"Oh, promise, boys, promise!"

"Promise him anyway," said the Halfbreed. "He'll die easier."

So we nodded our heads as we bent over him, and he turned away his face, content.

'Twas but a little after he called me again.

"Boy, give me your hand. Say a prayer for me, won't you? Maybe it'll help some, a prayer for a poor old sinner that's backslid. I can never pray again."

"Yes, try to pray, Jim, try. Come on; say it after me: 'Our Father--'"

"'Our Father--'"

"'Which art in Heaven--'"

"'Which art in--'"

His head fell forward. "Bless you, my boy. Father, forgive, forgive--"

He sank back very quietly.

He was dead.

Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more, a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought, and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only--but, no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die.

Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is sweet to you, too. What would you have done? The dead man was urging us, and life was sweet.

But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and muttered in our beards.

It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper:

"It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it."

He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to the body.

It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this thing.

"Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming downstream on a raft."

"No, it's no dream," I said; "two men."

"Shout to them; I can't," said the Prodigal.

I tried to shout, but my voice came as a whisper. The Halfbreed, too, tried to shout. There was scarcely any sound to it. The men did not see us as we lay on that shingly bar. Faster and faster they came. In hopeless, helpless woe we watched them. We could do nothing. In a few moments they would be past. With eyes of terror we followed them, tried to make signals to them. O God, help us!

Suddenly they caught sight of that crazy boat of ours made of canvas and willows. They poled the raft in close, then one of them saw those three strange things writhing impotently on the sand. They were skeletons, they were in rags, they were covered with vermin.-- * * *

We were saved; thank God, we were saved!

CHAPTER XVII

"Berna, we must get married."

"Yes, dearest, whenever you wish."

"Well, to-morrow."

She smiled radiantly; then her face grew very serious.

"What will I wear?" she asked plaintively.

"Wear? Oh, anything. That white dress you've got on--I never saw you looking so sweet. You mind me of a picture I know of Saint Cecilia, the same delicacy of feature, the same pure colouring, the same grace of expression."

"Foolish one!" she chided; but her voice was deliciously tender, and her eyes were love-lit. And indeed, as she stood by the window holding her embroidery to the failing light, you scarce could have imagined a girl more gracefully sweet. In a fine mood of idealising, my eyes rested on her.

"Yes, fairy girl, that briar rose you are doing in the centre of your little canvas hoop is not more delicate in the tinting than are your cheeks; your hands that ply the needle so daintily are whiter than the May blossoms on its border; those coils of shining hair that crown your head would shame the silk you use for softness."

"Don't," she sighed; "you spoil me."

"Oh no, it's true, true. Sometimes I wish you were not so lovely. It makes me care so much for you that--it hurts. Sometimes I wish you were plain, then I would feel more sure of you. Sometimes I fear, fear some one will steal you away from me."

"No, no," she cried; "no one ever will. There will never be any one but you."

She came over to me, and knelt by my chair, putting her arms around me prettily. The pure, sweet face looked up into mine.

"We have been happy here, haven't we, boy?" she asked.

"Exquisitely happy. Yet I have always been afraid."

"Of what, dearest?"

"I don't know. Somehow it seems too good to last."

"Well, to-morrow we'll be married."

"Yes, we should have done that a year ago. It's all been a mistake. It didn't matter at first; nobody noticed, nobody cared. But now it's different. I can see it by the way the wives of the men look at us. I wonder do women resent the fact that virtue is only its own reward--they are so down on those who stray. Well, we don't care anyway. We'll marry and live our lives. But there are other reasons."

"Yes?"

"Yes. Garry talks of coming out. You wouldn't like him to find us living like this--without benefit of the clergy?"