the thing more reas'nable in my mind. No, it ain't nateral to me,
Pierre--our Val running away." The old man leaned forward and put his
elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

"Eh, well, it was an Injin. So much. It was in self-defence--a little,
but of course to prove that. There is the difficulty. You see, they were
all drinking, and the Injin--he was a chief---proposed--he proposed that
Val should sell him his sister, Jen Galbraith, to be the chief's squaw.
He would give him a cayuse. Val's blood came up quick--quite quick. You
know Val. He said between his teeth: 'Look out, Snow Devil, you Injin
dog, or I'll have your heart. Do you think a white girl is like a
redskin woman, to be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to the
squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?' Then the Injin said an ugly
word about Val's sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning.... Yes,
that is good to swear, Galbraith. You are not the only one that curses
the law in this world. It is not Justice that fills the gaols, but Law."

The old man rose and walked up and down the room in a shuffling kind of
way. His best days were done, the spring of his life was gone, and the
step was that of a man who had little more of activity and force with
which to turn the halting wheels of life. His face was not altogether
good, yet it was not evil. There was a sinister droop to the eyelids, a
suggestion of cruelty about the mouth; but there was more of good-nature
and passive strength than either in the general expression. One could
see that some genial influence had dominated what was inherently cruel
and sinister in him. Still the sinister predisposition was there.

"He can't never come here, Pierre, can he"? he asked, despairingly.

"No, he can't come here, Galbraith. And look: if the Riders of the
Plains should stop here to-night, or to-morrow, you will be cool--cool,
eh?"

"Yes, I will be quite cool, Pierre." Then he seemed to think of
something else and looked up half-curiously, half-inquiringly at the
half-breed.

Pierre saw this. He whistled quietly to himself for a little, and then
called the old man over to where he sat. Leaning slightly forward he
made his reply to the look that had been bent upon him. He touched
Galbraith's breast lightly with his delicate fingers, and said: "I have
not much love for the world, Pete Galbraith, and not much love for
men and women altogether; they are fools--nearly all. Some men--you
know--tre