. Temptation
grew greatly on him at the Pipi, and in the days before he yielded to it
he might have been seen at midnight in his but playing solitaire. Why he
abstained at first from practising his real profession is accounted for
in two ways: he had tasted some of the sweets of honest companionship
with the Honourable and Shon, and then he had a memory of an ugly night
at Pardon's Drive a year before, when he stood over his own brother's
body, shot to death by accident in a gambling row having its origin with
himself. These things had held him back for a time; but he was weaker
than his ruling passion.

The Pipi was a young and comparatively virgin field; the quarry was at
his hand. He did not love money for its own sake; it was the game that
enthralled him. He would have played his life against the treasury of a
kingdom, and, winning it with loaded double sixes, have handed back the
spoil as an unredeemable national debt.

He fell at last, and in falling conquered the Pipi Valley; at the same
time he was considered a fearless and liberal citizen, who could shoot
as straight as he played well. He made an excursion to another field,
however, at an opportune time, and it was during this interval that the
accident to Shon and the Honourable had happened. He returned but a few
hours before this quarrel with Shon occurred, and in the Saints' Repose,
whither he had at once gone, he was told of the accident. While his
informant related the incident and the romantic sequence of Shon's
infatuation, the woman passed the tavern and was pointed out to Pierre.
The half-breed had not much excitableness in his nature, but when he saw
this beautiful woman with a touch of the Indian in her contour, his pale
face flushed, and he showed his set teeth under his slight moustache.
He watched her until she entered a shop, on the signboard of which
was written--written since he had left a few months ago--Lucy Rives,
Tobacconist.

Shon had then entered the Saints' Repose; and we know the rest. A
couple of hours after this nervous episode, Pierre might have been seen
standing in the shadow of the pines not far from the house at Ward's
Mistake, where, he had been told, Lucy Rives lived with an old Indian
woman. He stood, scarcely moving, and smoking cigarettes, until the door
opened. Shon came out and walked down the hillside to the town. Then
Pierre went to the door, and without knocking, opened it, and entered.
A woman started up from a sea