And how should that grotesque giant with his blazing red shirt and queer little cap know of such things as amnesia and the tracing of a deadened nerve? How should he,--then Barry suddenly tensed. Had it been a ruse? Was this man a friend, a companion--even an accomplice of the thin-faced, frost-gnarled Thayer--and had his simple statement been an effort to take Barry off his guard? If so, it had not succeeded, for Barry had made no admissions. But it all affected him curiously; it nettled him and puzzled him. For a long time he was silent, merely staring at the grinning features of Ba'tiste. At last: "I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before you'd say a thing like that." "So? It has been done." "And he told you--" "Nothing. He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese." A great chuckle shook the big frame "Ba'teese know as soon as _l' M'sieu Doctaire_." "On good terms, aren't you? When's he coming again?" "_Parbleu_!" The big man snapped his fingers. "Peuff! Like that. Ba'teese call heem, and he is here." Houston blinked. Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed. "What kind of--" "Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke," came quickly and seriously from the other man. "Ba'teese--he is heem." "A doctor?" Slowly the big man nodded. Barry went on "I--I--didn't know. I thought you were just a trapper. I wondered--" "So! That is all--jus' a trapper." Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in companionship and some strange form of sympathy. There was silence for a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to vacancy. "So! Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now. Ba'teese, he had swear he never again stand beside a sick bed. But you--" and he turned swiftly, a broken smile playing about his lips--"you, _mon ami_, you, when I foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you--then you--you look like my Pierre! And I pick you up--so!" He fashioned his arms as though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say--'Pierre! Pierre!' But you do not answer--just like he did not answer. Then I start back with you, and the way was rough. I take you under one arm--so. It was steep. I must have one arm free. Then I meet Medaine, and she laugh at me for the way I carry you. And I was glad. Eet made Ba'teese forget." "What?" Barry said it with the curiosity of a boy. The older man stared hard at the crazy design of the covers. "My Pierre," came at last. "And my Julienne. Ba'teese, he is all alone now. Are you all alone?" The question came quickly. Barry answered before he thought. "Yes."