I wondered--" "So! That is all--jus' a trapper." Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in companionship and some strange form of sympathy.

There was silence for a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to vacancy.
"So! Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now.

Ba'teese, he had swear he never again stand beside a sick bed.

But you--" and he turned swiftly, a broken smile playing about his lips--"you, _mon ami_, you, when I foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you--then you--you look like my Pierre! And I pick you up--so!" He fashioned his arms as though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say--'Pierre! Pierre!' But you do not answer--just like he did not answer.

Then I start back with you, and the way was rough.