e! Pierre!' Here,
and here, and here--" the big man pointed to his breast and face and
arms--"was the shrapnel. He sigh in my arms--then he is gone.
Ba'teese ask that night for duty on the line. He swear never again to
be _l' M'sieu Doctaire_. All his life he help--help--help--but when
the time come, he cannot help his own. And by'm'by, Ba'teese come
home--and find that."

He pointed out into the shadows beneath the pines.

"She had died?"

"Died!" The man's face had gone suddenly purple. His eyes were
glaring, his hands upraised and clutched. "No! Murder! Murder, mon
ami! Murder! Lost Wing--he Medaine's Indian--he find her--so! In a
heap on the floor--and a bullet through her brain. And the money we
save, the ten thousan' dollar--eet is gone! Murder!"

A shudder went over the young man on the bed. His face blanched. His
lips lost their color. For a moment, as the big French-Canadian bent
over him, he stared with glazed, unseeing eyes, at last to turn dully
at the sharp, questioning voice of the trapper:

"Murder--you know murder?"

There was a long moment of silence. Then, as though with an effort
which took his every atom of strength, Houston shook himself, as if to
throw some hateful, vicious thing from him, and turned, with a parrying
question:

"Did you ever find who did it?"

"No. But sometime--Ba'teese not forget. Ba'teese always wait.
Ba'teese always look for certain things--that were in the deed-box.
There was jewelry--Ba'teese remember. Sometime--" Then he switched
again. "Why you look so funny? Huh? Why you get pale--?"

"Please--" Barry Houston put forth a hand. "Please--" Then he
straightened. "Ba'tiste, I'm in your hands. You can help me, or you
can harm me. You know I was shamming when I acted as though I had lost
my identity. Now--now you know there's something else. Will you--"

He ceased suddenly and sank back. From without there had come the
sound of steps. A moment later, the door opened, and shadows of a man
and a girl showed on the floor. Thayer and Medaine had returned. Soon
they were in the room, the girl once more standing in the doorway,
regarding Barry with a quizzical, half-wondering gaze, the man coming
forward and placing one gnarled hand on the Canadian's shoulder,
staring over his head down into the eyes of the injured man on the bed.

"I couldn't go back to the mill without making one more try," he
explained. "Has he shown any signs y