At last he walked some distance away
from the house, deeply lost in thought, and he did not notice that a man
came slowly, heavily, to the door of the hut, and opening it, entered.
Mary Callen rose from her seat with a cry in which was timidity, pity,
and something of horror; for it was Pretty Pierre. She recoiled, but
seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that his clothes had blood upon
them, she helped him to a chair. He looked up at her with an enigmatical
smile, but he did not speak. "Oh," she whispered, "you are wounded!"
He nodded; but still he did not speak. Then his lips moved dryly. She
brought him water. He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped him.
"You got here safely," he now said. "I am glad of that--though you, too,
are hurt."
She briefly told him how, and then he said: "Well, I suppose you know all
of me now?"
"I know what happened in Pipi Valley," she said, timidly and wearily.
"Father Corraine told me."
"Where is he?"
When she had answered him, he said: "And you are willing to speak with me
still?"
"You saved me," was her brief, convincing reply. "How did you escape?
Did you fight?"
"No," he said. "It is strange. I did not fight at all. As I said to
you, I was sick of blood. These men were only doing their duty. I might
have killed two or three of them, and have escaped, but to what good?
When they shot my horse, my good Sacrament,--and put a bullet into this
shoulder, I crawled away still, and led them a dance, and doubled on
them; and here I am.
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