the woods to the assistance of
the stricken woman there. But he could not frame the request.
Instead, "I--I can't tell you. I've given a woman my word. She
wouldn't understand--if you went there. With Ba'tiste, it is
different. He is a doctor. He has a right. I--I--"

"I understand," came quietly, and in those two words Houston felt that
her opinion had been formed; that to her, he was the father; the quiet
form in his arms his own child! It was like a blow to him; yet it was
only what he had expected from the moment that he had recognized her.
And after all, he felt that it did not matter; it was only one more
false accusation to be added to the total, only one more height to be
added to the barrier which already existed between them. He accepted
her attitude--in spite of the pain it brought--and faced her.

"You were willing to help--before you--knew. You would have been glad
to help in the case of a stranger. Are you still willing--now?"

She hesitated a moment, her eyes downcast, at last to force a smile.

"Of course. But you are asking something almost impossible. The
nearest priest is at Crestline."

"Crestline?" Houston instinctively turned toward the hills, a bleak,
forbidding wall against the sky. "I--"

"Rather, a mile below there at the Croatian settlement on Mount Harris.
I am afraid you couldn't find it."

"I can try. Will you lend me Lost Wing to run an errand? I want to
get Ba'tiste--for her."

"Certainly."

"May I talk to him privately? He understands English?"

She nodded. Then:

"I will tell Lost Wing that anything you have to say to him shall be a
secret even from me. I--do not want to know it."

She spoke to the Indian in Sioux then and drew away, her eyes on the
tracings of a snowshoe. Houston, pointing with his head, gave the
Indian his directions.

"A woman is sick in a cabin, two miles straight west from here. Get
Ba'tiste Renaud and take him there. Turn away from the stream at a
tall, dead lodgepole and go to the left. You will see the cabin. I
would rather that you would not go in and that you know nothing about
the woman. Tell Ba'tiste that her name must stay a secret until she
herself is willing that it be otherwise. Do you understand?"

"A'ri." The Indian went then toward his mistress, waiting her sanction
to the mission. She looked at Barry Houston.

"Have you given him his directions?"

"Yes."

"Then, Lost Wing, do as he has told you."