ut one wish, to reach that
wilderness of swift conflict, where thought has no time for regret.
The door was ajar. A coal fire burned on the hearth. Sitting on the
floor were two figures with backs towards me, a ragged, bearded man and
a woman with a shawl over her head. What fools does hope make of us!
I had almost called out Hortense's name when the noise of the closing
door caught their hearing. I was in the north again; an Indian girl
was on her knees clinging to my feet, sobbing out incoherent gratitude;
a pair of arms were belabouring my shoulders; and a voice was saying
with broken gurgles of joy: "Ship ahoy, there! Ease your helm! Don't
heave all your ballast overboard!"--a clapping of hands on my
back--"Port your helm! Ease her up! All sheets in the wind and the
storms'l aflutter! Ha-ha!" with a wringing and a wringing like to
wrench my hands off--"Anchor out! Haul away! Home with her . . . !"

"Jack Battle!"

It was all I could say.

There he was, grizzled and bronzed and weather-worn, laughing with joy
and thrashing his arms about as if to belabour me again.

"But who is this, Jack?"

I lifted the Indian woman from her knees. It was the girl my blow had
saved that morning long ago.

"Who--what is this?"

"My wife," Says Jack, swinging his arms afresh and proud as a prince.

"Your wife? . . . Where . . . who married you?"

"There warn't no parson," says Jack, "that is, there warn't no parson
nearer nor three thousand leagues and more. And say," adds Jack, "I
s'pose there was marryin' afore there _could_ be parsons! She saved my
life. She hain't no folks. I hain't no folks. She got away that
morning o' the massacre--she see them take us captive--she gets a white
pelt to hide her agen the snow--she come, she do all them cold miles
and lets me loose when the braves ain't watching . . . she risks her
life to save my life--she don't belong to nobody. I don't belong to
nobody. There waren't no parson, but we're married tight . . .
and--and--let not man put asunder," says Jack.

For full five minutes there was not a word.

The east was trying to understand the west!

"Amen, Jack," said I. "God bless you--you are a man!"

"We mean to get a parson and have it done straight yet," explained
Jack, "but I wanted you to stand by me----"

"Faith, Jack, you've done it pretty thorough without any help----"

"Yes, but folks won't understand," pleaded Jack, "and--and--I'd do as
much for you