t the grinning features of Ba'tiste. At last:

"I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before
you'd say a thing like that."

"So? It has been done."

"And he told you--"

"Nothing. He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese." A great
chuckle shook the big frame "Ba'teese know as soon as _l' M'sieu
Doctaire_."

"On good terms, aren't you? When's he coming again?"

"_Parbleu_!" The big man snapped his fingers. "Peuff! Like that.
Ba'teese call heem, and he is here."

Houston blinked. Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of
the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed.

"What kind of--"

"Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke," came quickly and seriously from the other
man. "Ba'teese--he is heem."

"A doctor?"

Slowly the big man nodded. Barry went on "I--I--didn't know. I
thought you were just a trapper. I wondered--"

"So! That is all--jus' a trapper."

Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking
out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in
companionship and some strange form of sympathy. There was silence for
a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft
and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to
vacancy.

"So! Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now. Ba'teese, he had swear he
never again stand beside a sick bed. But you--" and he turned swiftly,
a broken smile playing about his lips--"you, _mon ami_, you, when I
foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the
blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you--then you--you look
like my Pierre! And I pick you up--so!" He fashioned his arms as
though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say--'Pierre!
Pierre!' But you do not answer--just like he did not answer. Then I
start back with you, and the way was rough. I take you under one
arm--so. It was steep. I must have one arm free. Then I meet
Medaine, and she laugh at me for the way I carry you. And I was glad.
Eet made Ba'teese forget."

"What?" Barry said it with the curiosity of a boy. The older man
stared hard at the crazy design of the covers.

"My Pierre," came at last. "And my Julienne. Ba'teese, he is all
alone now. Are you all alone?" The question came quickly. Barry
answered before he thought.

"Yes."

"Then you know--you know how eet feel. You know how Ba'teese think
when he look out the window. See?" H