n listening inside the room with shaking frame
and bursting heart, dropped on her knees beside the table, her head
in her arms. The door opened. "See," said the priest, "a woman who is
injured and suffering."

"Ah," rejoined the trooper, "perhaps it is the woman who was riding with
the half-breed. We found her dead horse."

The priest nodded. Shon McGann looked at the crouching figure by the
table pityingly. As he looked he was stirred, he knew not why. And she,
though she did not look, knew that his gaze was on her; and all her will
was spent in holding her eyes from his face, and from crying out to him.

"And Pretty Pierre," said the trooper, "is not here with her?"

There was an unfathomable sadness in the priest's eyes, as, with a
slight motion of the hand towards the room, he said: "You see--he is not
here."

The trooper and his men immediately mounted; but one of them, young Tim
Kearney, slid from his horse, and came and dropped on his knee in front
of the priest.

"It's many a day," he said, "since before God or man I bent a knee--more
shame to me for that, and for mad days gone; but I care not who knows
it, I want a word of blessin' from the man that's been out here like a
saint in the wilderness, with a heart like the Son o' God."

The priest looked at the man at first as if scarce comprehending this
act so familiar to him, then he slowly stretched out his hand, said some
words in benediction, and made the sacred gesture. But his face had a
strange and absent look, and he held the hand poised, even when the man
had risen and mounted his horse. One by one the troopers rode through
the faint belt of light that stretched from the door, and were lost in
the darkness, the thud of their horses' hoofs echoing behind them. But a
change had come over Corporal Shon McGann. He looked at Father Corraine
with concern and perplexity. He alone of those who were there had caught
the unreal note in the proceedings. His eyes were bent on the darkness
into which the men had gone, and his fingers toyed for an instant with
his whistle; but he said a hard word of himself under his breath, and
turned to meet Father Corraine's hand upon his arm.

"Shon McGann," the priest said, "I have words to say to you concerning
this poor girl."

"You wish to have her taken to the Fort, I suppose? What was she doing
with Pretty Pierre?"

"I wish her taken to her home."

"Where is her home, father?" And his eyes were cast with trouble