. Kent knew that this would be so, for Father Layonne
knew neither code nor creed that did not reach all the hearts of the
wilderness. He came back, and sat down close to Kent, and took one of
his hands and held it closely in both of his own. They were not the
soft, smooth hands of the priestly hierarchy, but were hard with the
callosity of toil, yet gentle with the gentleness of a great sympathy.
He had loved Kent yesterday, when Kent had stood clean in the eyes of
both God and men, and he still loved him today, when his soul was
stained with a thing that must be washed away with his own life.

"I'm sorry, lad," he said. "I'm sorry."

Something rose up in Kent's throat that was not the blood he had been
wiping away since morning. His fingers returned the pressure of the
little missioner's hands. Then he pointed out through the window to the
panorama of shimmering river and green forests.

"It is hard to say good-by to all that, Father," he said. "But, if you
don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it. I'm not afraid of it. And why
be unhappy because one has only a little while to live? Looking back
over your life, does it seem so very long ago that you were a boy, a
small boy?"

"The time has gone swiftly, very swiftly."

"It seems only yesterday--or so?"

"Yes, only yesterday--or so."

Kent's face lit up with the whimsical smile that long ago had reached
the little missioner's heart. "Well, that's the way I'm looking at it,
Father. There is only a yesterday, a today, and a tomorrow in the
longest of our lives. Looking back from seventy years isn't much
different from looking back from thirty-six _when_ you're looking back
and not ahead. Do you think what I have just said will free Sandy
McTrigger?"

"There is no doubt. Your statements have been accepted as a death-bed
confession."

The little missioner, instead of Kent, was betraying a bit of
nervousness.

"There are matters, my son--some few matters--which you will want
attended to. Shall we not talk about them?"

"You mean--"

"Your people, first. I remember that once you told me there was no one.
But surely there is some one somewhere."

Kent shook his head. "There is no one now. For ten years those forests
out there have been father, mother, and home to me."

"But there must be personal affairs, affairs which you would like to
entrust, perhaps, to me?"

Kent's face brightened, and for an instant a flash of humor leaped into
his eyes. "It is funn