the crooning song of a mother. In the open, over the smouldering embers
of a fire, two men held talk.

"Eh? I love the church like a good son. _Bien_! So great a love that
my days have been spent in fleeing away from her, and my nights in
dreaming dreams of reckoning. Look you!" The half-breed's voice rose to
an angry snarl. "I am Red River born. My father was white--as white as
you. But you are Yankee, and he was British bred, and a gentleman's son.
And my mother was the daughter of a chief, and I was a man. Ay, and one
had to look the second time to see what manner of blood ran in my veins;
for I lived with the whites, and was one of them, and my father's heart
beat in me. It happened there was a maiden--white--who looked on me with
kind eyes. Her father had much land and many horses; also he was a big
man among his people, and his blood was the blood of the French. He said
the girl knew not her own mind, and talked overmuch with her, and became
wroth that such things should be.

"But she knew her mind, for we came quick before the priest. And quicker
had come her father, with lying words, false promises, I know not what;
so that the priest stiffened his neck and would not make us that we might
live one with the other. As at the beginning it was the church which
would not bless my birth, so now it was the church which refused me
marriage and put the blood of men upon my hands. _Bien_! Thus have I
cause to love the church. So I struck the priest on his woman's mouth,
and we took swift horses, the girl and I, to Fort Pierre, where was a
minister of good heart. But hot on our trail was her father, and
brothers, and other men he had gathered to him. And we fought, our
horses on the run, till I emptied three saddles and the rest drew off and
went on to Fort Pierre. Then we took east, the girl and I, to the hills
and forests, and we lived one with the other, and we were not