as the most fastidious man of his set in London, the fairest-minded of
friends, the most comfortable of companions; while the other was an
outlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the
joyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would have
extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on
the trumping of an ace. His only honour was the honour of the game.

Now, with all the swelling prairie sloping to the clear horizon, and the
breath of a large life in their nostrils, these two men were caught up
suddenly, as it were, by the throbbing soul of the North, so that the
subterranean life in them awoke and startled them. Trafford conceived
that tobacco was the charm with which to exorcise the spirits of the
past. Pierre let the game of sensations go on, knowing that they pay
themselves out in time. His scheme was the wiser. The other found that
fast riding and smoking were not sufficient. He became surrounded by the
ghosts of yesterdays; and at length he gave up striving with them, and
let them storm upon him, until a line of pain cut deeply across his
forehead, and bitterly and unconsciously he cried aloud,--"Hester, ah,
Hester!"

But having spoken, the spell was broken, and he was aware of the beat of
hoofs beside him, and Shangi the Indian looking at him with a half smile.
Something in the look thrilled him; it was fantastic, masterful. He
wondered that he had not noticed this singular influence before. After
all, he was only a savage with cleaner buckskin than his race usually
wore. Yet that glow, that power in the face--was he Piegan, Blackfoot,
Cree, Blood? Whatever he was, this man had heard the words which broke
so painfully from him.

He saw the Indian frame her name upon his lips, and then came the words,