GOD'S GARRISON

Twenty years ago there was trouble at Fort o' God. "Out of this place we
get betwixt the suns," said Gyng the Factor. "No help that falls abaft
tomorrow could save us. Food dwindles, and ammunition's nearly gone, and
they'll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if we stay. We'll creep
along the Devil's Causeway, then through the Red Horn Woods, and so
across the plains to Rupert House. Whip in the dogs, Baptiste, and be
ready all of you at midnight."

"And Grah the Idiot--what of him?" asked Pretty Pierre.

"He'll have to take his chance. If he can travel with us, so much the
better for him"; and the Factor shrugged his shoulders.

"If not, so much the worse, eh?" returned Pretty Pierre.

"Work the sum out to suit yourself. We've got our necks to save. God'll
have to help the Idiot if we can't."

"You hear, Grah Hamon, Idiot," said Pierre an hour afterwards, "we're
going to leave Fort o' God and make for Rupert House. You've a dragging
leg, you're gone in the savvy, you have to balance yourself with your
hands as you waddle along, and you slobber when you talk; but you've got
to cut away with us quick across the Beaver Plains, and Christ'll have to
help you if we can't. That's what the Factor says, and that's how the
case stands, Idiot--'bien?'"

"Grah want pipe--bubble--bubble--wind blow," muttered the daft one.