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Updated: June 19, 2025
Stroke Laforce had given himself up, had himself ridden to Winnipeg, a thousand miles, and told his story. Then the sergeant's stripes had been stripped from his arm, he had been tried, and on his own statement had got twelve years' imprisonment. Ten years had passed since then since Marcey was put away in his grave, since Pierre left Fort Ste.
"It was a fair fight," he replied firmly, "and Laforce shot straight." He was trying to think why she lived here, why the broken shutter still hung there, why the matter had settled so deeply on her. He remembered the song she was singing, the legend of the Scarlet Hunter, the fabled Savior of the North. He repeated the words, lingering on them.
A half-hour after this Pierre left Laforce on the crest of the hill above the Fort, and did not turn to go down till he had seen the other pass within the house with the broken shutter. And later he saw a little bonfire on the hill. The next evening he came to the house again himself. Lucille rose to meet him. "'Why should the door be shut?" he quoted smiling.
She had probably felt sorrow for Laforce at first, and afterwards had shown active sympathy, and at last no, he felt that she had not quite forgiven him, that, whatever was, she had not hidden the criminal in her heart. But why did she sing that song? Her heart was pleading for him for the criminal. Had she and her mother gone to Winnipeg to be near Laforce, to comfort him?
"The thing may be all wrong to others, but if it's right to yourself that's it mais oui! If he comes," he added "if he comes back, think of him as well as Marcey. Marcey is sleeping what does it matter? If he is awake, he has better times, for he was a man to make another world sociable. Think of Laforce, for he has his life to live, and he is a man to make this world sociable.
Years had passed since Pierre had visited the Fort, and he was now on his way to it again, after many wanderings. The house had stood here in the old days, and he remembered it very well, for against it John Marcey, the Company's man, was shot by Stroke Laforce, of the Riders of the Plains.
Anne, and he had not seen it or Lucille in all that time. But he knew that Gyng was dead, and that his widow and her child had gone south or east somewhere; of Laforce after his sentence he had never heard. He stood looking at the house from the shade of the solitary pine-tree near it, recalling every incident of that fatal night.
It was Stroke Laforce, who had been found near dead at the Metal River by a party of men exploring in the north. He had rescued the Englishman and his party, but within a day of the finding the Englishman died, leaving him his watch, a ring, and a cheque on the H. B. C. at Winnipeg. He and the two survivors, one of whom was Brickney, started south.
"That is the thing. Then, do not forget that Marcey took his life in his hands himself, that he would have killed Laforce if Laforce hadn't killed him." "I know, I know," she said, "but I should have felt the same if John Marcey had killed Stroke Laforce." "It is a pity to throw your life away," he ventured. He said this for a purpose. He did not think she was throwing it away.
His eyes dwelt on it long he recalled the scene: a night with stars and no moon, a huge bonfire to light the Indians, at their dance, and Marcey, Laforce, and many others there, among whom was Lucille, the little daughter of Gyng the Factor.
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