(Why should the door be shut?)'"

Her eyes had been following the group of horsemen on the plains. She
again fixed them on Pierre, and stood up.

"It is a beautiful legend--that," she said.

"But?--but?" he asked.

She would not answer him. "You will come again," she said; "you
will--help me?"

"Surely, p'tite Lucille, surely, I will come. But to help--ah, that
would sound funny to the Missionary at the Fort and to others!"

"You understand life," she said, "and I can speak to you."

"It's more to you to understand you than to be good, eh?"

"I guess it's more to any woman," she answered. They both passed out of
the house. She turned towards the broken shutter. Then their eyes met. A
sad little smile hovered at her lips.

"What is the use?" she said, and her eyes fastened on the horsemen.

He knew now that she would never shudder again at the sight of it, or at
the remembrance of Marcey's death.

"But he will come," was the reply to her, and her smile almost settled
and stayed.

They parted, and as he went down the hill he saw far over, coming up, a
woman in black, who walked as if she carried a great weight. "Every shot
that kills ricochets," he said to himself:

"His mother dead--her mother like that!"

He passed into the Fort, renewing acquaintances in the Company's store,
and twenty minutes after he was one to greet the horsemen that Lucille
had seen coming over the hills. They were five, and one had to be helped
from his horse. It was Stroke Laforce, who had been found near dead at
the Metal River by a party of men exploring in the north.

He had rescued the Englishman and his party, but within a day of the
finding the Englishman died, leaving him his watch, a ring, and a cheque
on the H. B. C. at Winnipeg. He and the two survivors, one of whom was
Brickney, started south. One night Brickney robbed him and made to get
away, and on his seizing the thief he was wounded. Then the other man
came to his help and shot Brickney: after that weeks of wandering, and
at last rescue and Fort Ste. Anne.

A half-hour after this Pierre left Laforce on the crest of the hill
above the Fort, and did not turn to go down till he had seen the other
pass within the house with the broken shutter. And later he saw a
little bonfire on the hill. The next evening he came to the house again
himself. Lucille rose to meet him.

"'Why should the door be shut?"' he quoted smiling.

"The door is open," she answered quic