e to his feet, heedless of his hurts, and grasped their
hands. "Come, come, my friends, and see," he cried.

He pulled forward the loose skin on the puma's breast and showed them
the scar of a knife-wound above the one his own knife had made.

"I've got the other murderer," he said; "Gordineer's knife went in here.
Sacre, but it is good!"

Pourcette's flesh needed little medicine; he did not feel his pain and
stiffness. When they reached Clear Mountain, bringing with them the skin
which was to hang above the fireplace, Pourcette prepared to go to Fort
St. John, as he had said he would, to sell all the skins and give the
proceeds to the girl.

"When that's done," said Lawless, "you will have no reason for staying
here. If you will come with us after, we will go to the Fort with you.
We three will then come back in the spring to the valley of gold for
sport and riches."

He spoke lightly, yet seriously too. The old man shook his head. "I have
thought," he said. "I cannot go to the south. I am a hunter now, nothing
more. I have been long alone; I do not wish for change. I shall remain
at Clear Mountain when these skins have gone to Fort St. John, and if
you come to me in the spring or at any time, my door will open to you,
and I will share all with you. Gordineer was a good man. You are good
men. I'll remember you, but I can't go with you--no.

"Some day you would leave me to go to the women who wait for you, and
then I should be alone again. I will not change--vraiment!"

On the morning they left, he took Jo Gordineer's cup from the shelf,
and from a hidden place brought out a flask half filled with liquor. He
poured out a little in the cup gravely, and handed it to Lawless, but
Lawless gave it back to him.

"You must drink from it," he said, "not me."

He held out the cup of his own flask. When each of the three had a
share, the old man raised his long arm solemnly, and said in a tone so
gentle that the others hardly recognised his voice: "To a lost comrade!"
They drank in silence.

"A little gentleman!" said Lawless, under his breath. When they were
ready to start, Lawless said to him at the last: "What will you do here,
comrade, as the days go on?"

"There are pumas in the mountains," he replied. They parted from him
upon the ledge where the great fight had occurred, and travelled into
the east. Turning many times, they saw him still standing there. At a
point where they must lose sight of him, they looked