give. After a little he shook his head, and said that he must have the
woman for his wife. I did not know what to add. I said, 'She is white,
and the white people will never rest till they have killed you all, if
you do this thing. The Company will track you down.' Then he said, 'The
whites must catch me and fight me before they kill me.'... What was
there to do?"

Bagot came near to the priest, bending over him savagely:

"You let her stay with them--you, with hands like a man!"

"Hush," was the calm, reproving answer. "I was one man, they were
twenty."

"Where was your God to help you, then?"

"Her God and mine was with me."

Bagot's eyes blazed. "Why didn't you offer rum--rum? They'd have done it
for that--one--five--ten kegs of rum!"

He swayed to and fro in his excitement, yet their voices hardly rose
above a hoarse whisper all the time.

"You forget," answered the priest, "that it is against the law, and that
as a priest of my order I am vowed to give no rum to an Indian."

"A vow! A vow! Son of God! what is a vow beside a woman--my wife?"

His misery and his rage were pitiful to see.