grudge against me for the sake of
your mother, Pierre?"

He took the heavy hand.

"Are you not my father? And my mother was happy with you. For her
sake I love you."

"The good Father Victor. He sent you to me."

"I came of my own will. He would not have let me go."

"He--he would have kept my flesh and blood away from me?"

"Do not reproach him. He would have kept me from a sin."

"Sin? By God, boy, no matter what I've done, is it sin for my son to
come to me? What sin?"

"The sin of murder!"

"Ha!"

"I have come to find McGurk."

CHAPTER IV

THE CORNER PLOT

Like some old father-bear watching his cub flash teeth against a
stalking lynx, half proud and half fearful of such courage, so the
dying cattleman looked at his son. Excitement set a high and dangerous
color in his cheek. His eyes were too bright.

"Pierre--brave boy! Look at me. I ain't no imitation-man, even now,
but I ain't a ghost of what I was. There wasn't no man I wouldn't of
met fair and square with bare hands or with a gun. Maybe my hands was
big, but they were fast on the draw. I've lived all my life with iron
on the hip, and my six-gun has seven notches.

"But McGurk downed me fair and square. There wasn't no murder. I was
out for his hide, and he knew it. I done the provokin', an' he jest
done the finishin', that was all. It hurts me a lot to say it, but
he's a better man than I was. A kid like you, why, he'd jest eat you,
Pierre."

Pierre le Rouge smiled again. He felt a stern and aching pride to be
the son of this man.

"So that's settled," went on Martin Ryder, "an' a damned good thing it
is. Son, you didn't come none too soon. I'm goin' out fast. There
ain't enough light left in me so's I can see my own way. Here's all I
ask: When I die touch my eyelids soft an' draw 'em shut--I've seen the
look in a dead man's eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep an'
have good dreams. And down in the middle of Morgantown is the
buryin'-ground. I've ridden past it a thousand times an' watched a
corner plot, where the grass grows quicker than it does anywheres else
in the cemetery. Pierre, I'd die plumb easy if I knew I was goin' to
sleep the rest of time in that place."

"It shall be done."

"But that corner plot, it would cost a pile, son. And I've no money.
I gave what I had to them wolf-eyed boys, Bill an' Bert. Money was
what they wanted, an' after I had Irene's son with me, money was the