elp
me fin' my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man's name I have
forget."

"My father's name is John Alroyd," she answered absently, for there were
hammering at her brain the words, "The stroke of the hour."

"Ah, now I get--yes. An' your name, it is Loisette Alroy'--ah, I have it
in my mind now--Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you--no."

"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked.

He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he
said, holding out his pipe, "You not like smoke, mebbe?"

She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture.

"I forget ask you," he said. "Dat journee make me forget. When Injun
Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an' I wake up all alone, an' not know my
way--not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head.
Not'ing but snow, not'ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me,
'Wake up, Ba'tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.' But all time I t'ink
I go mad, for I mus' get Askatoon before--dat."

She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon.
"That," she had said.

"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked again,
her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently.

"To save him before dat!" he answered, as though she knew of what he was
speaking and thinking. "What is that?" she asked. She knew now, surely,
but she must ask it nevertheless.

"Dat hanging--of Haman," he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took
to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself,
and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. "What have
you to do with Haman?" she asked slowly, her eyes burning.

"I want safe him--I mus' give him free." He tapped his breast. "It is
hereto mak' him free." He still tapped his breast.

For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white;
then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged
in her eyes.

She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had
married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with
the name of her father's mother. Lucy had been all English in face and
tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing
brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to
marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy's
first and only child was born, the child that could not s