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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?”