“I stole back to the bedside of Pelagie. She died at dawn.
“Latour mourned with me. He wept and spoke touchingly of his own wife. I gritted my teeth and strained every nerve to keep from choking him.
“The summer passed. Latour was so kind that I often found it an effort to keep alive my belief in his treachery. And at other times, I was obliged to leave him abruptly, feeling a madness in my blood for striking him down, trampling him, tearing him with my teeth and nails.
“Oh, all the great actors have not appeared upon the stage! I must confess that Nature and Zephyr Recontre killed a great actor!
“The fall came, and our friendship did not abate. I began to fear that my chance would never come, and I would be obliged to kill him as one brute kills another. Many nights I lay awake shaping impossible schemes of revenge that were rejected in the sanity of the morning.
“In the first week of October I had occasion for a great joy. Latour called me to his office and stated that certain conditions of the trade which had been wholly unforeseen, made it necessary that he should be in St. Louis before the winter set in. Unfortunately, the last steamboat had left Fort Union for the South, making it necessary that the trip be made in a mackinaw boat. Would I, his dearest friend, consent to accompany him on the trip?
“With a studied reluctance that hid my insane joy, I consented. Latour left a clerk in charge of affairs, and we started. We made very slow progress, as we depended almost entirely upon the current, having no oars, and there being little wind to fill the square sail we carried.
“This was as I wished it to be. I kept longing for the ice to come down and shut us in. Time and again I managed to run the boat aground on bars in order to kill time. Latour seemed not to notice this. In fact, he was unusually pleasant in his bearing toward me.
“We had a small hut built on the mackinaw, fitted with two bunks, and a small box stove for cooking. When we tied up to the shore for the night and turned in, I was often obliged to choke back laughter at the comedy that we played—a grim comedy. Each of us would at once feign deep slumber, ever now and then opening our eyes to see how the other slept. Once our eyes chanced to meet in the dim candle light of the room, for Latour insisted upon the candle. We both grinned and rolled over.
“Our understanding seemed perfect; and yet, owing to the devilish refinement of our mutual hate, neither really feared any vulgar act of violence from the other. We knew that the thing would not be done in that way.