e turned and looked steadily into
Pierre's eyes.

"We'd better settle this thing at once. If you're going to Fort O'Battle
because you've set your fancy there, you'd better go back now. That's
straight. You and I can't sail in the same boat. I'll go alone, so give
me the pistol."

Pierre laughed softly, and waved the hand back. "T'sh! What a
high-cock-a-lorum! You want to do it all yourself--to fill the eye of
the girl alone, and be tucked away to By-by for your pains--mais, quelle
folie! See: you go for law and love; I go for fun and Jimmy Throng. The
girl? Pshaw! she would come out right in the end, without you or me. But
the old man with half a lung--that's different. He must have sweet bread
in his belly when he dies, and the girl must make it for him. She shall
brush her hair with the ivory brush by Sunday morning."

Halby turned sharply.

"You've been spying," he said. "You've been in her room--you--"

Pierre put out his hand and stopped the word on Halby's lips.

"Slow, slow," he said; "we are both--police to-day. Voila! we must not
fight. There is Throng and the girl to think of." Suddenly, with a soft
fierceness, he added: "If I looked in her room, what of that? In all the
North is there a woman to say I wrong her? No. Well, what if I carry her
room in my eye; does that hurt her or you?"

Perhaps something of the loneliness of the outlaw crept into Pierre's
voice for an instant, for Halby suddenly put a hand on his shoulder and
said: "Let's drop the thing, Pierre."

Pierre looked at him musingly.

"When Throng is put to By-by what will you do?" he asked.

"I will marry her, if she'll have me."

"But she is prairie-born, and you!"

"I'm a prairie-rider."

After a moment Pierre said, as if to himself: "So quiet and clean, and
the print calico and muslin, and the ivory brush!"

It is hard to say whether he was merely working on Halby that he be true
to the girl, or was himself softhearted for the moment. He had a
curious store of legend and chanson, and he had the Frenchman's power
of applying them, though he did it seldom. But now he said in a half
monotone:

"Have you seen the way I have built my nest?
(O brave and tall is the Grand Seigneur!)
I have trailed the East, I have searched the West,
(O clear of eye is the Grand Seigneur!)
From South and North I have brought the best:
The feathers fine from an eagle's crest,
The silken thread