"Dope?"
"Yes. Bromide. You'll feel better after you've swallowed it. You see I want to make a big talk with you. That's why I brought you here. That's why I stopped you killing that feller—that, and other reasons. But I can't talk with you acting like—like I'd guess Arden Laval would act. Drink that right up. And you needn't be scared of it. It'll just do you the good you need."
Father Adam watched while the other took the pannikin. He watched him raise it, and sniff suspiciously at its contents. And a shadowy smile lit his dark eyes.
"It's as I said," he prompted. Then he added: "I'm not a—Cæsar."
The youth glanced across at him, and for the first time since his battle a smile broke through the angry gleam of his eyes. He put the pannikin to his lips and gulped down the contents.
Father Adam drew a deep sigh. It was curious how this act of obedience and faith affected him. The weight of his responsibility seemed suddenly to have become enormous.
It was always the same. This man accepted him as did every other lumber-jack throughout the forests of Quebec. He was a father whose patient affection for his lawless children was never failing, a man of healing, with something of the gentleness of a woman. An adviser and spiritual guide who never worried them, and yet contrived, perhaps all unknown to themselves, to leave them better men for their knowledge of him. He came, and he departed. Whence he came and whither he went no one enquired, no one seemed to know. He just moved through the twilight forests like a ghostly, beneficent shadow, supreme in his command of their rugged hearts.
Bull set the pannikin on the ground beside him. His smile had deepened.
"You needn't to tell me that, Father," he said, almost humbly. "There isn't a feller back there in the camp," he added with a jerk of his head, "that would have hesitated like me when you handed him your dope. Thanks. Say, that darn stuff's made me feel easier."
"Good."