keep
watch!"

"I guess you're right, Ba'tiste. It won't do any harm. If she's
returned for a good purpose, very well. If not, we're at least prepared
for her."

With that resolution they went on to Denver, there to seek out the few
friends Ba'tiste possessed, to argue one of them into a loan of ten
thousand dollars on the land and trustworthy qualities which formed the
total of Ba'tiste's resources, to gain from the other the necessary bond
to cover the contract,--a contract which Barry Houston knew only too well
might never be fulfilled. But against this fear was the booming
enthusiasm of Ba'tiste Renaud:

"Nev' min'. Somehow we do eet. Ah, _oui_! Somehow. If we make the
failure, then it shall be Ba'teese who will fin' the way to pay the bond.
Now, Ba'teese, he go back."

"Yes, and keep watch on that woman. She's out here for something'--I
feel sure of it--something that has to do with Thayer. Before you go,
however, make the rounds of the employment agencies and tell them to send
you every man they can spare, up to a hundred. We'll give them work to
the extent of five thousand dollars. They ought to be able to get enough
timber down to keep us going for a while anyway--especially with the
roads iced."

"Ah. _Oui_. It is the three o'clock. _Bon voyage, mon_ Baree!"

It was the first time Ba'tiste Renaud ever had dropped the conventional
"M'sieu" in addressing Houston, and Barry knew, without the telling,
without the glowing light in the old man's eyes, that at least a part of
the great loneliness in the trapper's heart had departed, that he had
found a place there in a portion of the aching spot left void by a
shrapnel-shattered son to whom a father had called that night in the
ruined cathedral,--and called in vain. It caused a queer pang of
exquisite pain in Houston's heart, a joy too great to be expressed by the
reflexes of mere pleasure. Long after the train had left Denver, he
still thought of it, he still heard the old man's words, he still sat
quiet and peaceful in a new enthusiasm of hope. The world was not so
blank, after all. One man, at least, believed in him fully.

Came Chicago and the technicalities of ironing out the final details of
the contract. Then, dealer in millions and the possessor of nothing,
Houston went onward toward Boston.

And Ba'tiste was not there to boom enthusiastically regarding the chances
of the future, to enlarge upon the opportunities which might arise