"Surely, p'tite Lucille, surely, I will come. But to help--ah, that would
sound funny to the Missionary at the Fort and to others!"

"You understand life," she said, "and I can speak to you."

"It's more to you to understand you than to be good, eh?"

"I guess it's more to any woman," she answered. They both passed out of
the house. She turned towards the broken shutter. Then their eyes met. A
sad little smile hovered at her lips.

"What is the use?" she said, and her eyes fastened on the horsemen.

He knew now that she would never shudder again at the sight of it, or at
the remembrance of Marcey's death.

"But he will come," was the reply to her, and her smile almost settled
and stayed.

They parted, and as he went down the hill he saw far over, coming up, a
woman in black, who walked as if she carried a great weight. "Every shot
that kills ricochets," he said to himself:

"His mother dead--her mother like that!"

He passed into the Fort, renewing acquaintances in the Company's store,
and twenty minutes after he was one to greet the horsemen that Lucille
had seen coming over the hills. They were five, and one had to be helped
from his horse. It was Stroke Laforce, who had been found near dead at
the Metal River by a party of men exploring in the north.