e. But the damage is done. My lawyer says that there is not a
chance to fight this thing in court."

"Ah, _oui_. I expec' that much. But Ba'teese, he think, mebbe, of
another way. Eh, Golemar?" He shouted to the dog, trotting, as usual,
beside the buggy. "Mebbe we have a, what-you-say, punch of luck."

Then, silent, he leaned over the reins. Houston too was quiet,
striving in vain to find a way out of the difficulties that beset him.
At the end of half an hour he looked up in surprise. They no longer
were on the way to the mill. The road had become rougher, hillier, and
Houston recognized the stream and the aspen groves which fringed the
highway leading to Ba'tiste's cabin. But the buggy skirted the cabin,
at last to bring into sight a snug, well-built, pretty little cottage
which Houston knew, instinctively, to be the home of Medaine Robinette.
At the veranda, Ba'tiste pulled on the reins and alighted.

"Come," he ordered quietly.

"But--"

"She have land, and she have a part of the lake and a flume site."

Houston hung back.

"Isn't it a bad bet, Ba'tiste? Have you talked to her?"

"No--I have not seen her since the day--at the flume. She is
here--Lost Wing is at the back of the cabin. We will talk to her, you
and I. Mebbe, when the spring come, she will lease to you the lake and
the flume site. Mebbe--"

"Very well." But Houston said it against his will. He felt, in the
first place, that he would be presuming to ask it of her,--himself a
stranger against whom had come the accusation of murder, hardly denied.
Yet, withal, in a way, he welcomed the chance to see her and to seek to
explain to her the deadly thrusts which Fred Thayer had sent against
him. Then too a sudden hope came; Ba'tiste had said that Agnes Jierdon
had become friendly with her; certainly she had told the truth and
righted the wrongs of malicious treachery. He joined Ba'tiste with a
bound. A moment more and the door had opened, to reveal Medaine,
repressed excitement in her eyes, her features a trifle pale, her hand
trembling slightly as she extended it to Ba'tiste. Houston she
received with a bow,--forced, he thought. They went within, and
Ba'tiste pulled his queer little cap from his head, to crush it in the
grasp of his massive hands.

"We have come for business, Medaine," he announced, with a slight show
of embarrassment. "M'sieu Houston, he have need for a flume site."

"But I don't see where I could be of an