led since a certain season in
London, which began with my tuneful lyre sounding hopeful numbers and
ended with it hanging on the willows.

"When I thought it all over, as I trudged back on yesterday's track,
I concluded that I had told them all my history from my youth up until
now, and had got nothing from them in return. I had exhausted my family
records, bit by bit, like a curate in his first parish; and had gone
so far as to testify that one of my ancestors had been banished to
Australia for political crimes. Distinctly they had me at an advantage,
though, to be sure, I had betrayed Mrs. Malbrouck into something more
than a suspicion of emotion.

"When I got back to my old camp, I could find out nothing from the other
fellows; but Jacques Pontiac told me that his old mate, Pretty Pierre,
who in recent days had fallen from grace, knew something of these people
that no one else guessed, because he had let them a part of his house
in the parish of St. Genevieve in Quebec, years before. Pierre had
testified to one fact, that a child--a girl--had been born to Mrs.
Malbrouck in his house, but all further knowledge he had withheld.
Pretty Pierre was off in the Rocky Mountains practising his
profession--chiefly poker--and was not available for information. What
did I, Gregory Thorne, want of the information anyway? That's the
point, my son. Judging from after-developments I suppose it was what the
foolish call occult sympathy. Well, where was that girl-child? Jacques
Pontiac didn't know. Nobody knew. And I couldn't get rid of Mrs.
Malbrouck's face; it haunted me; the broad brow, deep eyes, and
high-bred sweetness--all beautifully animal. Don't laugh: I find
astonishing likenesses between the perfectly human and the perfectly
animal. Did you never see how beautiful and modest the faces of deer
are; how chic and sensitive is the manner of a hound; nor the keen, warm
look in the eye of a well-bred mare? Why, I'd rather be a good horse
of blood and temper than half the fellows I know. You are not an animal
lover as I am; yes, even when I shoot them or fight them I admire them,
just as I'd admire a swordsman who, in 'quart,' would give me death by
the wonderful upper thrust. It's all a battle; all a game of love and
slaughter, my son, and both go together.

"Well, as I say, her face followed me. Watch how the thing developed. By
the prairie-track I went over to Fort Desire, near the Rockies, almost
immediately after this, to