Paul Victor could speak again.

"In all the history of our order, there is hardly one man who will go
out armed like Pierre Ryder. He is young, he is strong, he is
fearless, he is pure of heart and single of mind. He has never tasted
wine; he has never looked wrongly on a woman."

"A prodigy--but it is your work."

"Mine--all mine!"

The whole soul of the man stood up in his eyes in a fierce triumph.

"Hear how I worked. When I first saw him he was a child, a baby, but
he came to me and took one finger of my hand in his small fist and
looked up to me. Ah, Gabrielle the smile of an infant goes to the
heart swifter than the thrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and
thought many things, and I knew that I was chosen to teach the child.
There was a voice that spoke in me. You will smile, but even now I
think I can hear it."

"I swear to you that I believe," said Father Anthony, and his voice
trembled.

"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and a
cell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also the
wild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin. I
taught his mind, but I did not forget his body.

"He is to go out among wild men. He must have strength of the spirit.
He must also have a strength of the body that they will understand and
respect. How else can he translate for them the truths of the Holy
Spirit? Every day of his life I have made him handle firearms. Other
men think, and aim, and fire; Pierre thinks and shoots, and has
forgotten how to miss.

"He goes among wild men. These lessons must be learned. He is a
soldier of God. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred
miles in a day behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight with his
hands, for I have brought skilled men to teach him. I have made him a
thunderbolt to hurl among the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this
is the hand which shall wield it. Ha!"

A flash of cold fire came for a single instant in his eyes as he stood
with upturned face. He changed.

"Yet he is gentle as a woman. He goes out through the villages and
comes back unharmed, and after him come letters from girls and old men
and dames. Even strong men come many miles to see him and they write
to him. He is known. It is now hardly a six month since he saved a
trapper from a bobcat and killed the animal with a knife."

His heart failed him at the thought, and he murmured: "It must have
been