et it in my head," he said. "I go dat way, but I wish--I wish
it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not'ing. I go w'en dat moon
rise--I go, bien sur."

"You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you." She pointed to a
couch in a corner. "I will wake you when the moon rises."

For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the
thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her.

"You not happy--you not like me here?" he asked simply; then added
quickly, "I am not bad man like me brudder--no."

Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some
thought was working in her mind behind.

"No, you are not a bad man," she said. "Men and women are equal on the
plains. You have no fear--I have no fear."

He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. "My mudder, she
was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His
eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank
you--till moontime."

In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for
the fire within and the frost outside.

Time went on. The night deepened.

.........................

Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it
towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within
there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that
come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her
except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged,
and justice had been about to give "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth." But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding
of justice--he had come for that.

Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but
still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor's
reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast;
but the reprieve was with her.

If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and
discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw
one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it
came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She
was calm in her madness.

At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his
fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while
she told him his course again, she opened the door