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It was a gruesome moment in which to smile, but Kent smiled The shock was over By the rules of the Cri Staff-Sergeant O'Connor to detail an officer to guard his door The fact that he was ready to pop off at any ulations of the law And Kedsty was a stickler for the law as it ritten Through the closed door he heard voices indistinctly Then there were footsteps, dying away He could hear the heavy thu feet O'Connor had alalked like that, even on the trail
Softly then the door reopened, and Father Layonne, the little missioner, came in Kent knew that this would be so, for Father Layonne knew neither code nor creed that did not reach all the hearts of the wilderness He came back, and sat down close to Kent, and took one of his hands and held it closely in both of his own They were not the soft, smooth hands of the priestly hierarchy, but were hard with the callosity of toil, yet gentle with the gentleness of a great sympathy He had loved Kent yesterday, when Kent had stood clean in the eyes of both God and men, and he still loved hi that must be washed aith his own life
"I' rose up in Kent's throat that was not the blood he had been wiping away since ers returned the pressure of the little h theto the panorareen forests
"It is hard to say good-by to all that, Father," he said "But, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it I'm not afraid of it And why be unhappy because one has only a little while to live? Looking back over your life, does it seeo that you were a boy, a sone swiftly, very swiftly"
"It seems only yesterday--or so?"
"Yes, only yesterday--or so"
Kent's face lit up with the whio had reached the littleat it, Father There is only a yesterday, a today, and a to back fro back fro back and not ahead Do you think what I have just said will free Sandy McTrigger?"