In the dark he could see that men were dismounting from their
horses. He stood still and waited. Presently a trooper stepped forward
and said warmly, yet brusquely, as became his office: "Father Corraine,
we meet again!"
The priest's face was overswept by many expressions, in which marvel and
trouble were uppermost, while joy was in less distinctness.
"Surely," he said, "it is Shon McGann."
"Shon McGann, and no other.--I that laughed at the law for many a year,
though never breaking it beyond repair,--took your advice, Father
Corraine, and here I am, holding that law now as my bosom friend at the
saddle's pommel. Corporal Shon McGann, at your service."
They clasped hands, and the priest said: "You have come at my call from
Fort Cypress?"
"Yes. But not these others. They are after a man that's played ducks
and drakes with the statutes--Heaven be merciful to him, I say. For
there's naught I treasure against him; the will of God bein' in it all,
with some doin' of the Devil, too, maybe."
Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the window of the dark room, heard
all this, and he pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, as if
something disturbed him.
Shon continued. "I'm glad I wasn't sent after him as all these here
know; for it's little I'd like to clap irons on his wrists, or whistle
him to come to me with a Winchester or a Navy.
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