"He fought for us--and he was terribly hurt," she said.

"I saw him drag himself away.
Father, if he is out there--dying--" Pierre Radisson stood up.

He coughed in a shuddering way, trying to stifle the sound under his beard.

The fleck of crimson that came to his lips with the cough Joan did not see.

She had seen nothing of it during the six days they had been traveling up from the edge of civilization.
Because of that cough, and the stain that came with it, Pierre had made more than ordinary haste.
"I have been thinking of that," he said.