uddenly on a hip pocket. "What do you
want me to do"? he said, not whiningly, for beneath the selfish flesh
and shallow outworks there were the elements of a warrior--all pulpy
now, but they were there.

"This," was the reply: "for you to make one more outlaw at Fort Anne by
drinking what is in this bottle--sit down, quick, by God!" He placed the
bottle within reach of the other. "Then you shall have these letters;
and there is the fire. After? Well, you will have a great sleep, the
good people will find you, they will bury you, weeping much, and no one
knows here but me. Refuse that, and there is the other, the Law--ah, the
poor girl was so very young!--and the wild Justice which is sometimes
quicker than Law. Well? well?"

The missionary sat as if paralysed, his face all grey, his eyes fixed on
the half-breed. "Are you man or devil"? he groaned at length.

With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: "It was said that a
devil entered into me at birth, but that was mere scandal--'peut-etre.'
You shall think as you will."

There was silence. The sullenness about the missionary's lips became
charged with a contempt more animal than human. The Reverend Ezra
Badgley knew that the man before him was absolute in his determination,
and that the Pagans of Fort Anne would show him little mercy, while his
flock would leave him to his fate. He looked at the bottle. The silence
grew, so that the ticking of the watch in the missionary's pocket could
be heard plainly, having for its background of sound the continuous
swish of the river. Pretty Pierre's eyes were never taken off the
other, whose gaze, again, was fixed upon the bottle with a terrible
fascination. An hour, two hours, passed. The fire burned lower. It was
midnight; and now the watch no longer ticked; it had fulfilled its day's
work. The missionary shuddered slightly at this. He looked up to see the
resolute gloom of the half-breed's eyes, and that sneering smile, fixed
upon him still. Then he turned once more to the bottle.... His heavy
hand moved slowly towards it. His stubby fingers perspired and showed
sickly in the light.... They closed about the bottle. Then suddenly he
raised it, and drained it at a draught. He sighed once heavily and as if
a great inward pain was over. Rising he took the letters silently pushed
towards him, and dropped them into the fire. He went to the window,
raised it, and threw the bottle into the river. The cork was left:
Pierre poin