en his lips moved dryly. She
brought him water. He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped him.
"You got here safely," he now said. "I am glad of that--though you, too,
are hurt."

She briefly told him how, and then he said: "Well, I suppose you know
all of me now?"

"I know what happened in Pipi Valley," she said, timidly and wearily.
"Father Corraine told me."

"Where is he?"

When she had answered him, he said: "And you are willing to speak with
me still?"

"You saved me," was her brief, convincing reply. "How did you escape?
Did you fight?"

"No," he said. "It is strange. I did not fight at all. As I said to you,
I was sick of blood. These men were only doing their duty. I might have
killed two or three of them, and have escaped, but to what good? When
they shot my horse, my good Sacrament,--and put a bullet into this
shoulder, I crawled away still, and led them a dance, and doubled on
them; and here I am."

"It is wonderful that they have not been here," she said.

"Yes, it is wonderful; but be very sure they will be with that candle in
the window. Why is it there?"

She told him. He lifted his brows in stoic irony, and said: "Well, we
shall have an army of them soon." He rose again to his feet. "I do not
wish to die, and I always said that I would never go to prison. Do you
understand?"

"Yes," she replied. She went immediately to the window, took the candle
from it, and put it behind an improvised shade. No sooner was this done
than Father Corraine entered the room, and seeing the outlaw, said "You
have come here, Pierre?" And his face showed wonder and anxiety.

"I have come, mon pere, for sanctuary."

"For sanctuary! But, my son, if I vex not Heaven by calling you so,
why"--he saw Pierre stagger slightly. "But you are wounded." He put
his arm round the other's shoulder, and supported him till he recovered
himself. Then he set to work to bandage anew the wound, from which
Pierre himself had not unskilfully extracted the bullet. While doing so,
the outlaw said to him:

"Father Corraine, I am hunted like a coyote for a crime I did not
commit. But if I am arrested they will no doubt charge me with other
things--ancient things. Well, I have said that I should never be sent to
gaol, and I never shall; but I do not wish to die at this moment, and I
do not wish to fight. What is there left?"

"How do you come here, Pierre?"

He lifted his eyes heavily to Mary Callen, and she told Father Corraine