e, an' then I'd not be alone, an' nothin' but sour bread an' pork
to eat. I ought to ha' stole three."

"Ah, Manette ought to have given you some of your own, it's true, that!"
said Duc stolidly. "You never was a real father, Jim."

"Liddy got to look like me; she got to look like Manette and me, I tell
ye!" said the old man hoarsely. Duc laughed in his stupid way. "Look
like you? Look like you, Jim, with a face to turn milk sour? Ho, ho!"

Throng rose, his face purple with anger, and made as if to catch Duc by
the throat, but a fit of coughing seized him, and presently blood showed
on his lips. Duc, with a rough gentleness, wiped off the blood and put
the whisky-and-herbs to the sick man's lips, saying, in a fatherly way:

"For why you do like that? You're a fool, Jimmy!"

"I be, I be," said the old man in a whisper, and let his hand rest on
Duc's shoulder.

"I'll fix the bread sweet next time, Jimmy."

"No, no," said the husky voice peevishly. "She'll do it--Liddy'll do it.
Liddy's comin'."

"All right, Jimmy. All right."

After a moment Throng shook his head feebly and said, scarcely above a
whisper:

"But I be a durn fool--when she's not here."

Duc nodded and gave him more whisky and herbs. "My feet's cold," said
the old man, and Duc wrapped a bearskin round his legs.

II

For miles Pierre and Halby rode without a word. Then they got down and
walked for a couple of miles, to bring the blood into their legs again.

"The old man goes to By-by bientot," said Pierre at last.

"You don't think he'll last long?"

"Maybe ten days; maybe one. If we don't get the girl, out goes his
torchlight straight."

"She's been very good to him."

"He's been on his knees to her all her life."

"There'll be trouble out of this, though."

"Pshaw! The girl is her own master."

"I mean, someone will probably get hurt over there." He nodded in the
direction of Fort O'Battle.

"That's in the game. The girl is worth fighting for, hein?"

"Of course, and the law must protect her. It's a free country."

"So true, my captain," murmured Pierre drily. "It is wonderful what a
man will do for the law."

The tone struck Halby. Pierre was scanning the horizon abstractedly.

"You are always hitting at the law," he said. "Why do you stand by it
now?"

"For the same reason as yourself."

"What is that?"

"She has your picture in her room, she has my lucky dollar in her
pocket."

Halby's face flushed, and then h