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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: [bb]!!!! “When doors are open the bird is free Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear!” [bb]

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.