fell asleep
+again; and the steely iteration went on in his dreams.
+
+In the morning The Man came to him, and cared for his hurts, and gave him
+food; but still would speak no word.  He was gone nearly all day in the
+hills; yet when evening came he sought the place where Pierre had seen
+him the night before, and the same weird scene was re-enacted.  And again
+in the night the clicking sound went on; and every night it was renewed.
+Pierre grew stronger, and could, with difficulty, stand upon his feet.
+One night he crept out, and made his way softly, slowly towards the
+sound.  He saw The Man kneeling beside The Stone, he saw a hammer rise
+and fall upon a chisel; and the chisel was at the base of The Stone.  The
+hammer rose and fell with perfect but dreadful precision.  Pierre turned
+and looked towards the village below, whose lights were burning like a
+bunch of fire-flies in the gloom.  Again he looked at The Stone and The
+Man.
+
+Then the thing came to him sharply.  The Man was chiselling away the
+socket of The Stone, bringing it to that point of balance where the touch
+of a finger, the wing of a bird, or the whistle of a north-west wind,
+would send it down upon the offending and unsuspecting village.
+
+The thought held him paralysed.  The Man had nursed his revenge long past
+the thought of its probability by the people beneath.  He had at first
+sat and watched the village, hated, and mused dreadfully upon the thing
+he had determined to do.  Then he had worked a little, afterwards more,
+and now, lastly, since he had seen what they had done to Pierre, with the
+hot but firm eagerness of an avenging giant.  Pierre had done some sad
+deeds in his time, and had tasted some sweet revenges, but nothing like
+to this had ever entered his brain.  In that village were men who--as
+they thought--had cast him to a death fit only for a coward or a cur.
+Well, here was the most exquisite retaliation.  Though his hand should
+not be in the thing, he could still be the cynical and approving
+spectator.
+
+But yet: had all those people hovering about those lights below done harm
+to him?  He thought there were a few--and they were women--who would not
+have followed his tumbril to his death with cries of execration.  The
+rest would have done so,--most of them did so, not because he was a
+criminal, but because he was a victim, and because human nature as it is
+thirsts inordinately at times for blood and sacrifice--a living strain of
+the old barbaric instinct.  He remembered that most of these people were
+concerned in having injured The Man.  The few good women there had vile
+husbands; the few pardonable men had hateful wives: the village of Purple
+Hill was an ill affair.
+
+He thought: now doubtfully, now savagely, now with irony.
+
+The hammer and steel clicked on.
+
+He looked at the lights of the village again.  Suddenly there came
+to his mind the words of a great man who sought to save a city manifold
+centuries ago.  He was not sure that he wished to save this village; but
+there was a grim, almost grotesque, fitness in the thing that he now
+intended.  He spoke out clearly through the night:
+
+"'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once:
+Peradventure ten righteous shall be found there.'"
+
+The hammer stopped.  There was a silence, in which the pines sighed
+lightly.  Then, as if speaking was a labour, The Man replied in a deep,
+harsh voice:
+
+"I will not spare it for ten's sake."
+
+Again there was a silence, in which Pierre felt his maimed body bend
+beneath him; but presently the voice said,--"Now!"
+
+At this the moon swung from behind a cloud.  The Man stood behind The
+Stone.  His arm was raised to it.  There was a moment's pause--it seemed
+like years to Pierre; a wind came softly crying out of the west, the moon
+hurried into the dark, and then a monster sprang from its pedestal upon
+Purple Hill, and, with a sound of thunder and an awful speed, raced upon
+the village below.  The boulders of the hillside crumbled after it.
+
+And Pierre saw the lights go out.
+
+The moon shone out again for an instant, and Pierre saw that The Man
+stood where The Stone had been; but when he reached the place The Man was
+gone.  Forever!
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+At first--and at the last--he was kind
+Courage; without which, men are as the standing straw
+Evil is half-accidental, half-natural
+Fascinating colour which makes evil appear to be good
+Had the luck together, all kinds and all weathers
+Hunger for happiness is robbery
+If one remembers, why should the other forget
+Instinct for detecting veracity, having practised on both sides
+Mothers always forgive
+The higher we go the faster we live
+The Injin speaks the truth, perhaps--eye of red man multipies
+The world is not so bad as is claimed for it
+Whatever has been was a dream; whatever is now is real
+You do not shout dinner till you have your knife in the loaf
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 4.
+
+
+THE TALL MASTER
+THE CRIMSON FLAG
+THE FLOOD
+IN PIPI VALLEY
+
+
+
+
+THE TALL MASTER
+
+The story has been so much tossed about in the mouths of Indians, and
+half-breeds, and men of the Hudson's Bay Company, that you are pretty
+sure to hear only an apocryphal version of the thing as you now travel in
+the North.  But Pretty Pierre was at Fort Luke when the battle occurred,
+and, before and after, he sifted the business thoroughly.  For he had a
+philosophical turn, and this may be said of him, that he never lied
+except to save another from danger.  In this matter he was cool and
+impartial from first to last, and evil as his reputation was in many ways
+there were those who believed and trusted him.  Himself, as he travelled
+here and there through the North, had heard of the Tall Master.  Yet he
+had never met anyone who had seen him; for the Master had dwelt, it was
+said, chiefly among the strange tribes of the Far-Off Metal River whose
+faces were almost white, and who held themselves aloof from the southern
+races.  The tales lost nothing by being retold, even when the historians
+were the men of the H. B. C.;---Pierre knew what accomplished liars may
+be found among that Company of Adventurers trading in Hudson's Bay, and
+how their art had been none too delicately engrafted by his own people.
+But he was, as became him, open to conviction, especially when,
+journeying to Fort Luke, he heard what John Hybar, the Chief Factor--
+a man of uncommon quality--had to say.  Hybar had once lived long among
+those Indians of the Bright Stone, and had seen many rare things among
+them.  He knew their legends of the White Valley and the Hills of the
+Mighty Men, and how their distinctive character had imposed itself on the
+whole Indian race of the North, so that there was none but believed, even
+though vaguely, in a pleasant land not south but Arcticwards; and Pierre
+himself, with Shon McGann and Just Trafford, had once had a strange
+experience in the Kimash Hills.  He did not share the opinion of Lazenby,
+the Company's clerk at Fort Luke, who said, when the matter was talked of
+before him, that it was all hanky-panky,--which was evidence that he had
+lived in London town, before his anxious relatives, sending him forth
+under the delusive flag of adventure and wild life, imprisoned him in the
+Arctic regions with the H. B. C.
+
+Lazenby admired Pierre; said he was good stuff, and voted him amusing,
+with an ingenious emphasis of heathen oaths; but advised him, as only an
+insolent young scoundrel can, to forswear securing, by the seductive game
+of poker or euchre, larger interest on his capital than the H. B. C.;
+whose record, he insisted, should never be rivalled by any single man in
+any single lifetime.  Then he incidentally remarked that he would like to
+empty the Company's cash-box once--only once;--thus reconciling the
+preacher and the sinner, as many another has done.  Lazenby's morals were
+not bad, however.  He was simply fond of making them appear terrible;
+even when in London he was more idle than wicked.  He gravely suggested
+at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre should go out on the pad
+together.  This was a mere stroke of pleasantry on his part, because, the
+most he could loot in that far North were furs and caches of buffalo
+meat; and a man's capacity and use for them were limited.  Even Pierre's
+especial faculty and art seemed valueless so far Polewards; but he had
+his beat throughout the land, and he kept it like a perfect patrolman.
+He had not been at Fort Luke for years, and he would not be there again
+for more years; but it was certain that he would go on reappearing till
+he vanished utterly.  At the end of the first week of this visit at Fort
+Luke, so completely had he conquered the place, that he had won from the
+Chief Factor the year's purchases of skins, the stores, and the Fort
+itself; and every stitch of clothing owned by Lazenby: so that, if he had
+insisted on the redemption of the debts, the H. B. C. and Lazenby had
+been naked and hungry in the wilderness.  But Pierre was not a hard
+creditor.  He instantly and nonchalantly said that the Fort would be
+useless to him, and handed it back again with all therein, on a most
+humorously constructed ninety-nine years' lease; while Lazenby was left
+in pawn.  Yet Lazenby's mind was not at certain ease; he had a wholesome
+respect for Pierre's singularities, and dreaded being suddenly called
+upon to pay his debt before he could get his new clothes made, maybe, in
+the presence of Wind Driver, chief of the Golden Dogs, and his demure and
+charming daughter, Wine Face, who looked upon him with the eye of
+affection--a matter fully, but not ostentatiously, appreciated by
+Lazenby.  If he could have entirely forgotten a pretty girl in South
+Kensington, who, at her parents' bidding, turned her shoulder on him, he
+would have married Wine Face; and so he told Pierre.  But the half-breed
+had only a sardonic sympathy for such weakness.  Things changed at once
+when Shon McGann arrived.  He should have come before, according to a
+promise given Pierre, but there were reasons for the delay; and these
+Shon elaborated in his finely picturesque style.
+
+He said that he had lost his way after he left the Wapiti Woods, and
+should never have found it again, had it not been for a strange being who
+came upon him and took him to the camp of the White Hand Indians, and
+cared for him there, and sent him safely on his way again to Fort Luke.
+
+"Sorra wan did I ever see like him," said Shon,  with a face that was
+divil this minute and saint the next; pale in the cheek, and black in the
+eye, and grizzled hair flowin' long at his neck and lyin' like snakes on
+his shoulders; and whin his fingers closed on yours, bedad!  they didn't
+seem human at all, for they clamped you so cold and strong."
+
+"'For they clamped you so cold and strong,'" replied Pierre, mockingly,
+yet greatly interested, as one could see by the upward range of his eye
+towards Shon.  "Well, what more?"
+
+"Well, squeeze the acid from y'r voice, Pierre; for there's things that
+better become you: and listen to me, for I've news for all here at the
+Fort, before I've done, which'll open y'r eyes with a jerk."
+
+"With a wonderful jerk, hold! let us prepare, messieurs, to be waked with
+an Irish jerk!" and Pierre pensively trifled with the fringe on Shon's
+buckskin jacket, which was whisked from his fingers with smothered anger.
+For a few moments he was silent; but the eager looks of the Chief Factor
+and Lazenby encouraged him to continue.  Besides, it was only Pierre's
+way--provoking Shon was the piquant sauce of his life.
+
+"Lyin' awake I was," continued Shon, "in the middle of the night, not
+bein' able to sleep for a pain in a shoulder I'd strained, whin I heard a
+thing that drew me up standin'.  It was the sound of a child laughin'; so
+wonderful and bright, and at the very door of me tent it seemed.  Then it
+faded away till it was only a breath, lovely, and idle, and swingin'.  I
+wint to the door and looked out.  There was nothin' there, av coorse."
+"And why 'av coorse'"? rejoined Pierre.  The Chief Factor was intent on
+what Shon was saying, while Lazenby drummed his fingers on the table, his
+nose in the air.
+
+"Divils me darlin', but ye know as well as I, that there's things in the
+world neither for havin' nor handlin'.  And that's wan of thim, says I to
+meself.  .  .  .  I wint back and lay down, and I heard the voice singin'
+now and comin' nearer and nearer, and growin' louder and louder, and then
+there came with it a patter of feet, till it was as a thousand children
+were dancin' by me door.  I was shy enough, I'll own; but I pulled aside
+the curtain of the tent to see again: and there was nothin' beyand for
+the eye.  But the singin' was goin' past and recedin' as before, till it
+died away along the waves of prairie grass.  I wint back and give Grey
+Nose, my Injin bed-fellow, a lift wid me fut.  'Come out of that,' says
+I, 'and tell me if dead or alive I am.'  He got up, and there was the
+noise soft and grand again, but with it now the voices of men, the flip
+of birds' wings and the sighin' of tree tops, and behind all that the
+long wash of a sea like none I ever heard.  .  .  .  'Well,' says I to
+the Injin grinnin' before me, 'what's that, in the name o' Moses?'
+'That,' says he, laughin' slow in me face, 'is the Tall Master--him that
+brought you to the camp.' Thin I remimbered all the things that's been
+said of him, and I knew it was music I'd been hearin' and not children's
+voices nor anythin' else at all.
+
+"'Come with me,' says Grey Nose; and he took me to the door of a big tent
+standin' alone from the rest.
+
+"'Wait a minute,' says he, and he put his hand on the tent curtain; and at
+that there was a crash, as a million gold hammers were fallin' on silver
+drums.  And we both stood still; for it seemed an army, with swords
+wranglin' and bridle-chains rattlin', was marchin' down on us.  There was
+the divil's own uproar, as a battle was comin' on; and a long line of
+spears clashed.  But just then there whistled through the larrup of sound
+a clear voice callin', gentle and coaxin', yet commandin' too; and the
+spears dropped, and the pounding of horsehoofs ceased, and then the army
+marched away; far away; iver so far away, into--"
+
+"Into Heaven!" flippantly interjected Lazenby.  "Into Heaven, say I, and
+be choked to you! for there's no other place for it; and I'll stand by
+that, till I go there myself, and know the truth o' the thing."  Pierre
+here spoke.  "Heaven gave you a fine trick with words, Shon McGann.  I
+sometimes think Irishmen have gifts for only two things--words and women.
+.  .  .  'Bien,' what then?"
+
+Shon was determined not to be angered.  The occasion was too big.  "Well,
+Grey Nose lifted the curtain and wint in.  In a minute he comes out.
+'You can go in,' says he.  So in I wint, the Injin not comin', and there
+in the middle of the tint stood the Tall Master, alone.  He had his
+fiddle to his chin, and the bow hoverin' above it.  He looked at me for a
+long time along the thing; then, all at once, from one string I heard the
+child laughin' that pleasant and distant, though the bow seemed not to be
+touchin'.  Soon it thinned till it was the shadow of a laugh, and I
+didn't know whin it stopped, he smilin' down at the fiddle bewhiles.
+Then he said without lookin' at me,--'It is the spirit of the White
+Valley and the Hills of the Mighty Men; of which all men shall know, for
+the North will come to her spring again one day soon, at the remaking of
+the world.  They thought the song would never be found again, but I have
+given it a home here.'  And he bent and kissed the strings.  After, he
+turned sharply as if he'd been spoken to, and looked at someone beside
+him; someone that I couldn't see.  A cloud dropped upon his face, he
+caught the fiddle hungrily to his breast, and came limpin' over to me--
+for there was somethin' wrong with his fut--and lookin' down his hook-
+nose at me, says he,--'I've a word for them at Fort Luke, where you're
+goin', and you'd better be gone at once; and I'll put you on your way.
+There's to be a great battle.  The White Hands have an ancient feud with
+the Golden Dogs, and they have come from where the soft Chinook wind
+ranges the Peace River, to fight until no man of all the Golden Dogs be
+left, or till they themselves be destroyed.  It is the same north and
+south,' he wint on; 'I have seen it all in Italy, in Greece, in--' but
+here he stopped and smiled strangely.  After a minute he wint on: 'The
+White Hands have no quarrel with the Englishmen of the Fort, and I would
+warn them, for Englishmen were once kind to me--and warn also the Golden
+Dogs.  So come with me at once,' says he.  And I did.  And he walked with
+me till mornin', carryin' the fiddle under his arm, but wrapped in a
+beautiful velvet cloth, havin' on it grand figures like the arms of a
+king or queen.  And just at the first whisk of sun he turned me into a
+trail and give me good-bye, sayin' that maybe he'd follow me soon, and,
+at any rate, he'd be there at the battle.  Well, divils betide me!  I got
+off the track again; and lost a day; but here I am; and there's me story
+to take or lave as you will."
+
+Shon paused and began to fumble with the cards on the table before him,
+looking the while at the others.
+
+The Chief Factor was the first to speak.  "I don't doubt but he told you
+true about the White Hands and the Golden Dogs," he said; "for there's
+been war and bad blood between them beyond the memory of man--at least
+since the time that the Mighty Men lived, from which these date their
+history.  But there's nothing to be done to-night; for if we tell old
+Wind Driver, there'll be no sleeping at the Fort.  So we'll let the thing
+stand."
+
+"You believe all this poppy-cock, Chief"? said Lazenby to the Factor,
+but laughing in Shon's face the while.  The Factor gravely replied:
+"I knew of the Tall Master years ago on the Far-Off Metal River; and
+though I never saw him I can believe these things--and more.  You do not
+know this world through and through, Lazenby; you have much to learn."
+
+Pierre said nothing.  He took the cards from Shon and passed them to and
+fro in his hand.  Mechanically he dealt them out, and as mechanically
+they took them up and in silence began to play.
+
+The next day there was commotion and excitement at Fort Luke.  The Golden
+Dogs were making preparations for the battle.  Pow-wow followed pow-wow,
+and paint and feathers followed all.  The H. B. C. people had little to
+do but look to their guns and house everything within the walls of the
+Fort.
+
+At night, Shon, Pierre, and Lazenby were seated about the table in the
+common-room, the cards lying dealt before them, waiting for the Factor to
+come.  Presently the door opened and the Factor entered, followed by
+another.  Shon and Pierre sprang to their feet.
+
+"The Tall Master," said Shon with a kind of awe; and then stood still.
+
+Their towering visitor slowly unloosed something he carried very
+carefully and closely beneath his arm, and laid it on the table, dropping
+his compass-like fingers softly on it.  He bowed gravely to each, yet the
+bow seemed grotesque, his body was so ungainly.  With the eyes of all
+drawn to him absolutely, he spoke in a low sonorous tone: "I have
+followed the traveller fast"--his hand lifted gently towards Shon--"for
+there are weighty concerns abroad, and I have things to say and do before
+I go again to my people--and beyond.  .  .  .  I have hungered for the
+face of a white man these many years, and his was the first I saw;"--
+again he tossed a long finger towards the Irishman--"and it brought back
+many things.  I remember.  .  .  .  "  He paused, then sat down; and they
+all did the same.  He looked at them one by one with distant kindness.
+"I remember," he continued, and his strangely articulated fingers folded
+about the thing on the table beside him, "when"--here the cards caught
+his eye.  His face underwent a change.  An eager fantastic look shot from
+his eye, "when I gambled this away at Lucca,"--his hand drew the bundle
+closer to him--"but I won it back again--at a price!" he gloomily added,
+glancing sideways as to someone at his elbow.
+
+He remained, eyes hanging upon space for a moment, then he recollected
+himself and continued: "I became wiser; I never risked it again; but I
+loved the game always.  I was a gamester from the start--the artist is
+always so when he is greatest,--like nature herself.  And once, years
+after, I played with a mother for her child--and mine.  And yet once
+again at Parma with"--here he paused, throwing that sharp sidelong
+glance--"with the greatest gamester, for the infinite secret of Art: and
+I won it; but I paid the price!  .  .  .  I should like to play now."
+
+He reached his hand, drew up five cards, and ran his eye through them.
+"Play!" he said.  "The hand is good--very good.  .  .  .  Once when I
+played with the Princess--but it is no matter; and Tuscany is far away!
+.  .  .  Play!" he repeated.
+
+Pierre instantly picked up the cards, with an air of cool satisfaction.
+He had either found the perfect gamester or the perfect liar.  He knew
+the remedy for either.
+
+The Chief Factor did not move.  Shon and Lazenby followed Pierre's
+action.  By their positions Lazenby became his partner.  They played in
+silence for a minute, the Tall Master taking all.  "Napoleon was a
+wonderful player, but he lost with me," he said slowly as he played a
+card upon three others and took them.
+
+Lazenby was so taken back by this remark that, presently, he trumped
+his partner's ace, and was rewarded by a talon-like look from the Tall
+Master's eye; but it was immediately followed by one of saturnine
+amusement.
+
+They played on silently.
+
+"Ah, you are a wonderful player!" he presently said to Pierre, with a
+look of keen scrutiny.  "Come, I will play with you--for values--the
+first time in seventy-five years; then, no more!"
+
+Lazenby and Shon drew away beside the Chief Factor.  The two played.
+Meanwhile Lazenby said to Shon: "The man's mad.  He talks about Napoleon
+as if he'd known him--as if it wasn't three-fourths of a century ago.
+Does he think we're all born idiots?  Why, he's not over sixty years old
+now.  But where the deuce did he come from with that Italian face?  And
+the funniest part of it is, he reminds me of someone.  Did you notice how
+he limped--the awkward beggar!"
+
+Lazenby had unconsciously lifted his voice, and presently the Tall Master
+turned and said to him: "I ran a nail into my foot at Leyden seventy-odd
+years ago."
+
+"He's the devil himself," rejoined Lazenby, and he did not lower his
+voice.
+
+"Many with angelic gifts are children of His Dark Majesty," said the Tall
+Master, slowly; and though he appeared closely occupied with the game, a
+look of vague sadness came into his face.
+
+For a half-hour they played in silence, the slight, delicate-featured
+half-breed, and the mysterious man who had for so long been a thing of
+wonder in the North, a weird influence among the Indians.
+
+There was a strange, cold fierceness in the Tall Master's face.  He now
+staked his precious bundle against the one thing Pierre prized--the gold
+watch received years ago for a deed of heroism on the Chaudiere.  The
+half-breed had always spoken of it as amusing, but Shon at least knew
+that to Pierre it was worth his right hand.
+
+Both men drew breath slowly, and their eyes were hard.  The stillness
+became painful; all were possessed by the grim spirit of Chance.  .  .  .
+The Tall Master won.  He came to his feet, his shambling body drawn
+together to a height.  Pierre rose also.  Their looks clinched.  Pierre
+stretched out his hand.  "You are my master at this," he said.
+
+The other smiled sadly.  "I have played for the last time.  I have not
+forgotten how to win.  If I had lost, uncommon things had happened.
+This,"--he laid his hand on the bundle and gently undid it,--"is my
+oldest friend, since the warm days at Parma . . .  all dead . . . all
+dead."  Out of the velvet wrapping, broidered with royal and ducal arms,
+and rounded by a wreath of violets--which the Chief Factor looked at
+closely--he drew his violin.  He lifted it reverently to his lips.
+
+"My good Garnerius!" he said.  "Three masters played you, but I am chief
+of them all.  They had the classic soul, but I the romantic heart--'les
+grandes caprices.'"  His head lifted higher.  "I am the master artist of
+the world.  I have found the core of Nature.  Here in the North is the
+wonderful soul of things.  Beyond this, far beyond, where the foolish
+think is only inviolate ice, is the first song of the Ages in a very
+pleasant land.  I am the lost Master, and I shall return, I shall return
+.  .  .  but not yet .  .  .  not yet."
+
+He fetched the instrument to his chin with a noble pride.  The ugliness
+of his face was almost beautiful now.
+
+The Chief Factor's look was fastened on him with bewilderment; he was
+trying to remember something: his mind went feeling, he knew not why,
+for a certain day, a quarter of a century before, when he unpacked a box
+of books and papers from England.  Most of them were still in the Fort.
+The association of this man with these things fretted him.
+
+The Tall Master swung his bow upward, but at that instant there came a
+knock, and, in response to a call, Wind Driver and Wine Face entered.
+Wine Face was certainly a beautiful girl; and Lazenby might well have
+been pardoned for throwing in his fate with such a heathen, if he
+despaired of ever seeing England again.  The Tall Master did not turn
+towards these.  The Indians sat gracefully on a bearskin before the fire.
+The eyes of the girl were cast shyly upon the Man as he stood there
+unlike an ordinary man; in his face a fine hardness and the cold light of
+the North.  He suddenly tipped his bow upward and brought it down with a
+most delicate crash upon the strings.  Then softly, slowly, he passed
+into a weird fantasy.  The Indians sat breathless.  Upon them it acted
+more impressively than the others: besides, the player's eye was
+searching them now; he was playing into their very bodies.  And they
+responded with some swift shocks of recognition crossing their faces.
+Suddenly the old Indian sprang up.  He thrust his arms out, and made, as
+if unconsciously, some fantastic yet solemn motions.  The player smiled
+in a far-off fashion, and presently ran the bow upon the strings in an
+exquisite cry; and then a beautiful avalanche of sound slid from a
+distance, growing nearer and nearer, till it swept through the room, and
+imbedded all in its sweetness.
+
+At this the old Indian threw himself forward at the player's feet.  "It
+is the song of the White Weaver, the maker of the world--the music from
+the Hills of the Mighty Men.  .  .  .  I knew it--I knew it--but never
+like that.  .  .  .  It was lost to the world; the wild cry of the lofty
+stars.  .  .  ."  His face was wet.
+
+The girl too had risen.  She came forward as if in a dream and reverently
+touched the arm of the musician, who paused now, and was looking at them
+from under his long eyelashes.  She said whisperingly: "Are you a spirit?
+Do you come from the Hills of the Mighty Men?"
+
+He answered gravely: "I am no spirit.  But I have journeyed in the Hills
+of the Mighty Men and along their ancient hunting-grounds.  This that I
+have played is the ancient music of the world--the music of Jubal and his
+comrades.  It comes humming from the Poles; it rides laughing down the
+planets; it trembles through the snow; it gives joy to the bones of the
+wind.  .  .  .  And I am the voice of it," he added; and he drew up his
+loose unmanageable body till it looked enormous, firm, and dominant.
+
+The girl's fingers ran softly over to his breast.  "I will follow you,"
+she said, "when you go again to the Happy Valleys."
+
+Down from his brow there swept a faint hue of colour, and, for a breath,
+his eyes closed tenderly with hers.  But he straightway gathered back his
+look again, his body shrank, not rudely, from her fingers, and he
+absently said: "I am old-in years the father of the world.  It is a man's
+life gone since, at Genoa, she laid her fingers on my breast like that.
+.  .  .  These things can be no more .  .  .  until the North hath its
+summer again; and I stand young--the Master--upon the summits of my
+renown."
+
+The girl drew slowly back.  Lazenby was muttering under his breath now;
+he was overwhelmed by this change in Wine Face.  He had been impressed to
+awe by the Tall Master's music, but he was piqued, and determined not to
+give in easily.  He said sneeringly that Maskelyne and Cooke in music had
+come to life, and suggested a snake-dance.
+
+The Tall Master heard these things, and immediately he turned to Lazenby
+with an angry look on his face.  His brows hung heavily over the dull
+fire of his eyes; his hair itself seemed like Medusa's, just quivering
+into savage life; the fingers spread out white and claw-like upon the
+strings as he curved his violin to his chin, whereof it became, as it
+were, a piece.  The bow shot out and down upon the instrument with a
+great clangour.  There eddied into a vast arena of sound the prodigious
+elements of war.  Torture rose from those four immeasurable chords;
+destruction was afoot upon them; a dreadful dance of death supervened.
+
+Through the Chief Factor's mind there flashed--though mechanically, and
+only to be remembered afterwards--the words of a schoolday poem.  It
+shuttled in and out of the music:
+
+                   "Wheel the wild dance,
+                    While lightnings glance,
+                    And thunders rattle loud;
+                    And call the brave to bloody grave,
+                    To sleep without a shroud."
+
+The face of the player grew old and drawn.  The skin was wrinkled, but
+shone, the hair spread white, the nose almost met the chin, the mouth was
+all malice.  It was old age with vast power: conquest volleyed from the
+fingers.
+
+Shon McGann whispered aves, aching with the sound; the Chief Factor
+shuddered to his feet; Lazenby winced and drew back to the wall, putting
+his hand before his face as though the sounds were striking him; the old
+Indian covered his head with his arms upon the floor.  Wine Face knelt,
+her face all grey, her fingers lacing and interlacing with pain.  Only
+Pierre sat with masterful stillness, his eyes never moving from the face
+of the player; his arms folded; his feet firmly wedded to the floor.  The
+sound became strangely distressing.  It shocked the flesh and angered the
+nerves.  Upon Lazenby it acted singularly.  He cowered from it, but
+presently, with a look of madness in his eyes, rushed forward, arms
+outstretched, as though to seize this intolerable minstrel.  There was a
+sudden pause in the playing; then the room quaked with noise, buffeting
+Lazenby into stillness.  The sounds changed instantly again, and music of
+an engaging sweetness and delight fell about them as in silver drops--an
+enchanting lyric of love.  Its exquisite tenderness subdued Lazenby, who,
+but now, had a heart for slaughter.  He dropped on his knees, threw his
+head into his arms, and sobbed hard.  The Tall Master's fingers crept
+caressingly along one of those heavenly veins of sound, his bow poising
+softly over it.  The farthest star seemed singing.
+
+At dawn the next day the Golden Dogs were gathered for war before the
+Fort.  Immediately after the sun rose, the foe were seen gliding darkly
+out of the horizon.  From another direction came two travellers.  These
+also saw the White Hands bearing upon the Fort, and hurried forward.
+They reached the gates of the Fort in good time, and were welcomed.  One
+was a chief trader from a fort in the west.  He was an old man, and had
+been many years in the service of the H. B. C.; and, like Lazenby, had
+spent his early days in London, a connoisseur in all its pleasures; the
+other was a voyageur.  They had posted on quickly to bring news of this
+crusade of the White Hands.
+
+The hostile Indians came steadily to within a few hundred yards of the
+Golden Dogs.  Then they sent a brave to say that they had no quarrel with
+the people of the Fort; and that if the Golden Dogs came on they would
+battle with them alone; since the time had come for "one to be as both,"
+as their Medicine Men had declared since the days of the Great Race.
+And this signified that one should destroy the other.
+
+At this all the Golden Dogs ranged into line.  The sun shone brightly,
+the long hedge of pine woods in the distance caught the colour of the
+sky, the flowers of the plains showed handsomely as a carpet of war.  The
+bodies of the fighters glistened.  You could see the rise and fall of
+their bare, strenuous chests.  They stood as their forefathers in battle,
+almost naked, with crested head, gleaming axe, scalp-knife, and bows and
+arrows.  At first there was the threatening rustle of preparation; then
+a great stillness came and stayed for a moment; after which, all at once,
+there sped through the air a big shout of battle, and the innumerable
+twang of flying arrows; and the opposing hosts ran upon each other.
+
+Pierre and Shon McGann, watching from the Fort, cried out with
+excitement.
+
+"Divils me darlin'!" called Shon, "are we gluin' our eyes to a chink in
+the wall, whin the tangle of battle goes on beyand?  Bedad, I'll not
+stand it!  Look at them twistin' the neck o' war!  Open the gates, open
+the gates say I, and let us have play with our guns."
+
+"Hush!  'Mon Dieu!'"  interrupted Pierre.  "Look!  The Tall Master!"
+
+None at the Fort had seen the Tall Master since the night before.  Now he
+was covering the space between the walls and the battle, his hair
+streaming behind him.
+
+When he came near to the vortex of fight he raised his violin to his
+chin, and instantly a piercingly sweet call penetrated the wild uproar.
+The Call filled it, drained through it, wrapped it, overcame it; so that
+it sank away at last like the outwash of an exhausted tide: the weft of
+battle stayed unfinished in the loom.
+
+Then from the Indian lodges came the women and children.  They drew near
+to the unearthly luxury of that Call, now lifting with an unbounded joy.
+Battleaxes fell to the ground; the warriors quieted even where they stood
+locked with their foes.  The Tall Master now drew away from them, facing
+the north and west.  That ineffable Call drew them after him with grave
+joy; and they brought their dead and wounded along.  The women and
+children glided in among the men and followed also.  Presently one girl
+ran away from the rest and came close into the great leader's footsteps.
+
+At that instant, Lazenby, from the wall of the Fort, cried out madly,
+sprang down, opened the gates, and rushed towards the girl, crying: "Wine
+Face!  Wine Face!"
+
+She did not look behind.  But he came close to her and caught her by the
+waist.  "Come back!  Come back!  O my love, come back!" he urged; but
+she pushed him gently from her.
+
+"Hush!  Hush!" she said.  "We are going to the Happy Valleys.  Don't you
+hear him calling"? .  .  .  And Lazenby fell back.
+
+The Tall Master was now playing a wonderful thing, half dance, half
+carnival; but with that Call still beating through it.  They were passing
+the Fort at an angle.  All within issued forth to see.  Suddenly the old
+trader who had come that morning started forward with a cry; then stood
+still.  He caught the Factor's arm; but he seemed unable to speak yet;
+his face was troubled, his eyes were hard upon the player.
+
+The procession passed the empty lodges, leaving the ground strewn with
+their weapons, and not one of their number stayed behind.  They passed
+away towards the high hills of the north-west-beautiful austere barriers.
+
+Still the trader gazed, and was pale, and trembled.  They watched long.
+The throng of pilgrims grew a vague mass; no longer an army of
+individuals; and the music came floating back with distant charm.
+At last the old man found voice.  "My God, it is--"
+
+The Factor touched his arm, interrupting him, and drew a picture from his
+pocket--one but just now taken from that musty pile of books, received so
+many years before.  He showed it to the old man.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the other, "that is he.  .  .  .  And the world buried
+him forty years ago!"
+
+Pierre, standing near, added with soft irony: "There are strange things
+in the world.  He is the gamester of the world.  'Mais' a grand comrade
+also."
+
+The music came waving back upon them delicately but the pilgrims were
+fading from view.
+
+Soon the watchers were alone with the glowing day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CRIMSON FLAG
+
+Talk and think as one would, The Woman was striking to see; with
+marvellous flaxen hair and a joyous violet eye.  She was all pulse and
+dash; but she was as much less beautiful than the manager's wife as Tom
+Liffey was as nothing beside the manager himself; and one would care
+little to name the two women in the same breath if the end had been
+different.  When The Woman came to Little Goshen there were others of her
+class there, but they were of a commoner sort and degree.  She was the
+queen of a lawless court, though she never, from first to last, spoke to
+one of those others who were her people; neither did she hold commerce
+with any of the ordinary miners, save Pretty Pierre, but he was more
+gambler than miner,--and he went, when the matter was all over, and told
+her some things that stripped her soul naked before her eyes.  Pierre had
+a wonderful tongue.  It was only the gentlemen-diggers--and there were
+many of them at Little Goshen--who called upon her when the lights were
+low; and then there was a good deal of muffled mirth in the white house
+among the pines.  The rougher miners made no quarrel with this, for the
+gentlemen-diggers were popular enough, they were merely sarcastic and
+humorous, and said things which, coming to The Woman's ears, made her
+very merry; for she herself had an abundant wit, and had spent wild hours
+with clever men.  She did not resent the playful insolence that sent a
+dozen miners to her house in the dead of night with a crimson flag, which
+they quietly screwed to her roof; and paint, with which they deftly put a
+wide stripe of scarlet round the cornice, and another round the basement.
+In the morning, when she saw what had been done, she would not have the
+paint removed nor the flag taken down; for, she said, the stripes looked
+very well, and the other would show that she was always at home.
+
+Now, the notable thing was that Heldon, the manager, was in The Woman's
+house on the night this was done.  Tom Liffey, the lumpish guide and
+trapper, saw him go in; and, days afterwards, he said to Pierre: "Divils
+me own, but this is a bad hour for Heldon's wife--she with a face like a
+princess and eyes like the fear o' God.  Nivir a wan did I see like her,
+since I came out of Erin with a clatter of hoofs behoind me and a squall
+on the sea before.  There's wimmin there wid cheeks like roses and
+buthermilk, and a touch that'd make y'r heart pound on y'r ribs; but none
+that's grander than Heldon's wife.  To lave her for that other, standin'
+hip-high in her shame, is temptin' the fires of Heaven, that basted the
+sinners o' Sodom."
+
+Pierre, pausing between the whiffs of a cigarette, said: "So?  But you
+know more of catching foxes in winter, and climbing mountains in summer,
+and the grip of the arm of an Injin girl, than of these things.  You are
+young, quite young in the world, Tom Liffey."
+
+"Young I may be with a glint o' grey at me temples from a night o'
+trouble beyand in the hills; but I'm the man, an' the only man, that's
+climbed to the glacier-top--God's Playground, as they call it: and nivir
+a dirty trick have I done to Injin girl or any other; and be damned to
+you there!"
+
+"Sometimes I think you are as foolish as Shon McGann," compassionately
+replied the half-breed.
+
+"You have almighty virtue, and you did that brave trick of the glacier;
+but great men have fallen.  You are not dead yet.  Still, as you say,
+Heldon's wife is noble to see.  She is grave and cold, and speaks little;
+but there is something in her which is not of the meek of the earth.
+Some women say nothing, and suffer and forgive, and take such as Heldon
+back to their bosoms; but there are others--I remember a woman--bien, it
+is no matter, it was long ago; but they two are as if born of one mother;
+and what comes of this will be mad play--mad play."
+
+"Av coorse his wife may not get to know of it, and--"
+
+"Not get to know it!  'Tsh, you are a child--"
+
+"Faith, I'll say what I think, and that in y'r face!  Maybe he'll tire of
+the handsome rip--for handsome she is, like a yellow lily growin' out o'
+mud--and go back to his lawful wife, that believes he's at the mines,
+when he's drinkin' and colloguin' wid a fly-away."
+
+Pierre slowly wheeled till he had the Irishman straight in his eye.  Then
+he said in a low, cutting tone: "I suppose your heart aches for the
+beautiful lady, eh?"  Here he screwed his slight forefinger into Tom's
+breast; then he added sharply: "'Nom de Dieu,' but you make me angry!
+You talk too much.  Such men get into trouble.  And keep down the riot of
+that heart of yours, Tom Liffey, or you'll walk on the edge of knives one
+day.  And now take an inch of whisky and ease the anxious soul. 'Voila!'"
+After a moment he added: "Women work these things out for themselves."
+Then the two left the hut, and amiably strolled together to the centre of
+the village, where they parted.  It was as Pierre had said: the woman
+would work the thing out for herself.  Later that evening Heldon's wife
+stood cloaked and veiled in the shadows of the pines, facing the house
+with The Crimson Flag.  Her eyes shifted ever from the door to the flag,
+which was stirred by the light breeze.  Once or twice she shivered as
+with cold, but she instantly stilled again, and watched.  It was
+midnight.  Here and there beyond in the village a light showed, and
+straggling voices floated faintly towards her.  For a long time no sound
+came from the house.  But at last she heard a laugh.  At that she drew
+something from her pocket, and held it firmly in her hand.  Once she
+turned and looked at another house far up on the hill, where lights were
+burning.  It was Heldon's house--her home.  A sharp sound as of anguish
+and anger escaped her; then she fastened her eyes on the door in front of
+her.
+
+At that moment Tom Liffey was standing with his hands on his hips looking
+at Heldon's home on the hill; and he said some rumbling words, then
+strode on down the road, and suddenly paused near the wife.  He did not
+see her.  He faced the door at which she was looking, and shook his fist
+at it.
+
+"A murrain on y'r sowl!" said he, "as there's plague in y'r body, and
+hell in the slide of y'r feet, like the trail of the red spider.  And out
+o' that come ye, Heldon, for I know y're there.  Out of that, ye beast!
+.  .  .  But how can ye go back--you that's rolled in that sewer--to the
+loveliest woman that ever trod the neck o' the world!  Damned y' are in
+every joint o' y'r frame, and damned is y'r sowl, I say, for bringing
+sorrow to her; and I hate you as much for that, as I could worship her
+was she not your wife and a lady o' blood, God save her!"
+
+Then shaking his fist once more, he swung away slowly down the road.
+During this the wife's teeth held together as though they were of a
+piece.  She looked after Tom Liffey and smiled; but it was a dreadful
+smile.
+
+"He worships me, that common man--worships me," she said.  "This man who
+was my husband has shamed me, left me.  Well--"
+
+The door of the house opened; a man came out.  His wife leaned a little
+forward, and something clicked ominously in her hand.  But a voice came
+up the road towards them through the clear air--the voice of Tom Liffey.
+The husband paused to listen; the wife mechanically did the same.  The
+husband remembered this afterwards: it was the key to, and the beginning
+of, a tragedy.  These are the words the Irishman sang:
+
+              "She was a queen, she stood up there before me,
+               My blood went roarin' when she touched my hand;
+               She kissed me on the lips, and then she swore me
+               To die for her--and happy was the land."
+
+A new and singular look came into her face.  It trans formed her.
+"That," she said in a whisper to herself--"that!  He knows the way."
+
+As her husband turned towards his home, she turned also.  He heard the
+rustle of garments, and he could just discern the cloaked figure in the
+shadows.  He hurried on; the figure flitted ahead of him.  A fear
+possessed him in spite of his will.  He turned back.  The figure stood
+still for a moment, then followed him.  He braced himself, faced about,
+and walked towards it: it stopped and waited.  He had not the courage.
+He went back again swiftly towards the house he had left.  Again he
+looked behind him.  The figure was standing, not far, in the pines.  He
+wheeled suddenly towards the house, turned a key in the door, and
+entered.
+
+Then the wife went to that which had been her home: Heldon did not go
+thither until the first flush of morning.  Pierre, returning from an all-
+night sitting at cards, met him, and saw the careworn look on his face.
+The half-breed smiled.  He knew that the event was doubling on the man.
+When Heldon reached his house, he went to his wife's room.  It was
+locked.  Then he walked down to his mines with a miserable shame and
+anger at his heart.  He did not pass The Crimson Flag.  He went by
+another way.
+
+That evening, in the dusk, a woman knocked at Tom Liffey's door.  He
+opened it.
+
+"Are you alone"? she said.  "I am alone, lady."
+
+"I will come in," she added.  "You will--come in"? he faltered.
+
+She drew near him, and reached out and gently caught his hand.
+
+"Ah!" he said, with a sound almost like a sob in its intensity, and the
+blood flushed to his hair.
+
+He stepped aside, and she entered.  In the light of the candle her eye
+burned into his, but her face wore a shining coldness.  She leaned
+towards him.
+
+"You said you could worship me," she whispered, "and you cursed him.
+Well--worship me--altogether--and that will curse him, as he has killed
+me."
+
+"Dear lady!" he said, in an awed, overwhelmed murmur; and he fell back
+to the wall.
+
+She came towards him.  "Am I not beautiful"? she urged.  She took his
+hand.  His eye swam with hers.  But his look was different from hers,
+though he could not know that.  His was the madness of a man in a dream;
+hers was a painful thing.  The Furies dwelt in her.  She softly lifted
+his hand above his head, and whispered: "Swear."  And she kissed him.
+Her lips were icy, though he did not think so.  The blood tossed in his
+veins.  He swore: but, doing so, he could not conceive all that would be
+required of him.  He was hers, body and soul, and she had resolved on a
+grim thing.  .  .  .  In the darkness, they left the hut and passed into
+the woods, and slowly up through the hills.
+
+Heldon returned to his home that night to find it empty.  There were no
+servants.  There was no wife.  Her cat and dog lay dead upon the
+hearthrug.  Her clothing was cut into strips.  Her wedding-dress was a
+charred heap on the fireplace.  Her jewellery lay molten with it.  Her
+portrait had been torn from its frame.
+
+An intolerable fear possessed him.  Drops of sweat hung on his forehead
+and his hands.  He fled towards the town.  He bit his finger-nails till
+they bled as he passed the house in the pines.  He lifted his arm as if
+the flappings of The Crimson Flag were blows in his face.
+
+At last he passed Tom Liffey's hut.  He saw Pierre, coming from it.  The
+look on the gambler's face was one, of gloomy wonder.  His fingers
+trembled as he lighted a cigarette, and that was an unusual thing.  The
+form of Heldon edged within the light.  Pierre dropped the match and said
+to him,--"You are looking for your wife?"
+
+Heldon bowed his head.  The other threw open the door of the hut.  "Come
+in here," he said.  They entered.  Pierre pointed to a woman's hat on the
+table.  "Do you know that"? he asked, huskily, for he was moved.  But
+Heldon only nodded dazedly.  Pierre continued: "I was to have met Tom
+Liffey here--to-night.  He is not here.  You hoped--I suppose--to see
+your wife in your--home.  She is not there.  He left a word on paper for
+me.  I have torn it up.  Writing is the enemy of man.  But I know where
+he is gone.  I know also where your wife has gone."
+
+Heldon's face was of a hateful paleness.  .  .  .  They passed out into
+the night.
+
+"Where are you going"? Heldon said.
+
+"To God's Playground, if we can get there."
+
+"To God's Playground?  To the glacier-top?  You are mad."
+
+"No, but he and she were mad.  Come on."  Then he whispered something,
+and Heldon gave a great cry, and they plunged into the woods.
+
+In the morning the people of Little Goshen, looking towards the glacier,
+saw a flag (they knew afterwards that it was crimson) flying on it.  Near
+it were two human figures.  A miner, looking through a field-glass, said
+that one figure was crouching by the flag-staff, and that it was a woman.
+The other figure near was a man.  As the morning wore on, they saw upon a
+crag of ice below the sloping glacier two men looking upwards towards the
+flag.  One of them seemed to shriek out, and threw up his hands, and made
+as if to rush forward; but the other drew him back.
+
+Heldon knew what revenge and disgrace may be at their worst.  In vain he
+tried to reach God's Playground.  Only one man knew the way, and he was
+dead upon it--with Heldon's wife: two shameless suicides.  .  .  .  When
+he came down from the mountain the hair upon his face was white, though
+that upon his head remained black as it had always been.  And those
+frozen figures stayed there like statues with that other crimson flag:
+until, one day, a great-bodied wind swept out of the north, and, in pity,
+carried them down a bottomless fissure.
+
+But long before this happened, The Woman had fled from Little Goshen in
+the night, and her house was burned to the ground.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOOD
+
+Wendling came to Fort Anne on the day that the Reverend Ezra Badgley and
+an unknown girl were buried.  And that was a notable thing.  The man had
+been found dead at his evening meal; the girl had died on the same day;
+and they were buried side by side.  This caused much scandal, for the man
+was holy, and the girl, as many women said, was probably evil altogether.
+At the graves, when the minister's people saw what was being done, they
+piously protested; but the Factor, to whom Pierre had whispered a word,
+answered them gravely that the matter should go on: since none knew but
+the woman was as worthy of heaven as the man.  Wendling chanced to stand
+beside Pretty Pierre.
+
+"Who knows!" he said aloud, looking hard at the graves, "who knows!....
+She died before him, but the dead can strike."
+
+Pierre did not answer immediately, for the Factor was calling the earth
+down on both coffins; but after a moment he added: "Yes, the dead can
+strike."  And then the eyes of the two men caught and stayed, and they
+knew that they had things to say to each other in the world.
+
+They became friends.  And that, perhaps, was not greatly to Wendling's
+credit; for in the eyes of many Pierre was an outcast as an outlaw.
+Maybe some of the women disliked this friendship most; since Wendling was
+a handsome man, and Pierre was never known to seek them, good or bad; and
+they blamed him for the other's coldness, for his unconcerned yet
+respectful eye.
+
+"There's Nelly Nolan would dance after him to the world's end," said Shon
+McGann to Pierre one day; "and the Widdy Jerome herself, wid her flamin'
+cheeks and the wild fun in her eye, croons like a babe at the breast as
+he slides out his cash on the bar; and over on Gansonby's Flat there's--"
+
+"There's many a fool, 'voila,'" sharply interjected Pierre, as he pushed
+the needle through a button he was sewing on his coat.
+
+"Bedad, there's a pair of fools here, anyway, I say; for the women might
+die without lift at waist or brush of lip, and neither of ye'd say,
+'Here's to the joy of us, goddess, me own!'"
+
+Pierre seemed to be intently watching the needlepoint as it pierced up
+the button-eye, and his reply was given with a slowness corresponding to
+the sedate passage of the needle.  "Wendling, you think, cares nothing
+for women?  Well, men who are like that cared once for one woman, and
+when that was over--But, pshaw!  I will not talk.  You are no thinker,
+Shon McGann.  You blunder through the world.  And you'll tremble as much
+to a woman's thumb in fifty years as now."
+
+"By the holy smoke," said Shon, "though I tremble at that, maybe, I'll
+not tremble, as Wendling, at nothing at all."  Here Pierre looked up
+sharply, then dropped his eyes on his work again.  Shon lapsed suddenly
+into a moodiness.
+
+"Yes," said Pierre, "as Wendling, at nothing at all?  Well?"
+
+"Well, this, Pierre, for you that's a thinker from me that's none.  I was
+walking with him in Red Glen yesterday.  Sudden he took to shiverin', and
+snatched me by the arm, and a mad look shot out of his handsome face.
+'Hush!' says he.  I listened.  There was a sound like the hard rattle of
+a creek over stones, and then another sound behind that.  'Come quick,'
+says he, the sweat standin' thick on him; and he ran me up the bank--for
+it was at the beginnin' of the Glen where the sides were low--and there
+we stood pantin' and starin' flat at each other.  'What's that?  and
+what's got its hand on ye?  for y' are cold as death, an' pinched in the
+face, an' you've bruised my arm,' said I.  And he looked round him slow
+and breathed hard, then drew his fingers through the sweat on his cheek.
+'I'm not well, and I thought I heard--you heard it; what was it like?'
+said he; and he peered close at me.  'Like water,' said I; 'a little
+creek near, and a flood comin' far off.' 'Yes, just that,' said he; 'it's
+some trick of wind in the place, but it makes a man foolish, and an inch
+of brandy would be the right thing.'  I didn't say no to that.  And on we
+came, and brandy we had with a wish in the eye of Nelly Nolan that'd warm
+the heart of a tomb.  .  .  .  And there's a cud for your chewin',
+Pierre.  Think that by the neck and the tail, and the divil absolve ye."
+
+During this, Pierre had finished with the button.  He had drawn on his
+coat and lifted his hat, and now lounged, trying the point of the needle
+with his forefinger.  When Shon ended, he said with a sidelong glance:
+"But what did you think of all that, Shon?"
+
+"Think!  There it was!  What's the use of thinkin'?  There's many a trick
+in the world with wind or with spirit, as I've seen often enough in ould
+Ireland, and it's not to be guessed by me."  Here his voice got a little
+lower and a trifle solemn.  "For, Pierre," spoke he, "there's what's more
+than life or death, and sorra wan can we tell what it is; but we'll know
+some day whin--"
+
+"When we've taken the leap at the Almighty Ditch," said Pierre, with a
+grave kind of lightness.  "Yes, it is all strange.  But even the Almighty
+Ditch is worth the doing: nearly everything is worth the doing; being
+young, growing old, fighting, loving--when youth is on--hating, eating,
+drinking, working, playing big games.  All is worth it except two
+things."
+
+"And what are they, bedad?"
+
+"Thy neighbour's wife and murder.  Those are horrible.  They double on a
+man one time or another; always."
+
+Here, as in curiosity, Pierre pierced his finger with the needle, and
+watched the blood form in a little globule.  Looking at it meditatively
+and sardonically, he said: "There is only one end to these.  Blood for
+blood is a great matter; and I used to wonder if it would not be terrible
+for a man to see his death coming on him drop by drop, like that."  He
+let the spot of blood fall to the floor.  "But now I know that there is a
+punishment worse than that .  .  .  'mon Dieu!' worse than that," he
+added.
+
+Into Shon's face a strange look had suddenly come.  "Yes, there's
+something worse than that, Pierre."
+
+"So, 'bien?'"
+
+Shon made the sacred gesture of his creed.  "To be punished by the dead.
+And not see them--only hear them."  And his eyes steadied firmly to the
+other's.
+
+Pierre was about to reply, but there came the sound of footsteps through
+the open door, and presently Wendling entered slowly.  He was pale and
+worn, and his eyes looked out with a searching anxiousness.  But that did
+not render him less comely.  He had always dressed in black and white,
+and this now added to the easy and yet severe refinement of his person.
+His birth and breeding had occurred in places unfrequented by such as
+Shon and Pierre; but plains and wild life level all; and men are friends
+according to their taste and will, and by no other law.  Hence these with
+Wendling.  He stretched out his hand to each without a word.  The hand-
+shake was unusual; he had little demonstration ever.  Shon looked up
+surprised, but responded.  Pierre followed with a swift, inquiring look;
+then, in the succeeding pause, he offered cigarettes.  Wendling took one;
+and all, silent, sat down.  The sun streamed intemperately through the
+doorway, making a broad ribbon of light straight across the floor to
+Wendling's feet.  After lighting his cigarette, he looked into the
+sunlight for a moment, still not speaking.  Shon meanwhile had started
+his pipe, and now, as if he found the silence awkward,--"It's a day for
+God's country, this," he said: "to make man a Christian for little or
+much, though he play with the Divil betunewhiles."  Without looking at
+them, Wendling said, in a low voice: "It was just such a day, down there
+in Quebec, when It happened.  You could hear the swill of the river, the
+water licking the piers, and the saws in the Big Mill and the Little Mill
+as they marched through the timber, flashing their teeth like bayonets.
+It's a wonderful sound on a hot, clear day--that wild, keen singing of
+the saws, like the cry of a live thing fighting and conquering.  Up from
+the fresh-cut lumber in the yards there came a smell like the juice of
+apples, and the sawdust, as you thrust your hand into it, was as cool and
+soft as the leaves of a clove-flower in the dew.  On these days the town
+was always still.  It looked sleeping, and you saw the heat quivering up
+from the wooden walls and the roofs of cedar shingles as though the
+houses were breathing."
+
+Here he paused, still intent on the shaking sunshine.  Then he turned to
+the others as if suddenly aware that he had been talking to them.  Shon
+was about to speak, but Pierre threw a restraining glance, and, instead,
+they all looked through the doorway and beyond.  In the settlement below
+they saw the effect that Wendling had described.  The houses breathed.
+A grasshopper went clacking past, a dog at the door snapped up a fly; but
+there seemed no other life of day.  Wendling nodded his head towards the
+distance.  "It was quiet, like that.  I stood and watched the mills and
+the yards, and listened to the saws, and looked at the great slide, and
+the logs on the river: and I said ever to myself that it was all mine--
+all.  Then I turned to a big house on the hillock beyond the cedars,
+whose windows were open, with a cool dusk lying behind them.  More than
+all else, I loved to think I owned that house and what was in it. . . .
+She was a beautiful woman.  And she used to sit in a room facing the
+mill--though the house fronted another way--thinking of me, I did not
+doubt, and working at some delicate needle-stuff.  There never had been a
+sharp word between us, save when I quarrelled bitterly with her brother,
+and he left the mill and went away.  But she got over that mostly, though
+the lad's name was, never mentioned between us.  That day I was so hungry
+for the sight of her that I got my field-glass--used to watch my vessels
+and rafts making across the bay--and trained it on the window where I
+knew she sat.  I thought, it would amuse her, too, when I went back at
+night, if I told her what she had been doing.  I laughed to myself at the
+thought of it as I adjusted the glass.  .  .  .  I looked.  .  .  .
+There was no more laughing.  .  .  .  I saw her, and in front of her a
+man, with his back half on me.  I could not recognise him, though at the
+instant I thought he was something familiar.  I failed to get his face at
+all.  Hers I found indistinctly.  But I saw him catch her playfully by
+the chin!  After a little they rose.  He put his arm about her and kissed
+her, and he ran his fingers through her hair.  She had such fine golden
+hair--so light, and it lifted to every breath.  Something got into my
+brain.  I know now it was the maggot which sent Othello mad.  The world
+in that hour was malicious, awful.  .  .  .
+
+"After a time--it seemed ages, she and everything had receded so far--
+I went .  .  .  home.  At the door I asked the servant who had been
+there.  She hesitated, confused, and then said the young curate of the
+parish.  I was very cool: for madness is a strange thing; you see
+everything with an intense aching clearness--that is the trouble. . . .
+She was more kind than common.  I do not think I was unusual.  I was
+playing a part well, my grandmother had Indian blood like yours, Pierre,
+and I was waiting.  I was even nicely critical of her to myself.  I
+balanced the mole on her neck against her general beauty; the curve of
+her instep, I decided, was a little too emphatic.  I passed her backwards
+and forwards, weighing her at every point; but yet these two things were
+the only imperfections.  I pronounced her an exceeding piece of art--and
+infamy.  I was much interested to see how she could appear perfect in her
+soul.  I encouraged her to talk.  I saw with devilish irony that an angel
+spoke.  And, to cap it all, she assumed the fascinating air of the
+mediator--for her brother; seeking a reconciliation between us.  Her
+amazing art of person and mind so worked upon me that it became
+unendurable; it was so exquisite--and so shameless.  I was sitting where
+the priest had sat that afternoon; and when she leaned towards me I
+caught her chin lightly and trailed my fingers through her hair as he
+had done: and that ended it, for I was cold, and my heart worked with
+horrible slowness.  Just as a wave poises at its height before breaking
+upon the shore, it hung at every pulse-beat, and then seemed to fall over
+with a sickening thud.  I arose, and acting still, spoke impatiently of
+her brother.  Tears sprang to her eyes.  Such divine dissimulation,
+I thought--too good for earth.  She turned to leave the room, and I did
+not stay her.  Yet we were together again that night.  .  .  .  I was
+only waiting."
+
+The cigarette had dropped from his fingers to the floor, and lay there
+smoking.  Shon's face was fixed with anxiety; Pierre's eyes played
+gravely with the sunshine.  Wendling drew a heavy breath, and then went
+on.
+
+"Again, next day, it was like this-the world draining the heat.  .  .  .
+I watched from the Big Mill.  I saw them again.  He leaned over her chair
+and buried his face in her hair.  The proof was absolute now.  .  .  .
+I started away, going a roundabout, that I might not be seen.  It took me
+some time.  I was passing through a clump of cedar when I saw them making
+towards the trees skirting the river.  Their backs were on me.  Suddenly
+they diverted their steps--towards the great slide, shut off from water
+this last few months, and used as a quarry to deepen it.  Some petrified
+things had been found in the rocks, but I did not think they were going
+to these.  I saw them climb down the rocky steps; and presently they were
+lost to view.  The gates of the slide could be opened by machinery from
+the Little Mill.  A terrible, deliciously malignant thought came to me.
+I remember how the sunlight crept away from me and left me in the dark.
+I stole through that darkness to the Little Mill.  I went to the
+machinery for opening the gates.  Very gently I set it in motion, facing
+the slide as I did so.  I could see it through the open sides of the
+mill.  I smiled to think what the tiny creek, always creeping through a
+faint leak in the gates and falling with a granite rattle on the stones,
+would now become.  I pushed the lever harder--harder.  I saw the gates
+suddenly give, then fly open, and the river sprang roaring massively
+through them.  I heard a shriek through the roar.  I shuddered; and a
+horrible sickness came on me.  .  .  .  And as I turned from the
+machinery, I saw the young priest coming at me through a doorway! . . .
+It was not the priest and my wife that I had killed; but my wife and her
+brother.  .  .  ."
+
+He threw his head back as though something clamped his throat.  His voice
+roughened with misery.  "The young priest buried them both, and people
+did not know the truth.  They were even sorry for me.  But I gave up the
+mills--all; and I became homeless .  .  .  this."
+
+Now he looked up at the two men, and said: "I have told you because you
+know something, and because there will, I think, be an end soon."  He got
+up and reached out a trembling hand for a cigarette.  Pierre gave him
+one.  "Will you walk with me"? he asked.
+
+Shon shook his head.  "God forgive you," he replied, "I can't do it."
+
+But Wendling and Pierre left the hut together.  They walked for an hour,
+scarcely speaking, and not considering where they went.  At last Pierre
+mechanically turned to go down into Red Glen.  Wendling stopped short,
+then, with a sighing laugh, strode on.  "Shoo has told you what happened
+here"? he said.
+
+Pierre nodded.
+
+"And you know what came once when you walked with me....  The dead can
+strike," he added.  Pierre sought his eye.  "The minister and the girl
+buried together that day," he said, "were--"
+
+He stopped, for behind him he heard the sharp, cold trickle of water.
+Silent they walked on.  It followed them.  They could not get out of the
+Glen now until they had compassed its length--the walls were high.  The
+sound grew.  The men faced each other.
+
+"Good-bye," said Wendling; and he reached out his hand swiftly.  But
+Pierre heard a mighty flood groaning on them, and he blinded as he
+stretched his arm in response.  He caught at Wendling's shoulder, but
+felt him lifted and carried away, while he himself stood still in a
+screeching wind and heard impalpable water rushing over him.  In a minute
+it was gone; and he stood alone in Red Glen.
+
+He gathered himself up and ran.  Far down, where the Glen opened to the
+plain, he found Wendling.  The hands were wrinkled; the face was cold;
+the body was wet: the man was drowned and dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN PIPI VALLEY
+
+"Divils me darlins, it's a memory I have of a time whin luck wasn't
+foldin' her arms round me, and not so far back aither, and I on the
+wallaby track hot-foot for the City o' Gold."
+
+Shon McGann said this in the course of a discussion on the prosperity of
+Pipi Valley.  Pretty Pierre remarked nonchalantly in reply,--"The wallaby
+track--eh--what is that, Shon?"
+
+"It's a bit of a haythen y' are, Pierre.  The wallaby track?  That's the
+name in Australia for trampin' west through the plains of the Never-Never
+Country lookin' for the luck o' the world; as, bedad, it's meself that
+knows it, and no other, and not by book or tellin' either, but with the
+grip of thirst at me throat and a reef in me belt every hour to quiet the
+gnawin'."  And Shon proceeded to light his pipe afresh.
+
+"But the City o' Gold-was there much wealth for you there, Shon?"
+
+Shon laughed, and said between the puffs of smoke, "Wealth for me, is it?
+Oh, mother o' Moses! wealth of work and the pride of livin' in the heart
+of us, and the grip of an honest hand betunewhiles; and what more do y'
+want, Pierre?"
+
+The Frenchman's drooping eyelids closed a little more, and he replied,
+meditatively: "Money?  No, that is not Shon McGann.  The good fellowship
+of thirst?--yes, a little.  The grip of the honest hand, quite, and the
+clinch of an honest waist?  Well, 'peut-etre.'
+
+"Of the waist which is not honest?--tsh! he is gay--and so!"
+
+The Irishman took his pipe from his mouth, and held it poised before him.
+He looked inquiringly and a little frowningly at the other for a moment,
+as if doubtful whether to resent the sneer that accompanied the words
+just spoken; but at last he good-humouredly said: "Blood o' me bones, but
+it's much I fear the honest waist hasn't always been me portion--Heaven
+forgive me!"
+
+"'Nom de pipe,' this Irishman!" replied Pierre.  "He is gay; of good
+heart; he smiles, and the women are at his heels; he laughs, and they are
+on their knees--Such a fool he is!"
+
+Still Shon McGann laughed.
+
+"A fool I am, Pierre, or I'd be in ould Ireland at this minute, with a
+roof o' me own over me and the friends o' me youth round me, and brats
+on me knee, and the fear o' God in me heart."
+
+"'Mais,' Shon," mockingly rejoined the Frenchman, "this is not Ireland,
+but there is much like that to be done here.  There is a roof, and there
+is that woman at Ward's Mistake, and the brats--eh, by and by?"
+
+Shon's face clouded.  He hesitated, then replied sharply: "That woman, do
+y' say, Pierre, she that nursed me when the Honourable and meself were
+taken out o' Sandy Drift, more dead than livin'; she that brought me back
+to life as good as ever, barrin' this scar on me forehead and a stiffness
+at me elbow, and the Honourable as right as the sun, more luck to him!
+which he doesn't need at all, with the wind of fortune in his back and
+shiftin' neither to right nor left.  --That woman!  faith, y'd better not
+cut the words so sharp betune yer teeth, Pierre."
+
+"But I will say more--a little--just the same.  She nursed you--well,
+that is good; but it is good also, I think, you pay her for that, and
+stop the rest.  Women are fools, or else they are worse.  This one?  She
+is worse.  Yes; you will take my advice, Shon McGann."  The Irishman came
+to his feet with a spring, and his words were angry.
+
+"It doesn't come well from Pretty Pierre, the gambler, to be revilin'
+a woman; and I throw it in y'r face, though I've slept under the same
+blanket with ye, an' drunk out of the same cup on manny a tramp, that you
+lie dirty and black when ye spake ill--of my wife."
+
+This conversation had occurred in a quiet corner of the bar-room of the
+Saints' Repose.  The first few sentences had not been heard by the others
+present; but Shon's last speech, delivered in a ringing tone, drew the
+miners to their feet, in expectation of seeing shots exchanged at once.
+The code required satisfaction, immediate and decisive.  Shon was not
+armed, and some one thrust a pistol towards him; but he did not take it.
+Pierre rose, and coming slowly to him, laid a slender finger on his
+chest, and said:
+
+"So! I did not know that she was your wife.  That is a surprise."
+
+The miners nodded assent.  He continued:
+
+"Lucy Rives your wife!  Hola, Shon McGann, that is such a joke."
+
+"It's no joke, but God's truth, and the lie is with you, Pierre."
+
+Murmurs of anticipation ran round the room; but the half-breed said:
+"There will be satisfaction altogether; but it is my whim to prove what
+I say first; then"--fondling his revolver--"then we shall settle.  But,
+see: you will meet me here at ten o'clock to-night, and I will make it,
+I swear to you, so clear, that the woman is vile."
+
+The Irishman suddenly clutched the gambler, shook him like a dog, and
+threw him against the farther wall.  Pierre's pistol was levelled from
+the instant Shon moved; but he did not use it.  He rose on one knee after
+the violent fall, and pointing it at the other's head, said coolly: "I
+could kill you, my friend, so easy!  But it is not my whim.  Till ten
+o'clock is not long to wait, and then, just here, one of us shall die.
+Is it not so?"  The Irishman did not flinch before the pistol.  He said
+with low fierceness, "At ten o'clock, or now, or any time, or at any
+place, y'll find me ready to break the back of the lies y've spoken, or
+be broken meself.  Lucy Rives is my wife, and she's true and straight as
+the sun in the sky.  I'll be here at ten o'clock, and as ye say, Pierre,
+one of us makes the long reckoning for this."  And he opened the door and
+went out.
+
+The half-breed moved to the bar, and, throwing down a handful of silver,
+said: "It is good we drink after so much heat.  Come on, come on,
+comrades."
+
+The miners responded to the invitation.  Their sympathy was mostly with
+Shon McGann; their admiration was about equally divided; for Pretty
+Pierre had the quality of courage in as active a degree as the Irishman,
+and they knew that some extraordinary motive, promising greater
+excitement, was behind the Frenchman's refusal to send a bullet
+through Shon's head a moment before.
+
+King Kinkley, the best shot in the Valley next to Pierre, had watched the
+unusual development of the incident with interest; and when his glass had
+been filled he said, thoughtfully: "This thing isn't according to Hoyle.
+There's never been any trouble just like it in the Valley before.  What's
+that McGann said about the lady being his wife?  If it's the case, where
+hev we been in the show?  Where was we when the license was around?  It
+isn't good citizenship, and I hev my doubts."
+
+Another miner, known as the Presbyterian, added: "There's some
+skulduggery in it, I guess.  The lady has had as much protection as if
+she was the sister of every citizen of the place, just as much as Lady
+Jane here (Lady Jane, the daughter of the proprietor of the Saints'
+Repose, administered drinks), and she's played this stacked hand on us,
+has gone one better on the sly."
+
+"Pierre," said King Kinkley, "you're on the track of the secret, and
+appear to hev the advantage of the lady: blaze it--blaze it out."
+
+Pierre rejoined, "I know something; but it is good we wait until ten
+o'clock.  Then I will show you all the cards in the pack.  Yes, so,
+'bien sur.'"
+
+And though there was some grumbling, Pierre had his way.  The spirit of
+adventure and mutual interest had thrown the French half-breed, the
+Irishman, and the Hon. Just Trafford together on the cold side of the
+Canadian Rockies; and they had journeyed to this other side, where the
+warm breath from the Pacific passed to its congealing in the ranges.
+They had come to the Pipi field when it was languishing.  From the moment
+of their coming its luck changed; it became prosperous.  They conquered
+the Valley each after his kind.  The Honourable--he was always called
+that--mastered its resources by a series of "great lucks," as Pierre
+termed it, had achieved a fortune, and made no enemies; and but two
+months before the day whose incidents are here recorded, had gone to the
+coast on business.  Shon had won the reputation of being a "white man,"
+to say nothing of his victories in the region of gallantry.  He made no
+wealth; he only got that he might spend.  Irishman-like he would barter
+the chances of fortune for the lilt of a voice or the clatter of a pretty
+foot.
+
+Pierre was different.  "Women, ah, no!" he would say, "they make men
+fools or devils."
+
+His temptation lay not that way.  When the three first came to the Pipi,
+Pierre was a miner, simply; but nearly all his life he had been something
+else, as many a devastated pocket on the east of the Rockies could bear
+witness; and his new career was alien to his soul.  Temptation grew
+greatly on him at the Pipi, and in the days before he yielded to it he
+might have been seen at midnight in his but playing solitaire.  Why he
+abstained at first from practising his real profession is accounted for
+in two ways: he had tasted some of the sweets of honest companionship
+with the Honourable and Shon, and then he had a memory of an ugly night
+at Pardon's Drive a year before, when he stood over his own brother's
+body, shot to death by accident in a gambling row having its origin with
+himself.  These things had held him back for a time; but he was weaker
+than his ruling passion.
+
+The Pipi was a young and comparatively virgin field; the quarry was at
+his hand.  He did not love money for its own sake; it was the game that
+enthralled him.  He would have played his life against the treasury of a
+kingdom, and, winning it with loaded double sixes, have handed back the
+spoil as an unredeemable national debt.
+
+He fell at last, and in falling conquered the Pipi Valley; at the same
+time he was considered a fearless and liberal citizen, who could shoot as
+straight as he played well.  He made an excursion to another field,
+however, at an opportune time, and it was during this interval that the
+accident to Shon and the Honourable had happened.  He returned but a few
+hours before this quarrel with Shon occurred, and in the Saints' Repose,
+whither he had at once gone, he was told of the accident.  While his
+informant related the incident and the romantic sequence of Shon's
+infatuation, the woman passed the tavern and was pointed out to Pierre.
+The half-breed had not much excitableness in his nature, but when he saw
+this beautiful woman with a touch of the Indian in her contour, his pale
+face flushed, and he showed his set teeth under his slight moustache.
+He watched her until she entered a shop, on the signboard of which was
+written--written since he had left a few months ago--Lucy Rives,
+Tobacconist.
+
+Shon had then entered the Saints' Repose; and we know the rest.  A couple
+of hours after this nervous episode, Pierre might have been seen standing
+in the shadow of the pines not far from the house at Ward's Mistake,
+where, he had been told, Lucy Rives lived with an old Indian woman.  He
+stood, scarcely moving, and smoking cigarettes, until the door opened.
+Shon came out and walked down the hillside to the town.  Then Pierre went
+to the door, and without knocking, opened it, and entered.  A woman
+started up from a seat where she was sewing, and turned towards him.
+As she did so, the work, Shon's coat, dropped from her hands, her face
+paled, and her eyes grew big with fear.  She leaned against a chair for
+support--this man's presence had weakened her so.  She stood silent, save
+for a slight moan that broke from her lips, as Pierre lighted a cigarette
+coolly, and then said to an old Indian woman who sat upon the floor
+braiding a basket: "Get up, Ikni, and go away."
+
+Ikni rose, came over, and peered into the face of the half-breed.  Then
+she muttered: "I know you--I know you.  The dead has come back again."
+She caught his arm with her bony fingers as if to satisfy herself that he
+was flesh and blood, and shaking her head dolefully, went from the room.
+When the door closed behind her there was silence, broken only by an
+exclamation from the man.
+
+The other drew her hand across her eyes, and dropped it with a motion of
+despair.  Then Pierre said, sharply: "Bien?"
+
+"Francois," she replied, "you are alive!"
+
+"Yes, I am alive, Lucy."
+
+She shuddered, then grew still again and whispered: "Why did you let it
+be thought that you were drowned?  Why?  Oh, why"? she moaned.
+
+He raised his eyebrows slightly, and between the puffs of smoke, said:
+
+"Ah yes, my Lucy, why?  It was so long ago.  Let me see: so--so--ten
+years.  Ten years is a long time to remember, eh?"
+
+He came towards her.  She drew back; but her hand remained on the chair.
+He touched the plain gold ring on her finger, and said:
+
+"You still wear it.  To think of that--so loyal for a woman!  How she
+remembers, holy Mother!  .  .  .  But shall I not kiss you, yes, just
+once after eight years--my wife?"
+
+She breathed hard and drew back against the wall, dazed and frightened,
+and said:
+
+"No, no, do not come near me; do not speak to me--ah, please, stand back,
+for a moment--please!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and continued, with mock tenderness:
+
+"To think that things come round so!  And here you have a home.  But that
+is good.  I am tired of much travel and life all alone.  The prodigal
+goes not to the home, the home comes to the prodigal."  He stretched up
+his arms as if with a feeling of content.
+
+"Do you--do you not know," she said, "that--that--"
+
+He interrupted her:
+
+"Do I not know, Lucy, that this is your home?  Yes.  But is it not all
+the same?  I gave you a home ten years ago--to think, ten years ago!
+We quarrelled one night, and I left you.  Next morning my boat was found
+below the White Cascade--yes, but that was so stale a trick!  It was not
+worthy of Francois Rives.  He would do it so much better now; but he was
+young then; just a boy, and foolish.  Well, sit down, Lucy, it is a long
+story, and you have much to tell, how much--who knows?"  She came slowly
+forward and said with a painful effort:
+
+"You did a great wrong, Francois.  You have killed me.
+
+"Killed you, Lucy, my wife!  Pardon!  Never in those days did you look so
+charming as now--never.  But the great surprise of seeing your husband,
+it has made you shy, quite shy.  There will be much time now for you to
+change all that.  It is quite pleasant to think on, Lucy.  .  .  .  You
+remember the song we used to sing on the Chaudiere at St. Antoine?  See,
+I have not forgotten it--
+
+                  "'Nos amants sont en guerre,
+                    Vole, mon coeur, vole.'"
+
+He hummed the lines over and over, watching through his half-shut eyes
+the torture he was inflicting.
+
+"Oh, Mother of God," she whispered, "have mercy!  Can you not see, do you
+not know?  I am not as you left me."
+
+"Yes, my wife, you are just the same; not an hour older.  I am glad that
+you have come to me.  But how they will envy Pretty Pierre!"
+
+"Envy--Pretty-Pierre," she repeated, in distress; "are you Pretty Pierre?
+Ah, I might have known, I might have known!"
+
+"Yes, and so!  Is not Pretty Pierre as good a name as Francois Rives?
+Is it not as good as Shon McGann?"
+
+"Oh, I see it all, I see it all now!" she said mournfully.  "It was with
+you he quarrelled, and about me.  He would not tell me what it was.  You
+know, then, that I am--that I am married--to him?"
+
+"Quite.  I know all that; but it is no marriage."  He rose to his feet
+slowly, dropping the cigarette from his lips as he did so.  "Yes," he
+continued, "and I know that you prefer Shon McGann to Pretty Pierre."
+
+She spread out her hands appealingly.
+
+"But you are my wife, not his.  Listen: do you know what I shall do?
+I will tell you in two hours.  It is now eight o'clock.  At ten o'clock
+Shon McGann will meet me at the Saints' Repose.  Then you shall know....
+Ah, it is a pity!  Shon was my good friend, but this spoils all that.
+Wine--it has danger; cards--there is peril in that sport; women--they
+make trouble most of all."
+
+"O God," she piteously said, "what did I do?  There was no sin in me.
+I was your faithful wife, though you were cruel to me.  You left me,
+cheated me, brought this upon me.  It is you that has done this
+wickedness, not I."  She buried her face in her hands, falling on her
+knees beside the chair.
+
+He bent above her: "You loved the young avocat better, eight years ago."
+
+She sprang to her feet.  "Ah, now I understand,' she said.  "That was why
+you quarrelled with me; why you deserted me.  You were not man enough to
+say what made you so much the--so wicked and hard, so--"
+
+"Be thankful, Lucy, that I did not kill you then," he interjected.
+
+"But it is a lie," she cried; "a lie!"
+
+She went to the door and called the Indian woman.  "Ikni," she said.
+"He dares to say evil of Andre and me.  Think--of Andre!"
+
+Ikni came to him, put her wrinkled face close to his, and said: "She was
+yours, only yours; but the spirits gave you a devil.  Andre, oh, oh,
+Andre!  The father of Andre was her father--ah, that makes your sulky
+eyes to open.  Ikni knows how to speak.  Ikni nursed them both.  If you
+had waited you should have known.  But you ran away like a wolf from a
+coal of fire; you shammed death like a fox; you come back like the snake
+to crawl into the house and strike with poison tooth, when you should be
+with the worms in the ground.  But Ikni knows--you shall be struck with
+poison too, the Spirit of the Red Knife waits for you.  Andre was her
+brother."
+
+He pushed her aside savagely: "Be still!" he said.  "Get out-quick.
+'Sacre'--quick!"
+
+When they were alone again he continued with no anger in his tone: "So,
+Andre the avocat and you--that, eh?  Well, you see how much trouble has
+come; and now this other--a secret too.  When were you married to Shon
+McGann?"
+
+"Last night," she bitterly replied; "a priest came over from the Indian
+village."
+
+"Last night," he musingly repeated.  "Last night I lost two thousand
+dollars at the Little Goshen field.  I did not play well last night;
+I was nervous.  In ten years I had not lost so much at one game as I did
+last night.  It was a punishment for playing too honest, or something;
+eh, what do you think, Lucy--or something, 'hein?'"
+
+She said nothing, but rocked her body to and fro.
+
+"Why did you not make known the marriage with Shon?"
+
+"He was to have told it to-night," she said.
+
+There was silence for a moment, then a thought flashed into his eyes, and
+he rejoined with a jarring laugh, "Well, I will play a game to-night,
+Lucy Rives; such a game that Pretty Pierre will never be forgotten in the
+Pipi Valley--a beautiful game, just for two.  And the other who will
+play--the wife of Francois Rives shall see if she will wait; but she must
+be patient, more patient than her husband was ten years ago."
+
+"What will you do--tell me, what will you do?"
+
+"I will play a game of cards--just one magnificent game; and the cards
+shall settle it.  All shall be quite fair, as when you and I played in
+the little house by the Chaudiere--at first, Lucy,--before I was a
+devil."
+
+Was this peculiar softness to his last tones assumed or real?  She looked
+at him inquiringly; but he moved away to the window, and stood gazing
+down the hillside towards the town below.  His eyes smarted.
+
+"I will die," she said to herself in whispers--"I will die."  A minute
+passed, and then Pierre turned and said to her: "Lucy, he is coming up
+the hill.  Listen.  If you tell him that I have seen you, I will shoot
+him on sight, dead.  You would save him, for a little, for an hour or
+two--or more?  Well, do as I say; for these things must be according to
+the rules of the game, and I myself will tell him all at the Saints'
+Repose.  He gave me the lie there, and I will tell him the truth before
+them all there.  Will you do as I say?"
+
+She hesitated an instant, and then replied: "I will not tell him."
+
+"There is only one way, then," he continued.  "You must go at once from
+here into the woods behind there, and not see him at all.  Then at ten
+o'clock you will come to the Saints' Repose, if you choose, to know how
+the game has ended."
+
+She was trembling, moaning, no longer.  A set look had come into her
+face; her eyes were steady and hard.  She quietly replied: "Yes, I shall
+be there."
+
+He came to her, took her hand, and drew from her finger the wedding-ring
+which last night Shon McGann had placed there.  She submitted passively.
+Then, with an upward wave of his fingers, he spoke in a mocking
+lightness, but without any of the malice which had first appeared in his
+tones, words from an old French song:
+
+                   "I say no more, my lady
+                    Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine!
+                    I say no more, my lady,
+                    As nought more can be said."
+
+He opened the door, motioned to the Indian woman, and, in a few moments,
+the broken-hearted Lucy Rives and her companion were hidden in the pines;
+and Pretty Pierre also disappeared into the shadow of the woods as Shon
+McGann appeared on the crest of the hill.
+
+The Irishman walked slowly to the door, and pausing, said to himself:
+"I couldn't run the big risk, me darlin', without seein' you again, God
+help me!  There's danger ahead which little I'd care for if it wasn't for
+you."
+
+Then he stepped inside the house--the place was silent; he called, but no
+one answered; he threw open the doors of the rooms, but they were empty;
+he went outside and called again, but no reply came, except the flutter
+of a night-hawk's wings and the cry of a whippoorwill.  He went back into
+the house and sat down with his head between his hands.  So, for a
+moment, and then he raised his head, and said with a sad smile: "Faith,
+Shon, me boy, this takes the life out of you! the empty house where she
+ought to be, and the smile of her so swate, and the hand of her that
+falls on y'r shoulder like a dove on the blessed altar-gone, and lavin'
+a chill on y'r heart like a touch of the dead.  Sure, nivir a wan of me
+saw any that could stand wid her for goodness, barrin' the angel that
+kissed me good-bye with one foot in the stirrup an' the troopers behind
+me, now twelve years gone, in ould Donegal, and that I'll niver see
+again, she lyin' where the hate of the world will vex the heart of her no
+more, and the masses gone up for her soul.  Twice, twice in y'r life,
+Shon McGann, has the cup of God's joy been at y'r lips, and is it both
+times that it's to spill?--Pretty Pierre shoots straight and sudden, and
+maybe it's aisy to see the end of it; but as the just God is above us,
+I'll give him the lie in his throat betimes for the word he said agin me
+darlin'.  What's the avil thing that he has to say?  What's the divil's
+proof he would bring?  And where is she now?  Where are you, Lucy?  I
+know the proof I've got in me heart that the wreck of the world couldn't
+shake, while that light, born of Heaven, swims up to your eyes whin you
+look at me!"
+
+He rose to his feet again and walked to and fro; he went once more to the
+doors; he looked here and there through the growing dusk, but to no
+purpose.  She had said that she would not go to her shop this night; but
+if not, then where could she have gone and Ikni, too?  He felt there was
+more awry in his life than he cared to put into thought or speech.  He
+picked up the sewing she had dropped and looked at it as one would regard
+a relic of the dead; he lifted her handkerchief, kissed it, and put it in
+his breast.  He took a revolver from his pocket and examined it closely,
+looked round the room as though to fasten it in his memory, and then
+passed out, closing the door behind him.  He walked down the hillside and
+went to her shop in the one street of the town, but she was not there,
+nor had the lad in charge seen her.
+
+Meanwhile, Pretty Pierre had made his way to the Saints' Repose, and was
+sitting among the miners indolently smoking.  In vain he was asked to
+play cards.  His one reply was, "No, pardon, no!  I play one game only
+to-night, the biggest game ever played in Pipi Valley."  In vain, also,
+was he asked to drink.  He refused the hospitality, defying the danger
+that such lack of good-fellowship might bring forth.  He hummed in
+patches to himself the words of a song that the 'brules' were wont to
+sing when they hunted the buffalo:
+
+                  "'Voila!'  it is the sport to ride--
+                         Ah, ah the brave hunter!
+
+                    To thrust the arrow in his hide,
+                    To send the bullet through his side
+                         'Ici,' the buffalo, 'joli!'
+                              Ah, ah the buffalo!"
+
+He nodded here and there as men entered; but he did not stir from his
+seat.  He smoked incessantly, and his eyes faced the door of the bar-room
+that entered upon the street.  There was no doubt in the minds of any
+present that the promised excitement would occur.  Shon McGann was as
+fearless as he was gay.  And Pipi Valley remembered the day in which he
+had twice risked his life to save two women from a burning building--Lady
+Jane and another.  And Lady Jane this evening was agitated, and once or
+twice furtively looked at something under the bar-counter; in fact, a
+close observer would have noticed anger or anxiety in the eyes of the
+daughter of Dick Waldron, the keeper of the Saints' Repose.  Pierre would
+certainly have seen it had he been looking that way.  An unusual
+influence was working upon the frequenters of the busy tavern.  Planned,
+premeditated excitement was out of their line.  Unexpectedness was the
+salt of their existence.  This thing had an air of system not in accord
+with the suddenness of the Pipi mind.  The half-breed was the only one
+entirely at his ease; he was languid and nonchalant; the long lashes of
+his half-shut eyelids gave his face a pensive look.  At last King Kinkley
+walked over to him and said: "There's an almighty mysteriousness about
+this event which isn't joyful, Pretty Pierre.  We want to see the muss
+cleared up, of course; we want Shon McGann to act like a high-toned
+citizen, and there's a general prejudice in favour of things bein' on the
+flat of your palm, as it were.  Now this thing hangs fire, and there's a
+lack of animation about it, isn't there?"
+
+To this, Pretty Pierre replied: "What can I do?  This is not like other
+things; one had to wait; great things take time.  To shoot is easy; but
+to shoot is not all, as you shall see if you have a little patience.
+Ah, my friend, where there is a woman, things are different. I throw a
+glass in your face, we shoot, someone dies, and there it is quite plain
+of reason; you play a card which was dealt just now, I call you--
+something, and the swiftest finger does the trick; but in such as this,
+one must wait for the sport."
+
+It was at this point that Shon McGann entered, looked round, nodded to
+all, and then came forward to the table where Pretty Pierre sat.  As the
+other took out his watch, Shon said firmly but quietly: "Pierre, I gave
+you the lie to-day concerning me wife, and I'm here, as I said I'd be,
+to stand by the word I passed then."
+
+Pierre waved his fingers lightly towards the other, and slowly rose.
+Then he said in sharp tones: "Yes, Shon McGann, you gave me the lie.
+There is but one thing for that in Pipi Valley.  You choked me; I would
+not take that from a saint of heaven; but there was another thing to do
+first.  Well, I have done it; I said I would bring proofs--I have them."
+He paused, and now there might have been seen a shining moisture on his
+forehead, and his words came menacingly from between his teeth, while the
+room became breathlessly still, save that in the silence a sleeping dog
+sighed heavily: "Shon McGann," he added, "you are living with my wife."
+
+Twenty men drew in a sharp breath of excitement, and Shon came a step
+nearer the other, and said in a strange voice: "I--am--living--with--
+your--wife?"
+
+"As I say, with my wife, Lucy Rives.  Francois Rives was my name ten
+years ago.  We quarrelled.  I left her, and I never saw her again until
+to-night.  You went to see her two hours ago.  You did not find her.
+Why?  She was gone because her husband, Pierre, told her to go.  You want
+a proof?  You shall have it.  Here is the wedding-ring you gave her last
+night."
+
+He handed it over, and Shon saw inside it his own name and hers.
+
+"My God!" he said.  "Did she know?  Tell me she didn't know, Pierre?"
+
+"No, she did not know.  I have truth to speak to night.  I was jealous,
+mad, and foolish, and I left her.  My boat was found upset.  They
+believed I was drowned.  'Bien,' she waited until yesterday, and then
+she took you--but she was my wife; she is my wife--and so you see!"
+
+The Irishman was deadly pale.
+
+"It's an avil heart y' had in y' then, Pretty Pierre, and it's an avil
+day that brought this thing to pass, and there's only wan way to the end
+of it."
+
+"So, that is true.  There is only one way," was the reply; "but what
+shall that way be?  Someone must go: there must be no mistake.  I have
+to propose.  Here on this table we lay a revolver.  We will give up these
+which we have in our pockets.  Then we will play a game of euchre, and
+the winner of the game shall have the revolver.  We will play for a life.
+That is fair, eh--that is fair"? he said to those around.
+
+King Kinkley, speaking for the rest, replied: "That's about fair.  It
+gives both a chance, and leaves only two when it's over.  While the woman
+lives, one of you is naturally in the way.  Pierre left her in a way that
+isn't handsome; but a wife's a wife, and though Shon was all in the glum
+about the thing, and though the woman isn't to be blamed either, there's
+one too many of you, and there's got to be a vacation for somebody.
+Isn't that so?"
+
+The rest nodded assent.  They had been so engaged that they did not see
+a woman enter the bar from behind, and crouch down beside Lady Jane,
+a woman whom the latter touched affectionately on the shoulder and
+whispered to once or twice, while she watched the preparations for the
+game.
+
+The two men sat down, Shon facing the bar and Pierre with his back to it.
+
+The game began, neither man showing a sign of nervousness, though Shon
+was very pale.  The game was to finish for ten points.  Men crowded about
+the tables silent but keenly excited; cigars were chewed instead of
+smoked, and liquor was left undrunk.  At the first deal Pierre made a
+march, securing two.  At the next Shon made a point, and at the next also
+a march.  The half-breed was playing a straight game.  He could have
+stacked the cards, but he did not do so; deft as he was he might have
+cheated even the vigilant eyes about him, but it was not so; he played as
+squarely as a novice.  At the third, at the fourth, deal he made a march;
+at the fifth, sixth, and seventh deals, Shon made a march, a point, and a
+march.  Both now had eight points.  At the next deal both got a point,
+and both stood at nine!
+
+Now came the crucial play.
+
+During the progress of the game nothing had been heard save the sound of
+a knuckle on the table, the flip flip of the pasteboard, or the rasp of a
+heel on the floor.  There was a set smile on Shon's face--a forgotten
+smile, for the rest of the face was stern and tragic.  Pierre smoked
+cigarettes, pausing, while his opponent was shuffling and dealing, to
+light them.
+
+Behind the bar as the game proceeded the woman who knelt beside Lady Jane
+listened to every sound.  Her eyes grew more agonised as the numbers,
+whispered to her by her companion, climbed to the fatal ten.
+
+The last deal was Shon's; there was that much to his advantage.  As he
+slowly dealt, the woman--Lucy Rives--rose to her feet behind Lady Jane.
+So absorbed were all that none saw her.  Her eyes passed from Pierre to
+Shon, and stayed.
+
+When the cards were dealt, with but one point for either to gain, and so
+win and save his life, there was a slight pause before the two took them
+up.  They did not look at one another; but each glanced at the revolver,
+then at the men nearest them, and lastly, for an instant, at the cards
+themselves, with their pasteboard faces of life and death turned
+downward.  As the players picked them up at last and spread them out fan-
+like, Lady Jane slipped something into the hand of Lucy Rives.
+
+Those who stood behind Shon McGann stared with anxious astonishment at
+his hand; it contained only nine and ten spots.  It was easy to see the
+direction of the sympathy of Pipi Valley.  The Irishman's face turned a
+slight shade paler, but he did not tremble or appear disturbed.
+
+Pierre played his biggest card and took the point.  He coolly counted
+one, and said, "Game.  I win."  The crowd drew back.  Both rose to their
+feet.  In the painful silence the half-breed's hand was gently laid on
+the revolver.  He lifted it, and paused slightly, his eyes fixed to the
+steady look in those of Shon McGann.  He raised the revolver again, till
+it was level with Shon's forehead, till it was even with his hair!  Then
+there was a shot, and someone fell--not Shon, but Pierre, saying, as they
+caught him, "Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!  From behind!"
+
+Instantly there was another shot, and someone crashed against the bottles
+in the bar.  The other factor in the game, the wife, had shot at Pierre,
+and then sent a bullet through her own lungs.
+
+Shon stood for a moment as if he was turned to stone, and then his head
+dropped in his arms upon the table.  He had seen both shots fired, but
+could not speak in time.
+
+Pierre was severely but not dangerously wounded in the neck.
+
+But the woman--?  They brought her out from behind the counter.  She
+still breathed; but on her eyes was the film of coming death.  She turned
+to where Shon sat.  Her lips framed his name, but no voice came forth.
+Someone touched him on the shoulder.  He looked up and caught her last
+glance.  He came and stooped beside her; but she had died with that one
+glance from him, bringing a faint smile to her lips.  And the smile
+stayed when the life of her had fled--fled through the cloud over her
+eyes, from the tide-beat of her pulse.  It swept out from the smoke and
+reeking air into the open world, and beyond, into those untried paths
+where all must walk alone, and in what bitterness, known only to the
+Master of the World who sees these piteous things, and orders in what
+fashion distorted lives shall be made straight and wholesome in the
+Places of Readjustment.
+
+Shon stood silent above the dead body.
+
+One by one the miners went out quietly.  Presently Pierre nodded towards
+the door, and King Kinkley and another lifted him and carried him towards
+it.  Before they passed into the street he made them turn him so that he
+could see Shon.  He waved his hand towards her that had been his wife,
+and said: "She should have shot but once and straight, Shon McGann, and
+then!--Eh, 'bien!'"
+
+The door closed, and Shon McGann was left alone with the dead.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Irishmen have gifts for only two things--words and women
+More idle than wicked
+Reconciling the preacher and the sinner, as many another has
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 5.
+
+
+ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
+THE CIPHER
+A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
+A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
+
+
+
+
+ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
+
+"The birds are going south, Antoine--see--and it is so early!"
+
+"Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long."
+
+There was a pause, and then: "Antoine, I heard a child cry in the night,
+and I could not sleep."
+
+"It was a devil-bird, my wife; it flies slowly, and the summer is dead."
+
+"Antoine, there was a rushing of wings by my bed before the morn was
+breaking."
+
+"The wild-geese know their way in the night, Angelique; but they flew by
+the house and not near thy bed."
+
+"The two black squirrels have gone from the hickory tree."
+
+"They have hidden away with the bears in the earth; for the frost comes,
+and it is the time of sleep."
+
+"A cold hand was knocking at my heart when I said my aves last night, my
+Antoine."
+
+"The heart of a woman feels many strange things: I cannot answer, my
+wife."
+
+"Let us go also southward, Antoine, before the great winds and the wild
+frost come."
+
+"I love thee, Angelique, but I cannot go."
+
+"Is not love greater than all?"
+
+"To keep a pledge is greater."
+
+"Yet if evil come?"
+
+"There is the mine."
+
+"None travels hither; who should find it?"
+
+He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the mine until
+I come with the birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I will stay, and
+Angelique will stay; I will watch the mine.'"
+
+"This is for his riches, but for our peril, Antoine."
+
+"Who can say whither a woman's fancy goes?  It is full of guessing.  It
+is clouds and darkness to-day, and sunshine--so much--to-morrow.  I
+cannot answer."
+
+"I have a fear; if my husband loved me--"
+
+"There is the mine," he interrupted firmly.
+
+"When my heart aches so--"
+
+"Angelique, there is the mine."
+
+"Ah, my Antoine!"
+
+And so these two stayed on the island of St. Jean, in Lake Superior,
+through the purple haze of autumn, into the white brilliancy of winter,
+guarding the Rose Tree Mine, which Falding the Englishman and his
+companions had prospected and declared to be their Ophir.
+
+But St. Jean was far from the ways of settlement, and there was little
+food and only one hut, and many things must be done for the Rose Tree
+Mine in the places where men sell their souls for money; and Antoine and
+Angelique, French peasants from the parish of Ste. Irene in Quebec, were
+left to guard the place of treasure, until, to the sound of the laughing
+spring, there should come many men and much machinery, and the sinking of
+shafts in the earth, and the making, of riches.
+
+But when Antoine and Angelique were left alone in the waste, and God
+began to draw the pale coverlet of frost slowly across land and water,
+and to surround St. Jean with a stubborn moat of ice, the heart of the
+woman felt some coming danger, and at last broke forth in words of timid
+warning.  When she once had spoken she said no more, but stayed and
+builded the heaps of earth about the house, and filled every crevice
+against the inhospitable Spirit of Winds, and drew her world closer and
+closer within those two rooms where they should live through many months.
+
+The winter was harsh, but the hearts of the two were strong.  They loved;
+and Love is the parent of endurance, the begetter of courage.  And every
+day, because it seemed his duty, Antoine inspected the Rose Tree Mine;
+and every day also, because it seemed her duty, Angelique said many aves.
+And one prayer was much with her--for spring to come early that the child
+should not suffer: the child which the good God was to give to her and
+Antoine.
+
+In the first hours of each evening Antoine smoked, and Angelique sang the
+old songs which their ancestors learned in Normandy.  One night Antoine's
+face was lighted with a fine fire as he talked of happy days in the
+parish of Ste. Irene; and with that romantic fervour of his race which
+the stern winters of Canada could not kill, he sang, 'A la Claire
+Fontaine,' the well-beloved song-child of the 'voyageurs'' hearts.
+
+And the wife smiled far away into the dancing flames--far away, because
+the fire retreated, retreated to the little church where they two were
+wed; and she did as most good women do--though exactly why, man the
+insufficient cannot declare--she wept a little through her smiles.  But
+when the last verse came, both smiles and tears ceased.  Antoine sang it
+with a fond monotony:
+
+              "Would that each rose were growing
+               Upon the rose-tree gay,
+               And that the fatal rose-tree
+               Deep in the ocean lay.
+               'I ya longtemps que je t'aime
+               Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
+
+Angelique's heart grew suddenly heavy.  From the rose-tree of the song
+her mind fled and shivered before the leafless rose-tree by the mine; and
+her old dread came back.
+
+Of course this was foolish of Angelique; of course the wise and great
+throw contumely on all such superstition; and knowing women will smile
+at each other meaningly, and with pity for a dull man-writer, and will
+whisper, "Of course, the child."  But many things, your majesties, are
+hidden from your wisdom and your greatness, and are given to the simple
+--to babes, and the mothers of babes.
+
+It was upon this very night that Falding the Englishman sat with other
+men in a London tavern, talking joyously.  "There's been the luck of
+Heaven," he said, "in the whole exploit.  We'd been prospecting for
+months.  As a sort of try in a back-water we rowed over one night to an
+island and pitched tents.  Not a dozen yards from where we camped was a
+rose-tree-think of it, Belgard, a rose-tree on a rag-tag island of Lake
+Superior!  'There's luck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More.'  'There's
+luck here,' said I; and at it we went just beside the rose-tree.  What's
+the result?  Look at that prospectus: a company with a capital of two
+hundred thousand; the whole island in our hands in a week; and Antoine
+squatting on it now like Bonaparte on Elbe."
+
+"And what does Antoine get out of this"? said Belgard.
+
+"Forty dollars a month and his keep."
+
+"Why not write him off twenty shares to propitiate the gods--gifts unto
+the needy, eh!--a thousand-fold--what?"
+
+"Yes; it might be done, Belgard, if--"
+
+But someone just then proposed the toast, "The Rose Tree Mine!" and the
+souls of these men waxed proud and merry, for they had seen the
+investor's palm filled with gold, the maker of conquest.  While Antoine
+was singing with his wife, they were holding revel within the sound of
+Bow Bells.  And far into the night, through silent Cheapside, a rolling
+voice swelled through much laughter thus:
+
+                   "Gai Ion la, gai le rosier,
+                    Du joli mois de Mai."
+
+The next day there were heavy heads in London; but the next day, also,
+a man lay ill in the hut on the island of St. Jean.
+
+Antoine had sung his last song.  He had waked in the night with a start
+of pain, and by the time the sun was halting at noon above the Rose Tree
+Mine, he had begun a journey, the record of which no man has ever truly
+told, neither its beginning nor its end; because that which is of the
+spirit refuseth to be interpreted by the flesh.  Some signs there be, but
+they are brief and shadowy; the awe of It is hidden in the mind of him
+that goeth out lonely unto God.
+
+When the call goes forth, not wife nor child nor any other can hold the
+wayfarer back, though he may loiter for an instant on the brink.  The
+poor medicaments which Angelique brings avail not; these soothing hands
+and healing tones, they pass through clouds of the middle place between
+heaven and earth to Antoine.  It is only when the second midnight comes
+that, with conscious, but pensive and far-off, eyes, he says to her:
+"Angelique, my wife."
+
+For reply her lips pressed his cheek, and her fingers hungered for his
+neck.  Then: "Is there pain now Antoine?"
+
+"There is no pain, Angelique."
+
+He closed his eyes slowly; her lips framed an ave.  "The mine," he said,
+"the mine--until the spring."
+
+"Yes, Antoine, until the spring."
+
+"Have you candles--many candles, Angelique?"
+
+"There are many, my husband."
+
+"The ground is as iron; one cannot dig, and the water under the ice is
+cruel--is it not so, Angelique?"
+
+"No axe could break the ground, and the water is cruel," she said.
+
+"You will see my face until the winter is gone, my wife."
+
+She bowed her head, but smoothed his hand meanwhile, and her throat was
+quivering.
+
+He partly slept--his body slept, though his mind was feeling its way to
+wonderful things.  But near the morning his eyes opened wide, and he
+said: "Someone calls out of the dark, Angelique."
+
+And she, with her hand on her heart, replied: "It is the cry of a dog,
+Antoine."
+
+"But there are footsteps at the door, my wife."
+
+"Nay, Antoine; it is the snow beating upon the window."
+
+"There is the sound of wings close by--dost thou not hear them,
+Angelique?"
+
+"Wings--wings," she falteringly said: "it is the hot blast through the
+chimney; the night is cold, Antoine."
+
+"The night is very cold," he said; and he trembled. . . "I hear, O my
+wife, I hear the voice of a little child . . . the voice is like thine,
+Angelique."
+
+And she, not knowing what to reply, said softly:
+
+"There is hope in the voice of a child;" and the mother stirred within
+her; and in the moment he knew also that the Spirits would give her the
+child in safety, that she should not be alone in the long winter.
+
+The sounds of the harsh night had ceased--the snapping of the leafless
+branches, the cracking of the earth, and the heaving of the rocks: the
+Spirits of the Frost had finished their work; and just as the grey
+forehead of dawn appeared beyond the cold hills, Antoine cried out
+gently: "Angelique .  .  .  Ah, mon Capitaine .  .  .  Jesu" .  .  .
+and then, no more.
+
+Night after night Angelique lighted candles in the place where Antoine
+smiled on in his frozen silence; and masses were said for his soul--the
+masses Love murmurs for its dead.  The earth could not receive him; its
+bosom was adamant; but no decay could touch him; and she dwelt alone with
+this, that was her husband, until one beautiful, bitter day, when, with
+no eye save God's to see her, and no human comfort by her, she gave birth
+to a man-child.  And yet that night she lighted the candles at the dead
+man's head and feet, dragging herself thither in the cold; and in her
+heart she said that the smile on Antoine's face was deeper than it had
+been before.
+
+In the early spring, when the earth painfully breathed away the frost
+that choked it, with her child for mourner, and herself for sexton and
+priest, she buried Antoine with maimed rites: but hers were the prayers
+of the poor, and of the pure in heart; and she did not fret because,
+in the hour that her comrade was put away into the dark, the world was
+laughing at the thought of coming summer.
+
+Before another sunrise, the owners of the island of St. Jean claimed what
+was theirs; and because that which had happened worked upon their hearts,
+they called the child St. Jean, and from that time forth they made him to
+enjoy the goodly fruits of the Rose Tree Mine.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CIPHER
+
+Hilton was staying his horse by a spring at Guidon Hill when he first
+saw her.  She was gathering may-apples; her apron was full of them.  He
+noticed that she did not stir until he rode almost upon her.  Then she
+started, first without looking round, as does an animal, dropping her
+head slightly to one side, though not exactly appearing to listen.
+Suddenly she wheeled on him, and her big eyes captured him.  The look
+bewildered him.  She was a creature of singular fascination.  Her face
+was expressive.  Her eyes had wonderful light.  She looked happy, yet
+grave withal; it was the gravity of an uncommon earnestness.  She gazed
+through everything, and beyond.  She was young--eighteen or so.
+
+Hilton raised his hat, and courteously called a good-morning at her.  She
+did not reply by any word, but nodded quaintly, and blinked seriously and
+yet blithely on him.  He was preparing to dismount.  As he did so he
+paused, astonished that she did not speak at all.  Her face did not have
+a familiar language; its vocabulary was its own.  He slid from his horse,
+and, throwing his arm over its neck as it stooped to the spring, looked
+at her more intently, but respectfully too.  She did not yet stir, but
+there came into her face a slight inflection of confusion or perplexity.
+Again he raised his hat to her, and, smiling, wished her a good-morning.
+Even as he did so a thought sprung in him.  Understanding gave place to
+wonder; he interpreted the unusual look in her face.
+
+Instantly he made a sign to her.  To that her face responded with a
+wonderful speech--of relief and recognition.  The corners of her apron
+dropped from her fingers, and the yellow may-apples fell about her feet.
+She did not notice this.  She answered his sign with another, rapid,
+graceful, and meaning.  He left his horse and advanced to her, holding
+out his hand simply--for he was a simple and honest man.  Her response to
+this was spontaneous.  The warmth of her fingers invaded him.  Her eyes
+were full of questioning.  He gave a hearty sign of admiration.  She
+flushed with pleasure, but made a naive, protesting gesture.
+
+She was deaf and dumb.
+
+Hilton had once a sister who was a mute.  He knew that amazing primal
+gesture-language of the silent race, whom God has sent like one-winged
+birds into the world.  He had watched in his sister just such looks of
+absolute nature as flashed from this girl.  They were comrades on the
+instant; he reverential, gentle, protective; she sanguine, candid,
+beautifully aboriginal in the freshness of her cipher-thoughts.  She saw
+the world naked, with a naked eye.  She was utterly natural.  She was the
+maker of exquisite, vital gesture-speech.
+
+She glided out from among the may-apples and the long, silken grass, to
+charm his horse with her hand.  As she started to do so, he hastened to
+prevent her, but, utterly surprised, he saw the horse whinny to her
+cheek, and arch his neck under her white palm--it was very white.  Then
+the animal's chin sought her shoulder and stayed placid.  He had never
+done so to anyone before save Hilton.  Once, indeed, he had kicked a
+stableman to death.  He lifted his head and caught with playful shaking
+lips at her ear.  Hilton smiled; and so, as we said, their comradeship
+began.
+
+He was a new officer of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Guidon.  She was
+the daughter of a ranchman.  She had been educated by Father Corraine,
+the Jesuit missionary, Protestant though she was.  He had learned the
+sign-language while assistant-priest in a Parisian chapel for mutes.  He
+taught her this gesture-tongue, which she, taking, rendered divine; and,
+with this, she learned to read and write.
+
+Her name was Ida.
+
+Ida was faultless.  Hilton was not; but no man is.  To her, however, he
+was the best that man can be.  He was unselfish and altogether honest,
+and that is much for a man.
+
+When Pierre came to know of their friendship he shook his head
+doubtfully.  One day he was sitting on the hot side of a pine near his
+mountain hut, soaking in the sun.  He saw them passing below him, along
+the edge of the hill across the ravine.  He said to someone behind him
+in the shade, who was looking also," What will be the end of that, eh?"
+
+And the someone replied: "Faith, what the Serpent in the Wilderness
+couldn't cure."
+
+"You think he'll play with her?"
+
+"I think he'll do it without wishin' or willin', maybe.  It'll be a case
+of kiss and ride away."
+
+There was silence.  Soon Pierre pointed down again.  She stood upon a
+green mound with a cool hedge of rock behind her, her feet on the margin
+of solid sunlight, her forehead bared.  Her hair sprinkled round her as
+she gently threw back her head.  Her face was full on Hilton.  She was
+telling him something.  Her gestures were rhythmical, and admirably
+balanced.  Because they were continuous or only regularly broken, it was
+clear she was telling him a story.  Hilton gravely, delightedly, nodded
+response now and then, or raised his eyebrows in fascinated surprise.
+Pierre, watching, was only aware of vague impressions--not any distinct
+outline of the tale.  At last he guessed it as a perfect pastoral-birds,
+reaping, deer, winds, sundials, cattle, shepherds, hunting.  To Hilton it
+was a new revelation.  She was telling him things she had thought, she
+was recalling her life.
+
+Towards the last, she said in gesture: "You can forget the winter, but
+not the spring.  You like to remember the spring.  It is the beginning.
+When the daisy first peeps, when the tall young deer first stands upon
+its feet, when the first egg is seen in the oriole's nest, when the sap
+first sweats from the tree, when you first look into the eye of your
+friend--these you want to remember.  .  .  ."
+
+She paused upon this gesture--a light touch upon the forehead, then the
+hands stretched out, palms upward, with coaxing fingers.  She seemed lost
+in it.  Her eyes rippled, her lips pressed slightly, a delicate wine
+crept through her cheek, and tenderness wimpled all.  Her soft breast
+rose modestly to the cool texture of her dress.  Hilton felt his blood
+bound joyfully; he had the wish of instant possession.  But yet he could
+not stir, she held him so; for a change immediately passed upon her.  She
+glided slowly from that almost statue-like repose into another gesture.
+Her eyes drew up from his, and looked away to plumbless distance, all
+glowing and childlike, and the new ciphers slowly said:
+
+"But the spring dies away.  We can only see a thing born once.  And it
+may be ours, yet not ours.  I have sighted the perfect Sharon-flower, far
+up on Guidon, yet it was not mine; it was too distant; I could not reach
+it.  I have seen the silver bullfinch floating along the canon.  I called
+to it, and it came singing; and it was mine, yet I could not hear its
+song, and I let it go; it could not be happy so with me.  .  .  .
+I stand at the gate of a great city, and see all, and feel the great
+shuttles of sounds, the roar and clack of wheels, the horses' hoofs
+striking the ground, the hammer of bells; all: and yet it is not mine;
+it is far, far away from me.  It is one world, mine is another; and
+sometimes it is lonely, and the best things are not for me.  But I have
+seen them, and it is pleasant to remember, and nothing can take from us
+the hour when things were born, when we saw the spring--nothing--never!"
+
+Her manner of speech, as this went on, became exquisite in fineness,
+slower, and more dream-like, until, with downward protesting motions of
+the hand, she said that "nothing--never!"  Then a great sigh surged up
+her throat, her lips parted slightly, showing the warm moist whiteness of
+her teeth, her hands falling lightly, drew together and folded in front
+of her.  She stood still.
+
+Pierre had watched this scene intently, his chin in his hands, his elbows
+on his knees.  Presently he drew himself up, ran a finger meditatively
+along his lip, and said to himself: "It is perfect.  She is carved from
+the core of nature.  But this thing has danger for her.  .  .  .
+'bien!'  .  .  .  ah!"
+
+A change in the scene before him caused this last expression of surprise.
+
+Hilton, rousing from the enchanting pantomime, took a step towards her;
+but she raised her hand pleadingly, restrainingly, and he paused.  With
+his eyes he asked her mutely why.  She did not answer, but, all at once
+transformed into a thing of abundant sprightliness, ran down the
+hillside, tossing up her arms gaily.  Yet her face was not all
+brilliance.  Tears hung at her eyes.  But Hilton did not see these.
+He did not run, but walked quickly, following her; and his face had a
+determined look.  Immediately, a man rose up from behind a rock on the
+same side of the ravine, and shook clenched fists after the departing
+figures; then stood gesticulating angrily to himself, until, chancing
+to look up, he sighted Pierre, and straightway dived into the underbrush.
+Pierre rose to his feet, and said slowly: "Hilton, here may be trouble
+for you also.  It is a tangled world."
+
+Towards evening Pierre sauntered to the house of Ida's father.  Light of
+footstep, he came upon the girl suddenly.  They had always been friends
+since the day when, at uncommon risk, he rescued her dog from a freshet
+on the Wild Moose River.  She was sitting utterly still, her hands folded
+in her lap.  He struck his foot smartly on the ground.  She felt the
+vibration, and looked up.  He doffed his hat, and she held out her hand.
+He smiled and took it, and, as it lay in his, looked at it for a moment
+musingly.  She drew it back slowly.  He was then thinking that it was the
+most intelligent hand he had ever seen.  .  .  .  He determined to play a
+bold and surprising game.  He had learned from her the alphabet of the
+fingers--that is, how to spell words.  He knew little gesture-language.
+He, therefore, spelled slowly: "Hawley is angry, because you love
+Hilton."  The statement was so matter-of-fact, so sudden, that the girl
+had no chance.  She flushed and then paled.  She shook her head firmly,
+however, and her fingers slowly framed the reply: "You guess too much.
+Foolish things come to the idle."
+
+"I saw you this afternoon," he silently urged.
+
+Her fingers trembled slightly.  "There was nothing to see."  She knew he
+could not have read her gestures.  "I was telling a story."
+
+"You ran from him--why?"  His questioning was cruel that he might in the
+end be kind.
+
+"The child runs from its shadow, the bird from its nest, the fish jumps
+from the water--that is nothing."  She had recovered somewhat.
+
+But he: "The shadow follows the child, the bird comes back to its nest,
+the fish cannot live beyond the water.  But it is sad when the child, in
+running, rushes into darkness, and loses its shadow; when the nest falls
+from the tree; and the hawk catches the happy fish.  .  .  .  Hawley saw
+you also."
+
+Hawley, like Ida, was deaf and dumb.  He lived over the mountains, but
+came often.  It had been understood that, one day, she should marry him.
+It seemed fitting.  She had said neither yes nor no.  And now?
+
+A quick tremor of trouble trailed over her face, then it became very
+still.  Her eyes were bent upon the ground steadily.  Presently a bird
+hopped near, its head coquetting at her.  She ran her hand gently along
+the grass towards it.  The bird tripped on it.  She lifted it to her
+chin, at which it pecked tenderly.  Pierre watched her keenly-admiring,
+pitying.  He wished to serve her.  At last, with a kiss upon its head,
+she gave it a light toss into the air, and it soared, lark-like, straight
+up, and hanging over her head, sang the day into the evening.  Her eyes
+followed it.  She could feel that it was singing.  She smiled and lifted
+a finger lightly towards it.  Then she spelled to Pierre this: "It is
+singing to me.  We imperfect things love each other."
+
+"And what about loving Hawley, then"? Pierre persisted.  She did not
+reply, but a strange look came upon her, and in the pause Hilton came
+from the house and stood beside them.  At this, Pierre lighted a
+cigarette, and with a good-natured nod to Hilton, walked away.
+
+Hilton stooped over her, pale and eager.  "Ida," he gestured, "will you
+answer me now?  Will you be my wife?"
+
+She drew herself together with a little shiver.  "No," was her steady
+reply.  She ruled her face into stillness, so that it showed nothing of
+what she felt.  She came to her feet wearily, and drawing down a cool
+flowering branch of chestnut, pressed it to her cheek.  "You do not love
+me"? he asked nervously.
+
+"I am going to marry Luke Hawley," was her slow answer.  She spelled the
+words.  She used no gesture to that.  The fact looked terribly hard and
+inflexible so.  Hilton was not a vain man, and he believed he was not
+loved.  His heart crowded to his throat.
+
+"Please go away, now," she begged with an anxious gesture.  While the
+hand was extended, he reached and brought it to his lips, then quickly
+kissed her on the forehead, and walked away.  She stood trembling, and as
+the fingers of one hand hung at her side, they spelled mechanically these
+words: "It would spoil his life.  I am only a mute--a dummy!"
+
+As she stood so, she felt the approach of someone.  She did not turn
+instantly, but with the aboriginal instinct, listened, as it were, with
+her body; but presently faced about--to Hawley.  He was red with anger.
+He had seen Hilton kiss her.  He caught her smartly by the arm, but, awed
+by the great calmness of her face, dropped it, and fell into a fit of
+sullenness.  She spoke to him: he did not reply.  She touched his arm: he
+still was gloomy.  All at once the full price of her sacrifice rushed
+upon her; and overpowered her.  She had no help at her critical hour, not
+even from this man she had intended to bless.  There came a swift
+revulsion, all passions stormed in her at once.  Despair was the
+resultant of these forces.  She swerved from him immediately, and ran
+hard towards the high-banked river!
+
+Hawley did not follow her at once: he did not guess her purpose.  She had
+almost reached the leaping-place, when Pierre shot from the trees, and
+seized her.  The impulse of this was so strong, that they slipped, and
+quivered on the precipitous edge: but Pierre righted then, and presently
+they were safe.
+
+Pierre held her hard by both wrists for a moment.  Then, drawing her
+away, he loosed her, and spelled these words slowly: "I understand.  But
+you are wrong.  Hawley is not the man.  You must come with me.  It is
+foolish to die."
+
+The riot of her feelings, her momentary despair, were gone.  It was
+even pleasant to be mastered by Pierre's firmness.  She was passive.
+Mechanically she went with him.  Hawley approached.  She looked at
+Pierre.  Then she turned on the other.  "Yours is not the best love," she
+signed to him; "it does not trust; it is selfish."  And she moved on.
+
+But, an hour later, Hilton caught her to his bosom, and kissed her full
+on the lips.  .  .  .  And his right to do so continues to this day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
+
+At Fort Latrobe sentiment was not of the most refined kind.  Local
+customs were pronounced and crude in outline; language was often highly
+coloured, and action was occasionally accentuated by a pistol shot.  For
+the first few months of its life the place was honoured by the presence
+of neither wife, nor sister, nor mother.  Yet women lived there.
+
+When some men did bring wives and children, it was noticed that the girl
+Blanche was seldom seen in the streets.  And, however it was, there grew
+among the men a faint respect for her.  They did not talk of it to each
+other, but it existed.  It was known that Blanche resented even the most
+casual notice from those men who had wives and homes.  She gave the
+impression that she had a remnant of conscience.
+
+"Go home," she said to Harry Delong, who asked her to drink with him on
+New Year's Day.  "Go home, and thank God that you've got a home--and a
+wife."
+
+After Jacques, the long-time friend of Pretty Pierre, came to Fort
+Latrobe, with his sulky eye and scrupulously neat attire, Blanche
+appeared to withdraw still more from public gaze, though no one saw any
+connection between these events.  The girl also became fastidious in her
+dress, and lost all her former dash and smart aggression of manner.  She
+shrank from the women of her class, for which, as might be expected, she
+was duly reviled.  But the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air
+have nests, nor has it been written that a woman may not close her ears,
+and bury herself in darkness, and travel alone in the desert with her
+people--those ghosts of herself, whose name is legion, and whose slow
+white fingers mock more than the world dare at its worst.
+
+Suddenly, she was found behind the bar of Weir's Tavern at Cedar Point,
+the resort most frequented by Jacques.  Word went about among the men
+that Blanche was taking a turn at religion, or, otherwise, reformation.
+Soldier Joe was something sceptical on this point from the fact that she
+had developed a very uncertain temper.  This appeared especially
+noticeable in her treatment of Jacques.  She made him the target for her
+sharpest sarcasm.  Though a peculiar glow came to his eyes at times, he
+was never roused from his exasperating coolness.  When her shafts were
+unusually direct and biting, and the temptation to resent was keen, he
+merely shrugged his shoulders, almost gently, and said: "Eh, such women!"
+
+Nevertheless, there were men at Fort Latrobe who prophesied trouble,
+for they knew there was a deep strain of malice in the French half-breed
+which could be the more deadly because of its rare use.  He was not
+easily moved, he viewed life from the heights of a philosophy which could
+separate the petty from the prodigious.  His reputation was not wholly
+disquieting; he was of the goats, he had sometimes been found with the
+sheep, he preferred to be numbered with the transgressors.  Like Pierre,
+his one passion was gambling.  There were legends that once or twice in
+his life he had had another passion, but that some Gorgon drew out his
+heartstrings painfully, one by one, and left him inhabited by a pale
+spirit now called Irony, now Indifference--under either name a fret and
+an anger to women.
+
+At last Blanche's attacks on Jacques called out anxious protests from
+men like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche,
+there's a devil in Jacques.  Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll
+shoot you as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarlton over
+there."
+
+And Blanche replied: "When he does that, what will you do, Joe?"
+
+"Do?  Do?"  The man stroked his beard softly.  "Why, give him ditto--
+cold."
+
+"Well, then, there's nothing to row about, is there?"  And Soldier Joe
+was not on the instant clever enough to answer her sophistry; but when
+she left him and he had thought awhile, he said, convincingly:
+
+"But where would you be then, Blanche?  .  .  .  That's the point."
+
+One thing was known and certain: Blanche was earning her living by
+honest, if not high-class, labour.  Weir the tavern-keeper said she was
+"worth hundreds" to him.  But she grew pale, her eyes became peculiarly
+brilliant, her voice took a lower key, and lost a kind of hoarseness it
+had in the past.  Men came in at times merely to have a joke at her
+expense, having heard of her new life; but they failed to enjoy their own
+attempts at humour.  Women of her class came also, some with half-
+uncertain jibes, some with a curious wistfulness, and a few with scornful
+oaths; but the jibes and oaths were only for a time.  It became known
+that she had paid the coach fare of Miss Dido (as she was called) to the
+hospital at Wapiti, and had raised a subscription for her maintenance
+there, heading it herself with a liberal sum.  Then the atmosphere round
+her became less trying; yet her temper remained changeable, and had it
+not been that she was good-looking and witty, her position might have
+been insecure.  As it was, she ruled in a neutral territory where she was
+the only woman.  One night, after an inclement remark to Jacques, in the
+card-room, Blanche came back to the bar, and not noticing that, while she
+was gone, Soldier Joe had entered and laid himself down on a bench in a
+corner, she threw her head passionately forward on her arms as they
+rested on the counter, and cried: "O my God! my God!"
+
+Soldier Joe lay still as if sleeping, and when Blanche was called away
+again he rose, stole out, went down to Freddy Tarlton's office, and
+offered to bet Freddy two to one that Blanche wouldn't live a year.
+Joe's experience of women was limited.  He had in his mind the case
+of a girl who had accidentally smothered her child; and so he said:
+
+"Blanche has something on her mind that's killing her, Freddy.  When
+trouble fixes on her sort it kills swift and sure.  They've nothing to
+live for but life, and it isn't good enough, you see, for--for--"
+Joe paused to find out where his philosophy was taking him.
+
+Freddy Tarlton finished the sentence for him: "For an inner sorrow is a
+consuming fire."
+
+Fort Latrobe soon had an unexpected opportunity to study Soldier Joe's
+theory.  One night Jacques did not appear at Weir's Tavern as he had
+engaged to do, and Soldier Joe and another went across the frozen river
+to his log-hut to seek him.  They found him by a handful of fire,
+breathing heavily and nearly unconscious.  One of the sudden and
+frequently fatal colds of the mountains had fastened on him, and he had
+begun a war for life.  Joe started back at once for liquor and a doctor,
+leaving his comrade to watch by the sick man.
+
+He could not understand why Blanche should stagger and grow white when he
+told her; nor why she insisted on taking the liquor herself.  He did not
+yet guess the truth.
+
+The next day all Fort Latrobe knew that Blanche was nursing Jacques, on
+what was thought to be his no-return journey.  The doctor said it was a
+dangerous case, and he held out little hope.  Nursing might bring
+him through, but the chance was very slight.  Blanche only occasionally
+left the sick man's bedside to be relieved by Soldier Joe and Freddy
+Tarlton.  It dawned on Joe at last, it had dawned on Freddy before, what
+Blanche meant by the heart-breaking words uttered that night in Weir's
+Tavern.  Down through the crust of this woman's heart had gone something
+both joyful and painful.  Whatever it was, it made Blanche a saving
+nurse, a good apothecary; for, one night the doctor pronounced Jacques
+out of danger, and said that a few days would bring him round if he was
+careful.
+
+Now, for the first time, Jacques fully comprehended all Blanche had done
+for him, though he had ceased to wonder at her changed attitude to him.
+Through his suffering and his delirium had come the understanding of it.
+When, after the crisis, the doctor turned away from the bed, Jacques
+looked steadily into Blanche's eyes, and she flushed, and wiped the wet
+from his brow with her handkerchief.  He took the handkerchief from her
+fingers gently before Soldier Joe came over to the bed.
+
+The doctor had insisted that Blanche should go to Weir's Tavern and get
+the night's rest, needed so much, and Joe now pressed her to keep her
+promise.  Jacques added an urging word, and after a time she started.
+Joe had forgotten to tell her that a new road had been made on the ice
+since she had crossed, and that the old road was dangerous.  Wandering
+with her thoughts she did not notice the spruce bushes set up for signal,
+until she had stepped on a thin piece of ice.  It bent beneath her.  She
+slipped: there was a sudden sinking, a sharp cry, then another, piercing
+and hopeless--and it was the one word--"Jacques!"  Then the night was
+silent as before.  But someone had heard the cry.  Freddy Tarlton was
+crossing the ice also, and that desolating Jacques! had reached his ears.
+When he found her he saw that she had been taken and the other left.
+But that other, asleep in his bed at the sacred moment when she parted,
+suddenly waked, and said to Soldier Joe: "Did you speak, Joe?  Did you
+call me?"
+
+But Joe, who had been playing cards with himself, replied, "I haven't
+said a word."
+
+And Jacques then added: "Perhaps I dream--perhaps."
+
+On the advice of the doctor and Freddy Tarlton, the bad news was kept
+from Jacques.  When she did not come the next day, Joe told him that she
+couldn't; that he ought to remember she had had no rest for weeks, and
+had earned a long rest.  And Jacques said that was so.
+
+Weir began preparations for the funeral, but Freddy Tarlton took them out
+of his hands--Freddy Tarlton, who visited at the homes of Fort Latrobe.
+But he had the strength of his convictions such as they were.  He began
+by riding thirty miles and back to ask the young clergyman at Purple Hill
+to come and bury Blanche.  She'd reformed and been baptised, Freddy said
+with a sad sort of humour.  And the clergyman, when he knew all, said
+that he would come.  Freddy was hardly prepared for what occurred when he
+got back.  Men were waiting for him, anxious to know if the clergyman was
+coming.  They had raised a subscription to cover the cost of the funeral,
+and among them were men such as Harry Delong.
+
+"You fellows had better not mix yourselves up in this," said Freddy.
+
+But Harry Delong replied quickly: "I am going to see the thing through."
+And the others endorsed his words.  When the clergyman came, and looked
+at the face of this Magdalene, he was struck by its comeliness and quiet.
+All else seemed to have been washed away.  On her breast lay a knot of
+white roses--white roses in this winter desert.
+
+One man present, seeing the look of wonder in the clergyman's eyes, said
+quietly: "My--my wife sent them.  She brought the plant from Quebec.  It
+has just bloomed.  She knows all about her."
+
+That man was Harry Delong.  The keeper of his home understood the other
+homeless woman.  When she knew of Blanche's death she said: "Poor girl,
+poor girl!" and then she had gently added, "Poor Jacques!"
+
+And Jacques, as he sat in a chair by the fire four days after the
+tragedy, did not know that the clergyman was reading over a grave on
+the hillside, words which are for the hearts of the quick as for the
+untenanted dead.
+
+To Jacques's inquiries after Blanche, Soldier Joe had made changing and
+vague replies.  At last he said that she was ill; then, that she was very
+ill, and again, that she was better, almighty better--now.  The third day
+following the funeral, Jacques insisted that he would go and see her.
+The doctor at length decided he should be taken to Weir's Tavern, where,
+they declared, they would tell him all.  And they took him, and placed
+him by the fire in the card-room, a wasted figure, but fastidious in
+manner and scrupulously neat in person as of old.  Then he asked for
+Blanche; but even now they had not the courage for it.  The doctor
+nervously went out, as if to seek her; and Freddy Tarlton said, "Jacques,
+let us have a little game, just for quarters, you know.  Eh?"
+
+The other replied without eagerness: "Voila, one game, then!"
+
+They drew him to the table, but he played listlessly.  His eyes shifted
+ever to the door.  Luck was against him.  Finally he pushed over a silver
+piece, and said: "The last.  My money is all gone.  'Bien!'"  He lost
+that too.
+
+Just then the door opened, and a ranchman from Purple Hill entered.  He
+looked carelessly round, and then said loudly:
+
+"Say, Joe, so you've buried Blanche, have you?  Poor old girl!"
+
+There was a heavy silence.  No one replied.  Jacques started to his feet,
+gazed around searchingly, painfully, and presently gave a great gasp.
+His hands made a chafing motion in the air, and then blood showed on his
+lips and chin.  He drew a handkerchief from his breast.
+
+"Pardon!  .  .  .  Pardon!" he faintly cried in apology, and put it to
+his mouth.
+
+Then he fell backwards in the arms of Soldier Joe, who wiped a moisture
+from the lifeless cheek as he laid the body on a bed.
+
+In a corner of the stained handkerchief they found the word,
+
+Blanche.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
+
+Father Corraine stood with his chin in his hand and one arm supporting
+the other, thinking deeply.  His eyes were fixed on the northern horizon,
+along which the sun was casting oblique rays; for it was the beginning of
+the winter season.
+
+Where the prairie touched the sun it was responsive and radiant; but on
+either side of this red and golden tapestry there was a tawny glow and
+then a duskiness which, curving round to the north and east, became blue
+and cold--an impalpable but perceptible barrier rising from the earth,
+and shutting in Father Corraine like a prison wall.  And this shadow
+crept stealthily on and invaded the whole circle, until, where the
+radiance had been, there was one continuous wall of gloom, rising are
+upon are to invasion of the zenith, and pierced only by some intrusive
+wandering stars.
+
+And still the priest stood there looking, until the darkness closed down
+on him with an almost tangible consistency.  Then he appeared to remember
+himself, and turned away with a gentle remonstrance of his head, and
+entered the hut behind him.  He lighted a lamp, looked at it doubtfully,
+blew it out, set it aside, and lighted a candle.  This he set in the one
+window of the room which faced the north and west.
+
+He went to a door opening into the only other room in the hut, and with
+his hand on the latch looked thoughtfully and sorrowfully at something in
+the corner of the room where he stood.  He was evidently debating upon
+some matter,--probably the removal of what was in the corner to the other
+room.  If so, he finally decided to abandon the intention.  He sat down
+in a chair, faced the candle, again dropped his chin upon his hand, and
+kept his eyes musingly on the light.  He was silent and motionless a long
+time, then his lips moved, and he seemed to repeat something to himself
+in whispers.
+
+Presently he took a well-worn book from his pocket, and read aloud from
+it softly what seemed to be an office of his Church.  His voice grew
+slightly louder as he continued, until, suddenly, there ran through the
+words a deep sigh which did not come from himself.  He raised his head
+quickly, started to his feet, and turning round, looked at that something
+in the corner.  It took the form of a human figure, which raised itself
+on an elbow and said: "Water--water--for the love of God!"
+
+Father Corraine stood painfully staring at the figure for a moment, and
+then the words broke from him "Not dead--not dead--wonderful!"  Then he
+stepped quickly to a table, took therefrom a pannikin of water, and
+kneeling, held it to the lips of the gasping figure of a woman, throwing
+his arm round the shoulder, and supporting the head on his breast.  Again
+he spoke "Alive--alive!  Blessed be Heaven!"
+
+The hands of the woman seized the hand of the priest, which held the
+pannikin, and kissed it, saying faintly: "You are good to me.  .  .  .
+But I must sleep--I must sleep--I am so tired; and I've--very far--to go
+--across the world."
+
+This was said very slowly, then the head thick with brown curls dropped
+again on the priest's breast, heavy with sleep.  Father Corraine,
+flushing slightly at first, became now slightly pale, and his brow was a
+place of war between thankfulness and perplexity.  But he said something
+prayerfully, then closed his lips firmly, and gently laid the figure
+down, where it was immediately clothed about with slumber.  Then he rose,
+and standing with his eyes bent upon the sleeper and his fingers clasping
+each other tightly before him, said: "Poor girl!  So, she is alive.  And
+now what will come of it?"
+
+He shook his grey head in doubt, and immediately began to prepare some
+simple food and refreshment for the sufferer when she should awake.  In
+the midst of doing so he paused and repeated the words, "And what will
+come of it?"  Then he added: "There was no sign of pulse nor heart-beat
+when I found her.  But life hides itself where man cannot reach it."
+
+Having finished his task, he sat down, drew the book of holy offices
+again from his bosom, and read it, whisperingly, for a time; then fell to
+musing, and, after a considerable time, knelt down as if in prayer.
+While he knelt, the girl, as if startled from her sleep by some inner
+shock, opened her eyes wide and looked at him, first with bewilderment,
+then with anxiety, then with wistful thankfulness.  "Oh, I thought--
+I thought when I awoke before that it was a woman.  But it is the good
+Father Corraine--Corraine, yes, that was the name."
+
+The priest's clean-shaven face, long hair, and black cassock had, in her
+first moments of consciousness, deceived her.  Now a sharp pain brought
+a moan to her lips; and this drew the priest's attention.  He rose, and
+brought her some food and drink.  "My daughter," he said, "you must take
+these."  Something in her face touched his sensitive mind, and he said,
+solemnly: "You are alone with me and God, this hour.  Be at peace.  Eat."
+
+Her eyes swam with instant tears.  "I know--I am alone--with God," she
+said.  Again he gently urged the food upon her, and she took a little;
+but now and then she put her hand to her side as if in pain.  And once,
+as she did so, she said: "I've far to go and the pain is bad.  Did they
+take him away?"
+
+Father Corraine shook his head.  "I do not know of whom you speak," he
+replied.  "When I went to my door this morning I found you lying there.
+I brought you in, and, finding no sign of life in you, sent Featherfoot,
+my Indian, to Fort Cypress for a trooper to come; for I feared that there
+had been ill done to you, somehow.  This border-side is but a rough
+country.  It is not always safe for a woman to travel alone."
+
+The girl shuddered.  "Father," she said  "Father Corraine, I believe you
+are?"  (Here the priest bowed his head.)  "I wish to tell you all, so
+that if ever any evil did come to me, if I should die without doin'
+what's in my heart to do, you would know, and would tell him if you ever
+saw him, how I remembered, and kept rememberin' him always, till my heart
+got sick with waitin', and I came to find him far across the seas."
+
+"Tell me your tale, my child," he patiently said.  Her eyes were on the
+candle in the window questioningly.  "It is for the trooper--to guide
+him," the other remarked.  "'Tis past time that he should be here.  When
+you are able you can go with him to the Fort.  You will be better cared
+for there, and will be among women."
+
+"The man--the man who was kind to me--I wish I knew of him," she said.
+
+"I am waiting for your story, my child.  Speak of your trouble, whether
+it be of the mind and body, or of the soul."
+
+"You shall judge if it be of the soul," she answered.
+
+"I come from far away.  I lived in old Donegal since the day that I was
+born there, and I had a lover, as brave and true a lad as ever trod the
+world.  But sorrow came.  One night at Farcalladen Rise there was a crack
+of arms and a clatter of fleeing hoofs, and he that I loved came to me
+and said a quick word of partin', and with a kiss--it's burnin' on my
+lips yet--askin' pardon, father, for speech of this to you--and he was
+gone, an outlaw, to Australia.  For a time word came from him.  Then I
+was taken ill and couldn't answer his letters, and a cousin of my own,
+who had tried to win my love, did a wicked thing.  He wrote a letter to
+him and told him I was dyin', and that there was no use of farther words
+from him.  And never again did word come to me from him.  But I waited,
+my heart sick with longin' and full of hate for the memory of the man
+who, when struck with death, told me of the cruel deed he had done
+between us two."
+
+She paused, as she had to do several times during the recital, through
+weariness or pain; but, after a moment, proceeded.  "One day, one
+beautiful day, when the flowers were like love to the eye, and the larks
+singin' overhead, and my thoughts goin' with them as they swam until they
+were lost in the sky, and every one of them a prayer for the lad livin'
+yet, as I hoped, somewhere in God's universe--there rode a gentleman down
+Farcalladen Rise.  He stopped me as I walked, and said a kind good-day to
+me; and I knew when I looked into his face that he had word for me--the
+whisperin' of some angel, I suppose, and I said to him as though he had
+asked me for it, 'My name is Mary Callen, sir.'
+
+"At that he started, and the colour came quick to his face; and he said:
+'I am Sir Duke Lawless.  I come to look for Mary Callen's grave.  Is
+there a Mary Callen dead, and a Mary Callen livin'? and did both of them
+love a man that went from Farcalladen Rise one wild night long ago?'
+
+"'There's but one Mary Callen,' said I, 'but the heart of me is dead,
+until I hear news that brings it to life again?'
+
+"'And no man calls you wife?' he asked.
+
+"'No man, Sir Duke Lawless,' answered I.  'And no man ever could, save
+him that used to write me of you from the heart of Australia; only there
+was no Sir to your name then.'
+
+"'I've come to that since,' said he.
+
+"'Oh, tell me,' I cried, with a quiverin' at my heart, 'tell me, is he
+livin'?'
+
+"And he replied: 'I left him in the Pipi Valley of the Rocky Mountains a
+year ago.'
+
+"'A year ago!' said I, sadly.
+
+"'I'm ashamed that I've been so long in comin' here,' replied he; 'but,
+of course, he didn't know that you were alive, and I had been parted from
+a lady for years--a lover's quarrel--and I had to choose between courtin'
+her again and marryin' her, or comin' to Farcalladen Rise at once.  Well,
+I went to the altar first.'
+
+"'Oh, sir, you've come with the speed of the wind, for now that I've news
+of him, it is only yesterday that he went away, not years agone.  But
+tell me, does he ever think of me?' I questioned.
+
+"'He thinks of you,' he said, 'as one for whom the masses for the dead
+are spoken; but while I knew him, first and last, the memory of you was
+with him.'
+
+"With that he got off his horse, and said: 'I'll walk with you to his
+father's home.'
+
+"'You'll not do that,' I replied; 'for it's level with the ground.  God
+punish them that did it!  And they're lyin' in the glen by the stream
+that he loved and galloped over many a time.'
+
+"'They are dead--they are dead, then,' said he, with his bridle swung
+loose on his arm and his hat off reverently.
+
+"'Gone home to Heaven together,' said I, 'one day and one hour, and a
+prayer on their lips for the lad; and I closin' their eyes at the last.
+And before they went they made me sit by them and sing a song that's
+common here with us; for manny and manny of the strength and pride of
+Farcalladen Rise have sailed the wide seas north and south, and
+otherwhere, and comin' back maybe and maybe not.'
+
+"'Hark,' he said, very gravely, 'and I'll tell you what it is, for I've
+heard him sing it, I know, in the worst days and the best days that ever
+we had, when luck was wicked and big against us and we starvin' on the
+wallaby track; or when we found the turn in the lane to brighter days.'
+
+"And then with me lookin' at him full in the eyes, gentleman though he
+was,--for comrade he had been with the man I loved,--he said to me there,
+so finely and kindly, it ought to have brought the dead back from their
+graves to hear, these words:
+
+   "'You'll travel far and wide, dear, but you'll come back again,
+     You'll come back to your father and your mother in the glen,
+     Although we should be lyin' 'neath the heather grasses then
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'!'
+
+     "'You'll see the icebergs sailin' along the wintry foam,
+     The white hair of the breakers, and the wild swans as they roam;
+     But you'll not forget the rowan beside your father's home--
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'.'"
+
+Here the girl paused longer than usual, and the priest dropped his
+forehead in his hand sadly.
+
+"I've brought grief to your kind heart, father," she said.
+
+"No, no," he replied, "not sorrow at all; but I was born on the Liffey
+side, though it's forty years and more since I left it, and I'm an old
+man now.  That song I knew well, and the truth and the heart of it too.
+.  .  .  I am listening."
+
+"Well, together we went to the grave of the father and mother, and the
+place where the home had been, and for a long time he was silent, as
+though they who slept beneath the sod were his, and not another's;
+but at last he said:
+
+"'And what will you do?  I don't quite know where he is, though; when
+last I heard from him and his comrades, they were in the Pipi Valley.'
+
+"My heart was full of joy; for though I saw how touched he was because of
+what he saw, it was all common to my sight, and I had grieved much, but
+had had little delight; and I said:
+
+"'There's only one thing to be done.  He cannot come back here, and I
+must go to him--that is,' said I, 'if you think he cares for me still,
+--for my heart quakes at the thought that he might have changed.'
+
+"'I know his heart,' said he, 'and you'll find him, I doubt not, the
+same, though he buried you long ago in a lonely tomb,--the tomb of a
+sweet remembrance, where the flowers are everlastin'.'  Then after more
+words he offered me money with which to go; but I said to him that the
+love that couldn't carry itself across the sea by the strength of the
+hands and the sweat of the brow was no love at all; and that the harder
+was the road to him the gladder I'd be, so that it didn't keep me too
+long, and brought me to him at last.
+
+"He looked me up and down very earnestly for a minute, and then he said:
+'What is there under the roof of heaven like the love of an honest woman!
+It makes the world worth livin' in.'
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'when love has hope, and a place to lay its head.'
+
+"'Take this,' said he--and he drew from his pocket his watch--'and carry
+it to him with the regard of Duke Lawless, and this for yourself'--
+fetching from his pocket a revolver and putting it into my hands; 'for
+the prairies are but rough places after all, and it's better to be safe
+than--worried.  .  .  .  Never fear though but the prairies will bring
+back the finest of blooms to your cheek, if fair enough it is now, and
+flush his eye with pride of you; and God be with you both, if a sinner
+may say that, and breakin' no saint's prerogative.'  And he mounted to
+ride away, havin' shaken my hand like a brother; but he turned again
+before he went, and said: 'Tell him and his comrades that I'll shoulder
+my gun and join them before the world is a year older, if I can.  For
+that land is God's land, and its people are my people, and I care not
+who knows it, whatever here I be.'
+
+"I worked my way across the sea, and stayed awhile in the East earning
+money to carry me over the land and into the Pipi Valley.  I joined a
+party of emigrants that were goin' westward, and travelled far with them.
+But they quarrelled and separated, I goin' with these that I liked best.
+One night though, I took my horse and left; for I knew there was evil in
+the heart of a man who sought me continually, and the thing drove me mad.
+I rode until my horse could stumble no farther, and then I took the
+saddle for a pillow and slept on the bare ground.  And in the morning I
+got up and rode on, seein' no house nor human being for manny and manny a
+mile.  When everything seemed hopeless I came suddenly upon a camp.  But
+I saw that there was only one man there, and I should have turned back,
+but that I was worn and ill, and, moreover, I had ridden almost upon him.
+But he was kind.  He shared his food with me, and asked me where I was
+goin'.  I told him, and also that I had quarrelled with those of my party
+and had left them nothing more.  He seemed to wonder that I was goin' to
+Pipi Valley; and when I had finished my tale he said: 'Well, I must tell
+you that I am not good company for you.  I have a name that doesn't pass
+at par up here.  To speak plain truth, troopers are looking for me, and
+--strange as it may be--for a crime which I didn't commit.  That is the
+foolishness of the law.  But for this I'm making for the American border,
+beyond which, treaty or no treaty, a man gets refuge.'
+
+"He was silent after that, lookin' at me thoughtfully the while, but in a
+way that told me I might trust him, evil though he called himself.  At
+length he said: 'I know a good priest, Father Corraine, who has a cabin
+sixty miles or more from here, and I'll guide you to him, if so be you
+can trust a half-breed and a gambler, and one men call an outlaw.  If
+not, I'm feared it'll go hard with you; for the Cypress Hills are not
+easy travel, as I've known this many a year.  And should you want a name
+to call me, Pretty Pierre will do, though my godfathers and godmothers
+did different for me before they went to Heaven.'  And nothing said he
+irreverently, father."
+
+Here the priest looked up and answered: "Yes, yes, I know him well--an
+evil man, and yet he has suffered too .  .  .  Well, well, my daughter?"
+
+"At that he took his pistol from his pocket and handed it.  'Take that,'
+he said.  'It will make you safer with me, and I'll ride ahead of you,
+and we shall reach there by sundown, I hope.'
+
+"And I would not take his pistol, but, shamed a little, showed him the
+one Sir Duke Lawless gave me.  'That's right,' he said, 'and, maybe, it's
+better that I should carry mine, for, as I said, there are anxious
+gentlemen lookin' for me, who wish to give me a quiet but dreary home.
+And see,' he added, 'if they should come you will be safe, for they sit
+in the judgment seat, and the statutes hang at their saddles, and I'll
+say this for them, that a woman to them is as a saint of God out here
+where women and saints are few.'
+
+"I do not speak as he spoke, for his words had a turn of French; but I
+knew that, whatever he was, I should travel peaceably with him.  Yet I
+saw that he would be runnin' the risk of his own safety for me, and I
+told him that I could not have him do it; but he talked me lightly down,
+and we started.  We had gone but a little distance, when there galloped
+over a ridge upon us, two men of the party I had left, and one, I saw,
+was the man I hated; and I cried out and told Pretty Pierre.  He wheeled
+his horse, and held his pistol by him.  They said that I should come with
+them, and they told a dreadful lie--that I was a runaway wife; but Pierre
+answered them they lied.  At this, one rode forward suddenly, and
+clutched me at my waist to drag me from my horse.  At this, Pierre's
+pistol was thrust in his face, and Pierre bade him cease, which he did;
+but the other came down with a pistol showin', and Pierre, seein' they
+were determined, fired; and the man that clutched at me fell from his
+horse.  Then the other drew off; and Pierre got down, and stooped, and
+felt the man's heart, and said to the other: 'Take your friend away, for
+he is dead; but drop that pistol of yours on the ground first.' And the
+man did so; and Pierre, as he looked at the dead man, added: 'Why did he
+make me kill him?'
+
+"Then the two tied the body to the horse, and the man rode away with it.
+We travelled on without speakin' for a long time, and then I heard him
+say absently: 'I am sick of that.  When once you have played shuttlecock
+with human life, you have to play it to the end--that is the penalty.
+But a woman is a woman, and she must be protected.'  Then afterward he
+turned and asked me if I had friends in Pipi Valley; and because what he
+had done for me had worked upon me, I told him of the man I was goin' to
+find.  And he started in his saddle, and I could see by the way he
+twisted the mouth of his horse that I had stirred him."
+
+Here the priest interposed: "What is the name of the man in Pipi Valley
+to whom you are going?"
+
+And the girl replied: "Ah, father, have I not told you?  It is Shon
+McGann--of Farcalladen Rise."
+
+At this, Father Corraine seemed suddenly troubled, and he looked
+strangely and sadly at her.  But the girl's eyes were fastened on the
+candle in the window, as if she saw her story in it; and she continued:
+"A colour spread upon him, and then left him pale; and he said: 'To Shon
+McGann--you are going to him?  Think of that--that!' For an instant I
+thought a horrible smile played upon his face, and I grew frightened, and
+said to him: 'You know him.  You are not sorry that you are helping me?
+You and Shon McGann are not enemies?'
+
+"After a moment the smile that struck me with dread passed, and he said,
+as he drew himself up with a shake: 'Shon McGann and I were good friends-
+as good as ever shared a blanket or split a loaf, though he was free of
+any evil, and I failed of any good....  Well, there came a change.  We
+parted.  We could meet no more; but who could have guessed this thing?
+Yet, hear me--I am no enemy of Shon McGann, as let my deeds to you
+prove.' And he paused again, but added presently: 'It's better you should
+have come now than two years ago.
+
+"And I had a fear in my heart, and to this asked him why.  'Because then
+he was a friend of mine,' he said, 'and ill always comes to those who are
+such.' I was troubled at this, and asked him if Shon was in Pipi Valley
+yet.  'I do not know,' said he, 'for I've travelled long and far from
+there; still, while I do not wish to put doubt into your mind, I have a
+thought he may be gone.  .  .  .  He had a gay heart,' he continued, 'and
+we saw brave days together.'
+
+"And though I questioned him, he told me little more, but became silent,
+scannin' the plains as we rode; but once or twice he looked at me in a
+strange fashion, and passed his hand across his forehead, and a grey look
+came upon his face.  I asked him if he was not well.  'Only a kind of
+fightin' within,' he said; 'such things soon pass, and it is well they
+do, or we should break to pieces.'
+
+"And I said again that I wished not to bring him into danger.  And he
+replied that these matters were accordin' to Fate; that men like him must
+go on when once the die is cast, for they cannot turn back.  It seemed to
+me a bitter creed, and I was sorry for him.  Then for hours we kept an
+almost steady silence, and comin' at last to the top of a rise of land he
+pointed to a spot far off on the plains, and said that you, father, lived
+there; and that he would go with me still a little way, and then leave
+me.  I urged him to go at once, but he would not, and we came down into
+the plains.  He had not ridden far when he said sharply:
+
+"'The Riders of the Plains, those gentlemen who seek me, are there--see!
+Ride on or stay, which you please.  If you go you will reach the priest,
+if you stay here where I shall leave you, you will see me taken perhaps,
+and it may be fightin' or death; but you will be safe with them.  On the
+whole, it is best, perhaps, that you should ride away to the priest.
+They might not believe all that you told them, ridin' with me as you
+are.'
+
+"But I think a sudden madness again came upon me.  Rememberin' what
+things were done by women for refugees in old Donegal, and that this man
+had risked his life for me, I swung my horse round nose and nose with
+his, and drew my revolver, and said that I should see whatever came to
+him.  He prayed me not to do so wild a thing; but when I refused, and
+pushed on along with him, makin' at an angle for some wooded hills, I saw
+that a smile played upon his face.  We had almost reached the edge of the
+wood when a bullet whistled by us.  At that the smile passed and a
+strange look came upon him, and he said to me:
+
+"'This must end here.  I think you guess I have no coward's blood; but I
+am sick to the teeth of fightin'.  I do not wish to shock you, but I
+swear, unless you turn and ride away to the left towards the priest's
+house, I shall save those fellows further trouble by killin' myself here;
+and there,' said he, 'would be a pleasant place to die--at the feet of a
+woman who trusted you.'
+
+"I knew by the look in his eye he would keep his word.  "'Oh, is this
+so?' I said.
+
+"'It is so,' he replied, 'and it shall be done quickly, for the courage
+to death is on me.'
+
+"'But if I go, you will still try to escape?' I said.  And he answered
+that he would.  Then I spoke a God-bless-you, at which he smiled and
+shook his head, and leanin' over, touched my hand, and spoke low: 'When
+you see Shon McGann, tell him what I did, and say that we are even now.
+Say also that you called Heaven to bless me.' Then we swung away from
+each other, and the troopers followed after him, but let me go my way;
+from which, I guessed, they saw I was a woman.  And as I rode I heard
+shots, and turned to see; but my horse stumbled on a hole and we fell
+together, and when I waked, I saw that the poor beast's legs were broken.
+So I ended its misery, and made my way as best I could by the stars to
+your house; but I turned sick and fainted at the door, and knew no more
+until this hour.  .  .  .  You thought me dead, father?"
+
+The priest bowed his head, and said: "These are strange, sad things, my
+child; and they shall seem stranger to you when you hear all."
+
+"When I hear all!  Ah, tell me, father, do you know Shon McGann?  Can you
+take me to him?"
+
+"I know him, but I do not know where he is.  He left the Pipi Valley
+eighteen months ago, and I never saw him afterwards; still I doubt not he
+is somewhere on the plains, and we shall find him--we shall find him,
+please Heaven."
+
+"Is he a good lad, father?"
+
+"He is brave, and he was always kind.  He came to me before he left the
+valley--for he had trouble--and said to me: 'Father, I am going away, and
+to what place is far from me to know, but wherever it is, I'll live a
+life that's fit for men, and not like a loafer on God's world;' and he
+gave me money for masses to be said--for the dead."
+
+The girl put out her hand.  "Hush!  hush!" she said.  "Let me think.
+Masses for the dead....  What dead?  Not for me; he thought me dead long,
+long ago."
+
+"No; not for you," was the slow reply.
+
+She noticed his hesitation, and said: "Speak.  I know that there is
+sorrow on him.  Someone--someone--he loved?"
+
+"Someone he loved," was the reply.
+
+"And she died?"  The priest bowed his head.
+
+"She was his wife--Shon's wife"? and Mary Callen could not hide from her
+words the hurt she felt.
+
+"I married her to him, but yet she was not his wife."  There was a keen
+distress in the girl's voice.  "Father, tell me, tell me what you mean."
+
+"Hush, and I will tell you all.  He married her, thinking, and she
+thinking, that she was a widowed woman.  But her husband came back.
+A terrible thing happened.  The woman believing, at a painful time, that
+he who came back was about to take Shon's life, fired at him, and wounded
+him, and then killed herself."
+
+Mary Callen raised herself upon her elbow, and looked at the priest in
+piteous bewilderment.  "It is dreadful," she said.  .  .  .  "Poor woman!
+.  .  .  And he had forgotten--forgotten me.  I was dead to him, and am
+dead to him now.  There's nothing left but to draw the cold sheet of the
+grave over me.  Better for me if I had never come--if I had never come,
+and instead were lyin' by his father and mother beneath the rowan."
+
+The priest took her wrist firmly in his.  "These are not brave nor
+Christian words, from a brave and Christian girl.  But I know that grief
+makes one's words wild.  Shon McGann shall be found.  In the days when I
+saw him most and best, he talked of you as an angel gone, and he had
+never sought another woman had he known that you lived.  The Mounted
+Police, the Riders of the Plains, travel far and wide.  But now, there
+has come from the farther West a new detachment to Fort Cypress, and they
+may be able to help us.  But listen.  There is something more.  The man
+Pretty Pierre, did he not speak puzzling words concerning himself and
+Shon McGann?  And did he not say to you at the last that they were even
+now?  Well, can you not guess?"
+
+Mary Callen's bosom heaved painfully and her eyes stared so at the candle
+in the window that they seemed to grow one with the flame.  At last a new
+look crept into them; a thought made the lids close quickly as though it
+burned them.  When they opened again they were full of tears that shone
+in the shadow and dropped slowly on her cheeks and flowed on and on,
+quivering too in her throat.
+
+The priest said: "You understand, my child?"
+
+And she answered: "I understand.  Pierre, the outlaw, was her husband."
+
+Father Corraine rose and sat beside the table, his book of offices open
+before him.  At length he said: "There is much that might be spoken; for
+the Church has words for every hour of man's life, whatever it be; but
+there comes to me now a word to say, neither from prayer nor psalm, but
+from the songs of a country where good women are; where however poor the
+fireside, the loves beside it are born of the love of God, though the
+tongue be angry now and then, the foot stumble, and the hand quick at a
+blow."  Then, with a soft, ringing voice, he repeated:
+
+ "'New friends will clasp your hand, dear, new faces on you smile--
+   You'll bide with them and love them, but you'll long for us the while;
+
+   For the word across the water, and the farewell by the stile--
+   For the true heart's here, my darlin'.'"
+
+Mary Callen's tears flowed afresh at first; but soon after the voice
+ceased she closed her eyes and her sobs stopped, and Father Corraine sat
+down and became lost in thought as he watched the candle.  Then there
+went a word among the spirits watching that he was not thinking of the
+candle, or of them that the candle was to light on the way, nor even of
+this girl near him, but of a summer forty years gone when he was a goodly
+youth, with the red on his lip and the light in his eye, and before him,
+leaning on a stile, was a lass with--
+
+               " .  .  .  cheeks like the dawn of day."
+
+And all the good world swam in circles, eddying ever inward until it
+streamed intensely and joyously through her eyes "blue as the fairy
+flax."  And he had carried the remembrance of this away into the world
+with him, but had never gone back again.  He had travelled beyond the
+seas to live among savages and wear out his life in self-denial; and now
+he had come to the evening of his life, a benignant figure in a lonely
+land.  And as he sat here murmuring mechanically bits of an office, his
+heart and mind were with a sacred and distant past.  Yet the spirits
+recorded both these things on their tablets, as though both were worthy
+of their remembrance.
+
+He did not know that he kept repeating two sentences over and over to
+himself:
+
+"'Quoniam ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium et a verbo aspero.
+Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te: ut custodiant te in omnibus viis
+tuis.'"
+
+These he said at first softly to himself, but unconsciously his voice
+became louder, so that the girl heard, and she said:
+
+"Father Corraine, what are those words?  I do not understand them, but
+they sound comforting."
+
+And he, waking from his dream, changed the Latin into English, and said:
+
+   "'For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunter, and from the
+         sharp sword.
+     For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all
+          thy ways.'"
+
+"The words are good," she said.  He then told her he was going out, but
+that he should be within call, saying, at the same time, that someone
+would no doubt arrive from Fort Cypress soon: and he went from the house.
+Then the girl rose slowly, crept lamely to a chair and sat down.
+Outside, the priest paced up and down, stopping now and then, and
+listening as if for horses' hoofs.  At last he walked some distance away
+from the house, deeply lost in thought, and he did not notice that a man
+came slowly, heavily, to the door of the hut, and opening it, entered.
+
+Mary Callen rose from her seat with a cry in which was timidity, pity,
+and something of horror; for it was Pretty Pierre.  She recoiled, but
+seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that his clothes had blood upon
+them, she helped him to a chair.  He looked up at her with an enigmatical
+smile, but he did not speak.  "Oh," she whispered, "you are wounded!"
+
+He nodded; but still he did not speak.  Then his lips moved dryly.  She
+brought him water.  He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped him.
+"You got here safely," he now said.  "I am glad of that--though you, too,
+are hurt."
+
+She briefly told him how, and then he said: "Well, I suppose you know all
+of me now?"
+
+"I know what happened in Pipi Valley," she said, timidly and wearily.
+"Father Corraine told me."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+When she had answered him, he said: "And you are willing to speak with me
+still?"
+
+"You saved me," was her brief, convincing reply.  "How did you escape?
+Did you fight?"
+
+"No," he said.  "It is strange.  I did not fight at all.  As I said to
+you, I was sick of blood.  These men were only doing their duty.  I might
+have killed two or three of them, and have escaped, but to what good?
+When they shot my horse, my good Sacrament,--and put a bullet into this
+shoulder, I crawled away still, and led them a dance, and doubled on
+them; and here I am."
+
+"It is wonderful that they have not been here," she said.
+
+"Yes, it is wonderful; but be very sure they will be with that candle in
+the window.  Why is it there?"
+
+She told him.  He lifted his brows in stoic irony, and said: "Well, we
+shall have an army of them soon."  He rose again to his feet.  "I do not
+wish to die, and I always said that I would never go to prison.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes," she replied.  She went immediately to the window, took the candle
+from it, and put it behind an improvised shade.  No sooner was this done
+than Father Corraine entered the room, and seeing the outlaw, said "You
+have come here, Pierre?"  And his face showed wonder and anxiety.
+
+"I have come, mon pere, for sanctuary."
+
+"For sanctuary!  But, my son, if I vex not Heaven by calling you so,
+why"--he saw Pierre stagger slightly.  "But you are wounded."  He put his
+arm round the other's shoulder, and supported him till he recovered
+himself.  Then he set to work to bandage anew the wound, from which
+Pierre himself had not unskilfully extracted the bullet.  While doing so,
+the outlaw said to him:
+
+"Father Corraine, I am hunted like a coyote for a crime I did not commit.
+But if I am arrested they will no doubt charge me with other things--
+ancient things.  Well, I have said that I should never be sent to gaol,
+and I never shall; but I do not wish to die at this moment, and I do not
+wish to fight.  What is there left?"
+
+"How do you come here, Pierre?"
+
+He lifted his eyes heavily to Mary Callen, and she told Father Corraine
+what had been told her.  When she had finished, Pierre added:
+
+"I am no coward, as you will witness; but as I said, neither gaol nor
+death do I wish.  Well, if they should come here, and you said, Pierre is
+not here, even though I was in the next room, they would believe you, and
+they would not search.  Well, I ask such sanctuary."
+
+The priest recoiled and raised his hand in protest.  Then, after a
+moment, he said:
+
+"How do you deserve this?  Do you know what you ask?"
+
+"Ah, oui, I know it is immense, and I deserve nothing: and in return I
+can offer nothing, not even that I will repent.  And I have done no good
+in the world; but still perhaps I am worth the saving, as may be seen in
+the end.  As for you, well, you will do a little wrong so that the end
+will be right.  So?"
+
+The priest's eyes looked out long and sadly at the man from under his
+venerable brows, as though he would see through him and beyond him to
+that end; and at last he spoke in a low, firm voice:
+
+"Pierre, you have been a bad man; but sometimes you have been generous,
+and of a few good acts I know--"
+
+"No, not good," the other interrupted.  "I ask this of your charity."
+
+"There is the law, and my conscience."
+
+"The law! the law!" and there was sharp satire in the half-breed's voice.
+"What has it done in the West?  Think, 'mon pere!'  Do you not know a
+hundred cases where the law has dealt foully?  There was more justice
+before we had law.  Law--"  And he named over swiftly, scornfully, a
+score of names and incidents, to which Father Corraine listened intently.
+"But," said Pierre, gently, at last, "but for your conscience, m'sieu',
+that is greater than law.  For you are a good man and a wise man; and you
+know that I shall pay my debts of every kind some sure day.  That should
+satisfy your justice, but you are merciful for the moment, and you will
+spare until the time be come, until the corn is ripe in the ear.  Why
+should I plead?  It is foolish.  Still, it is my whim, of which, perhaps,
+I shall be sorry tomorrow .  .  .  Hark!" he added, and then shrugged
+his shoulders and smiled.  There were sounds of hoof beats coming faintly
+to them.  Father Corraine threw open the door of the other room of the
+hut, and said "Go in there--Pierre.  We shall see .  .  .  we shall see."
+
+The outlaw looked at the priest, as if hesitating; but, after, nodded
+meaningly to himself, and entered the room and shut the door.  The priest
+stood listening.  When the hoof-beats stopped, he opened the door, and
+went out.  In the dark he could see that men were dismounting from their
+horses.  He stood still and waited.  Presently a trooper stepped forward
+and said warmly, yet brusquely, as became his office: "Father Corraine,
+we meet again!"
+
+The priest's face was overswept by many expressions, in which marvel and
+trouble were uppermost, while joy was in less distinctness.
+
+"Surely," he said, "it is Shon McGann."
+
+"Shon McGann, and no other.--I that laughed at the law for many a year,
+though never breaking it beyond repair,--took your advice, Father
+Corraine, and here I am, holding that law now as my bosom friend at the
+saddle's pommel.  Corporal Shon McGann, at your service."
+
+They clasped hands, and the priest said: "You have come at my call from
+Fort Cypress?"
+
+"Yes.  But not these others.  They are after a man that's played ducks
+and drakes with the statutes--Heaven be merciful to him, I say.  For
+there's naught I treasure against him; the will of God bein' in it all,
+with some doin' of the Devil, too, maybe."
+
+Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the window of the dark room, heard
+all this, and he pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, as if
+something disturbed him.
+
+Shon continued.  "I'm glad I wasn't sent after him as all these here
+know; for it's little I'd like to clap irons on his wrists, or whistle
+him to come to me with a Winchester or a Navy.  So I'm here on my
+business, and they're here on theirs.  Though we come together it's
+because we met each other hereaway.  They've a thought that, maybe,
+Pretty Pierre has taken refuge with you.  They'll little like to disturb
+you, I know.  But with dead in your house, and you givin' the word of
+truth, which none other could fall from your lips, they'll go on their
+way to look elsewhere."
+
+The priest's face was pinched, and there was a wrench at his heart.  He
+turned to the others.  A trooper stepped forward.
+
+"Father Corraine," he said, "it is my duty to search your house; but not
+a foot will I stretch across your threshold if you say no, and give the
+word that the man is not with you."
+
+"Corporal McGann," said the priest, "the woman whom I thought was dead
+did not die, as you shall see.  There is no need for inquiry.  But she
+will go with you to Fort Cypress.  As for the other, you say that Father
+Corraine's threshold is his own, and at his own command.  His home is now
+a sanctuary--for the afflicted."  He went towards the door.  As he did
+so, Mary Callen, who had been listening inside the room with shaking
+frame and bursting heart, dropped on her knees beside the table, her head
+in her arms.  The door opened.  "See," said the priest, "a woman who is
+injured and suffering."
+
+"Ah," rejoined the trooper, "perhaps it is the woman who was riding with
+the half-breed.  We found her dead horse."
+
+The priest nodded.  Shon McGann looked at the crouching figure by the
+table pityingly.  As he looked he was stirred, he knew not why.  And she,
+though she did not look, knew that his gaze was on her; and all her will
+was spent in holding her eyes from his face, and from crying out to him.
+
+"And Pretty Pierre," said the trooper, "is not here with her?"
+
+There was an unfathomable sadness in the priest's eyes, as, with a slight
+motion of the hand towards the room, he said: "You see--he is not here."
+
+The trooper and his men immediately mounted; but one of them, young Tim
+Kearney, slid from his horse, and came and dropped on his knee in front
+of the priest.
+
+"It's many a day," he said, "since before God or man I bent a knee--more
+shame to me for that, and for mad days gone; but I care not who knows it,
+I want a word of blessin' from the man that's been out here like a saint
+in the wilderness, with a heart like the Son o' God."
+
+The priest looked at the man at first as if scarce comprehending this act
+so familiar to him, then he slowly stretched out his hand, said some
+words in benediction, and made the sacred gesture.  But his face had a
+strange and absent look, and he held the hand poised, even when the man
+had risen and mounted his horse.  One by one the troopers rode through
+the faint belt of light that stretched from the door, and were lost in
+the darkness, the thud of their horses' hoofs echoing behind them.  But a
+change had come over Corporal Shon McGann.  He looked at Father Corraine
+with concern and perplexity.  He alone of those who were there had caught
+the unreal note in the proceedings.  His eyes were bent on the darkness
+into which the men had gone, and his fingers toyed for an instant with
+his whistle; but he said a hard word of himself under his breath, and
+turned to meet Father Corraine's hand upon his arm.
+
+"Shon McGann," the priest said, "I have words to say to you concerning
+this poor girl,"
+
+"You wish to have her taken to the Fort, I suppose?  What was she doing
+with Pretty Pierre?"
+
+"I wish her taken to her home."
+
+"Where is her home, father?"  And his eyes were cast with trouble on the
+girl, though he could assign no cause for that.
+
+"Her home, Shon,"--the priest's voice was very gentle--"her home was
+where they sing such words as these of a wanderer:
+
+   "'You'll hear the wild birds singin' beneath a brighter sky,'
+     The roof-tree of your home, dear, it will be grand and high;
+     But you'll hunger for the hearthstone where a child you used to lie,
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'."'
+
+During these words Shon's face ran white, then red; and now he stepped
+inside the door like one in a dream, and the girl's face was lifted to
+his as though he had called her.  "Mary--Mary Callen!" he cried.  His
+arms spread out, then dropped to his side, and he fell on his knees by
+the table facing her, and looked at her with love and horror warring in
+his face; for the remembrance that she had been with Pierre was like the
+hand of the grave upon him.  Moving not at all, she looked at him, a numb
+despondency in her face.  Suddenly Shon's look grew stern, and he was
+about to rise; but Father Corraine put a hand on his shoulder, and said:
+"Stay where you are, man--on your knees.  There is your place just now.
+Be not so quick to judge, and remember your own sins before you charge
+others without knowledge.  Listen now to me."
+
+And he spoke Mary Callen's tale as he knew it, and as she had given it to
+him, not forgetting to mention that she had been told the thing which had
+occurred in Pipi Valley.
+
+The heroic devotion of this woman, and Pretty Pierre's act of friendship
+to her, together with the swift panorama of his past across the seas,
+awoke the whole man in Shon, as the staunch life that he had lately led
+rendered it possible.  There was a grave, kind look upon his face when he
+rose at the ending of the tale, and came to her, saying:
+
+"Mary, it is I who need forgiveness.  Will you come now to the home you
+wanted"? and he stretched his arms to her.  .  .  .
+
+An hour after, as the three sat there, the door of the other room opened,
+and Pretty Pierre came out silently, and was about to pass from the hut;
+but the priest put a hand on his arm, and said:
+
+"'Where do you go, Pierre?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulder slightly:
+
+"I do not know.  'Mon Dieu!'--that I have put this upon you!--you that
+never spoke but the truth."
+
+"You have made my sin of no avail," the priest replied; and he motioned
+towards Shon McGann, who was now risen to his feet, Mary clinging to his
+arm.  "Father Corraine," said Shon, "it is my duty to arrest this man;
+but I cannot do it, would not do it, if he came and offered his arms for
+the steel.  I'll take the wrong of this now, sir, and such shame as there
+is in that falsehood on my shoulders.  And she here and I, and this man
+too, I doubt not, will carry your sin--as you call it--to our graves,
+without shame."
+
+Father Corraine shook his head sadly, and made no reply, for his soul was
+heavy.  He motioned them all to sit down.  And they sat there by the
+light of a flickering candle, with the door bolted and a cassock hung
+across the window, lest by any chance this uncommon thing should be seen.
+But the priest remained in a shadowed corner, with a little book in his
+hand, and he was long on his knees.  And when morning came they had
+neither slept nor changed the fashion of their watch, save for a moment
+now and then, when Pierre suffered from the pain of his wound, and
+silently passed up and down the little room.
+
+The morning was half gone when Shon McGann and Mary Callen stood beside
+their horses, ready to mount and go; for Mary had persisted that she
+could travel--joy makes such marvellous healing.  When the moment of
+parting came, Pierre was not there.  Mary whispered to her lover
+concerning this.  The priest went to the door of the but and called him.
+He came out slowly.
+
+"Pierre," said Shon, "there's a word to be said between us that had best
+be spoken now, though it's not aisy.  It's little you or I will care to
+meet again in this world.  There's been credit given and debts paid by
+both of us since the hour when we first met; and it needs thinking to
+tell which is the debtor now, for deeds are hard to reckon; but, before
+God, I believe it's meself;" and he turned and looked fondly at Mary
+Callen.
+
+And Pierre replied: "Shon McGann, I make no reckoning close; but we will
+square all accounts here, as you say, and for the last time; for never
+again shall we meet, if it's within my will or doing.  But I say I am the
+debtor; and if I pay not here, there will come a time!" and he caught
+his shoulder as it shrunk in pain of his wound.  He tapped the wound
+lightly, and said with irony: "This is my note of hand for my debt, Shon
+McGann.  Eh, bien!"
+
+Then he tossed his fingers indolently towards Shon, and turning his eyes
+slowly to Mary Callen, raised his hat in good-bye.  She put out her hand
+impulsively to him, but Pierre, shaking his head, looked away.  Shon put
+his hand gently on her arm.  "No, no," he said in a whisper, "there can
+be no touch of hands between us."
+
+And Pierre, looking up, added: "C'est vrai.  That is the truth.  You go--
+home.  I got to hide.  So--so."  And he turned and went into the hut.
+
+The others set their faces northward, and Father Corraine walked beside
+Mary Callen's horse, talking quietly of their future life, and speaking,
+as he would never speak again, of days in that green land of their birth.
+At length, upon a dividing swell of the prairie, he paused to say
+farewell.
+
+Many times the two turned to see, and he was there, looking after them;
+his forehead bared to the clear inspiring wind, his grey hair blown back,
+his hands clasped.  Before descending the trough of a great landwave,
+they turned for the last time, and saw him standing motionless, the one
+solitary being in all their wide horizon.
+
+But outside the line of vision there sat a man in a prairie hut, whose
+eyes travelled over the valley of blue sky stretching away beyond the
+morning, whose face was pale and cold.  For hours he sat unmoving, and
+when, at last, someone gently touched him on the shoulder, he only shook
+his head, and went on thinking.  He was busy with the grim ledger of his
+life.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+An inner sorrow is a consuming fire
+Philosophy which could separate the petty from the prodigious
+Remember your own sins before you charge others
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE "PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE":
+
+An inner sorrow is a consuming fire
+At first--and at the last--he was kind
+Awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies
+Carrying with him the warm atmosphere of a good woman's love
+Courage; without which, men are as the standing straw
+Delicate revenge which hath its hour with every man
+Evil is half-accidental, half-natural
+Fascinating colour which makes evil appear to be good
+Freedom is the first essential of the artistic mind
+Good is often an occasion more than a condition
+Had the luck together, all kinds and all weathers
+He does not love Pierre; but he does not pretend to love him
+Hunger for happiness is robbery
+I was born insolent
+If one remembers, why should the other forget
+Instinct for detecting veracity, having practised on both sides
+Irishmen have gifts for only two things--words and women
+It is not Justice that fills the gaols, but Law
+It is not much to kill or to die--that is in the game
+Knowing that his face would never be turned from me
+Likenesses between the perfectly human and the perfectly animal
+Longed to touch, oftener than they did, the hands of children
+Meditation is the enemy of action
+Men and women are unwittingly their own executioners
+More idle than wicked
+Mothers always forgive
+My excuses were making bad infernally worse
+Noise is not battle
+Nothing so good as courage, nothing so base as the shifting eye
+Philosophy which could separate the petty from the prodigious
+Reconciling the preacher and the sinner, as many another has
+Remember your own sins before you charge others
+She was beginning to understand that evil is not absolute
+She wasn't young, but she seemed so
+The soul of goodness in things evil
+The Injin speaks the truth, perhaps--eye of red man multipies
+The Government cherish the Injin much in these days
+The gods made last to humble the pride of men--there was rum
+The higher we go the faster we live
+The Barracks of the Free
+The world is not so bad as is claimed for it
+Time is the test, and Time will have its way with me
+Whatever has been was a dream; whatever is now is real
+Where I should never hear the voice of the social Thou must
+You do not shout dinner till you have your knife in the loaf
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, BY PARKER ***
+
+********** This file should be named gp07w10.txt or gp07w10.zip ***********
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, gp07w11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gp07w10a.txt
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/gp07w10.zip b/old/gp07w10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..feb35b4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gp07w10.zip