"As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the
matter with him--with Meydon?" Finden asked, after a moment.
"An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las' night, from Great
Slave Lake."
Finden sighed. "Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he
did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn't know him--bad 'cess to
him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a knife-
cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of a
timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I
didn't drink and gamble and carry a pistol. It's ten years since he did
the killing, down in Quebec, and I don't suppose the police will get him
now. He's been counted dead. I recognised him here the night after I
asked her how she liked the name of Finden. She doesn't know that I ever
knew him. And he didn't recognise me-twenty-five years since we met
before! It would be better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick,
father?"
"He will die unless the surgeon's knife it cure him before twenty-four
hours, and--"
"And Doctor Brydon is sick, and Doctor Hadley away at Winnipeg, and this
is two hundred miles from nowhere! It looks as if the police'll never
get him, eh?"
"You have not tell any one--never?"
Finden laughed.
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