“Yes, O yes! I know it all,” groaned La Certe.
“Well,” continued Dan, bitterly, “his fate is not unlikely to be ours.”
The poor half-breed made no reply to this. For some time he lay quite still, and his comrade had almost fallen into an uneasy slumber, when he was awakened by La Certe breaking out into a soliloquy in which he apostrophised his absent wife.
“O my Slowfoot!” he murmured. “Shall we never meet again on earth? Yes, you are right. I have been lazy! I am lazy. I suppose that this is punishment for my sin. But it is hard to bear, and very heavy—is it not?—for only following one’s nature in longing for repose. O! why was I born? Why was our little one born, to enjoy for so brief a time the delights of smoke, and then have it denied her—except on the sly, when with her miserable father, who will never see her more—perhaps.”
He paused for a few minutes, and then broke out again.
“Yes, my Slowfoot—you are right. I must reform. I will cast off my sloth as a garment—even—even though I should go naked all the rest of my days! I will work—energise! I will—”
“Hold your tongue, La Certe, and listen,” said Dan in a low, stern voice.
“I am all attention,” returned the poor man in a similarly low tone.
“Are you game to fight, if you get the chance?”
“Game to fight!” echoed the other—“to fight for my Slowfoot, my little one, my smoke, and my repo— I mean my—my—new—”