lways--ain't I? An'
now, when this cough 's eatin' my life out, and Manette 's gone, and
there ain't a soul but Duc the trapper to put a blister on to me, them
brutes ride up from over the border, call theirselves her brothers, an'
drag her off!"

He was still on his knees. Pierre reached over and lightly kicked a
moccasined foot.

"Get up, Jim Throng," he said. "Holy! do you think the law moves because
an old man cries? Is it in the statutes?--that's what the law says. Does
it come within the act? Is it a trespass--an assault and battery?--a
breach of the peace?--a misdemeanour? Victoria--So and So: that's how
the law talks. Get on your knees to Father Corraine, not to Captain
Halby, Jimmy Throng."

Pierre spoke in a half-sinister, ironical way, for between him and
Captain Halby's Riders of the Plains there was no good feeling. More
than once he had come into conflict with them, more than once had they
laid their hands on him--and taken them off again in due time. He had
foiled them as to men they wanted; he had defied them--but he had helped
them too, when it seemed right to him; he had sided with them once or
twice when to do so was perilous to himself. He had sneered at them,
he did not like them, nor they him. The sum of it was, he thought them
brave--and stupid; and he knew that the law erred as often as it set
things right.

The Trader got up and stood between the two men, coughing much, his face
straining, his eyes bloodshot, as he looked anxiously from Pierre to
Halby. He was the sad wreck of a strong man. Nothing looked strong about
him now save his head, which, with its long grey hair, seemed badly
balanced by the thin neck, through which the terrible cough was hacking.

"Only half a lung left," he stammered, as soon as he could speak, "an'
Duc can't fix the boneset, camomile, and whisky, as she could. An' he
waters the whisky--curse-his-soul!" The last three words were spoken
through another spasm of coughing. "An' the blister--how he mucks the
blister!"

Pierre sat back on the table, laughing noiselessly, his white teeth
shining. Halby, with one foot on a bench, was picking at the fur on
his sleeve thoughtfully. His face was a little drawn, his lips were
tight-pressed, and his eyes had a light of excitement. Presently he
straightened himself, and, after a half-malicious look at Pierre, he
said to Throng:

"Where are they, do you say?"

"They're at"--the old man coughed hard--"at Fort O'Battle."