“‘Make what up?’ I said sweetly. My voice was also thin. I struggled continuously with a terrible giddiness. I felt as one in a nightmare. I, too, was starving.
“Latour stared upon me with tears in his faded eyes, and groaned. I, too, fetched tears; it was easy to weep in my weakened condition.
“‘I have no food,’ said I; ‘neither can I go in search of any. I am starving, and the snow is deep. Would I not go if I could? Would I not go for you? Can I forget Pelagie and the Blackfeet trip? Can I forget the winter trip to St. Louis?’
“Latour fainted. I shouted feebly with an insane joy; I thought he had died.
“In a few moments he revived, and again begged piteously for food. I wept, and said there was none. Then he became delirious and cursed me like a devil. I never heard such cursing before nor since.
“And the strange thing about it all was that I pitied Latour. But my hate had become a mania; I could not relent.
“What passed after that hour I cannot remember with distinctness. Dreams were real, and reality was a dream. I only remember in a vague way, as though it had happened in a nightmare, that Latour died cursing me; that I sang and shouted; that I crawled out of the hut on my hands and knees, laughing and shouting, and that I saw a band of men coming over the frozen snow from the direction of Fort Pierre. I remember hearing them call my name as with the voices of a dream. I remember that I cried out, ‘Latour has just died!’ And then I remember laughing and crying, not knowing why I did.
“I remember that these men gave me food—warm food—and that after a long sleep I awoke and saw a Jesuit missionary kneeling at my bedside.
“It was then that I tasted the full sweetness of my triumph. The priest was blessing me! He spoke of the Christlike kindness of Zephyr Recontre, who had not deserted his sick master.
“I did not see Latour again. The Jesuit’s party had chopped a hole in the ice and had given his body to the river.”