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Into the skiff they piled and hurriedly stripped down; then, in obedience to Doret's command, they settled themselves at the forward oars, leaving Pierce to set the stroke. 'Poleon stood braced in the stern, like a gondolier, and when willing hands had shot the boat out into the current he leaned his weight upon the after oars; beneath his and Pierce's efforts the ash blades bent.
Slowly, very slowly his dementia left him. His eyes were still distended, to be sure, but into them sanity, recognition, began to creep. He stared dazedly about him, and at last he managed to speak Doret's name. "Wh-what you doing here?" he breathed. "Me? I come to tak' you back." Joe shook his head weakly. "You can't. We're across safe."
"Some Frenchman had taken it up, so they called it Frenchman's Hill." Doret's blank, confounded stare caused the speaker finally to blurt out: "Good Heavens! man, wake up! I'm trying to break the news gently that you're a millionaire the Frenchman of Frenchman's Hill. I don't want you to faint. First time in history a miner ever left his claim and another fellow came along "
"He should have know' dat, too," said Poleon. "Yes," she flared up. "He knew I was only an Indian girl." The only color in Doret's face lay now in his cheeks, where the sun had put it; but he smiled at her his warm, engaging smile and laid his great brown hand upon her shoulder softly. "I've look' in hees eye an' I'm always t'ink he's good man.
Doret's lips had begun to move; his companions knew that he was voicing a silent appeal, so they lowered their eyes. For some moments the only sound in the tent was the muttering of the delirious girl. Linton spoke finally; his voice was low, it was husky with emotion: "I've been getting acquainted with myself to-night first time in a long while. Things look different than they did.
"Then we must tell the colonel to look them up." But Doret's brows remained puckered in thought. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "I got idea of my own. If dem feller kill Courteau dey ain't nowheres roun' here. Dey beat it, firs' t'ing." "To Hunker? Perhaps " "No. For de Boun'ry." 'Poleon slapped his thigh in sudden enlightenment. "By golly! Dat's why I don' see 'em no place. You stay here. I mak' sure."
Doret's face was turned back over his shoulder, he was measuring distance, gauging with practised eye the whims and vagaries of the tumbling torrent; when he flung himself upon the oars Pierce Phillips felt his own strength completely dwarfed by that of the big pilot. 'Poleon's hands inclosed his in a viselike grasp; he wielded the sweeps as if they were reeds, and with them he wielded Phillips.
He pointed to the stranger, who had returned to the steamer for his baggage and was descending the gang-plank beneath them, a valise in each hand. "He's a thief and a murderer, and we don't want him here. Now, it's up to you." "I don't understand," said the Lieutenant, whereupon the trader told him Doret's tale.
It was brandy with him, too, and there ain't a gutter in his district he didn't lay in. The drug store man wasn't the first he cut neither." She stopped from sheer lack of breath. Curiously all that filled Lemuel Doret's mind was the thought of the glory of God. Everything Bella said was true; but in the might of the Savior it was less than nothing.
I took you in, didn't I? And all I said was my name. Snow Doret's dead; he died in prison; and this Lemuel's all different " "I've heard about that too," Bowman returned; "but somehow I don't take stock in these miracles." "If you ever see me looking like I might be Snow, go quiet," Lemuel advised. "That's all." With clenched hands he abruptly departed.
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