thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her.

"You not happy--you not like me here?" he asked simply; then added
quickly, "I am not bad man like me brudder--no."

Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some
thought was working in her mind behind.

"No, you are not a bad man," she said. "Men and women are equal on the
plains. You have no fear--I have no fear."

He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. "My mudder, she
was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His
eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank you
--till moontime."

In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for
the fire within and the frost outside.

Time went on. The night deepened.

.........................

Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it
towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within
there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that
come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her
except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged,
and justice had been about to give "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth." But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding