tribe was after them in fifty canoes, some coming straight
along, some spreading out to close in later. It was no equal game, for
these people were so quick and strong with the oars, and they were a
hundred or more to two. There could be but one end. It was what the
Great Slave had looked for: to fight till the last breath. He should
fight for the woman who had risked all for him--just a common woman of
the north, but it seemed good to lose his life for her; and she would be
happy to die with him.

"So they stood side by side when the spears and arrows fell round them,
and they gave death and wounds for wounds in their own bodies. When, at
last, the Indians climbed into the canoe, the Great Slave was dead of
many wounds, and the woman, all gashed, lay with her lips to his wet,
red cheek. She smiled as they dragged her away; and her soul hurried
after his to the Camp of the Great Fires."

It was long before Tybalt spoke, but at last he said: "If I could but
tell it as you have told it to me, Pierre!" Pierre answered: "Tell it
with your tongue, and this shall be nothing to it, for what am I? What
English have I, a gipsy of the snows? But do not write it, mais non!
Writing wanders from the matter. The eyes, and the tongue, and the time,
that is the thing. But in a book--it will sound all cold and thin. It
is for the north, for the camp-fire, for the big talk before a man rolls
into his blanket, and is at peace. No, no writing, monsieur. Speak it
everywhere with your tongue."

"And so I would, were my tongue as yours. Pierre, tell me more about the
letters at Fort O'Glory. You know his name--what was it?"

"You said five hundred dollars for one of those letters. Is it not?"

"Yes." Tybalt had a new hope.

"T'sh! What do I want of five hundred dollars! But, here, answer me a
question: Was the lady--his wife, she that was left in England--a good
woman? Answer me out of your own sense, and from my story. If you say
right you shall have a letter--one that I have by me."

Tybalt's heart leapt into his throat. After a little he said huskily:
"She was a good woman--he believed her that, and so shall I."

"You think he could not have been so great unless, eh? And that 'Charles
Rex,' what of him?"

"What good can it do to call him bad now?" Without a word, Pierre drew
from a leather wallet a letter, and, by the light of the fast-setting
sun, Tybalt read it, then read it again, and yet again.

"Poor soul! poor lady!" he sa