“I started the next day with 1700 miles of frozen prairie before me. I felt a strange joy at the thought of my hardships. Once again I would have the joy of seeing disappointment in the eyes of my enemy, and my soul could laugh again. I say I was glad to go, even though I was obliged to leave Pelagie behind at a time when the post was ravaged with the smallpox.
“It was a trip to make one love hell by comparison. Nothing but my hate sustained me. On March 10th I delivered the written message to the official at St. Louis. He read it wonderingly.
“‘What!’ said he; ‘have you walked from Union to deliver this?’
“I stated that I had and he shook his head, frowned and dismissed me. I never knew what was in that message. I surmise that it was nothing of much importance.
“When the first boat started up the river for the North I went with it and arrived at Fort Union in late June. Latour was at the landing when the boat pulled in. He threw his arms about my neck and actually kissed me upon the cheek. He then and there made me his private clerk with my former salary doubled. He treated me as a brother.
“But I saw in the depth of his eyes the soul-fret of a wounded beast.
“When we reached his office walking arm in arm, he gently told me of the serious sickness of Pelagie, and how he had looked after her like a brother through the hard winter.
“I hurried to my home. I found Pelagie delirious with the fever of smallpox. All that night I sat beside her, my heart aching, for I felt that she would die.
“And for the time I forgot my hate for Latour, until, in her feverish tossing about, she threw her bare arm over the side of the bed. Then I saw that which made me shiver with a desire to kill. There was a scratch on the arm, and the flesh about it was swollen and blue. It came to me that Latour had caused her to be inoculated that she might die before my return, and thus make my heart sore that he might see.
“I grasped the dirk and ran wildly out of the house in search of Latour. I reached his door. Then I faltered. It was not fear that made me falter. It was that I knew my revenge could not be completed in this way. I wanted to see him suffer more than I had ever suffered. Also I wished to come away with clean hands. I did not know how it could be done then, but I trusted to some mysterious power that had seemed to be with me all through my terrible winter tramp.