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—­Caesar.”

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.”

The missionary removed his empty pipe, and Bull hastily dragged his pouch from a pocket in his buckskin shirt.  He held it out.

“Help yourself,” he invited.  And the other took it.  For a moment Bull looked on at the thoughtful manner in which Father Adam filled his pipe.  Then a curiosity he could no longer restrain prompted him.

“This big talk,” he said.  “What’s it about?”

The missionary’s preoccupation vanished.  His eyes lit and he passed back the pouch.

“Thanks, boy,” he said in his amiable way.  “Guess I’ll need to smoke, too—­you see our talk needs some hard thinking.  Pass me a stick from that fire.”

Bull did as he was bid.  And the missionary’s eyes were on the fair head of the man as he leant down over the smouldering embers stewing his own meagre midday meal.

Bull Sternford was a creature of vast stature and muscular bulk.  It was no wonder that the redoubtable Laval had run up against defeat.  The camp boss had lived for twenty years the hard life of the forests.  His body was no less great than this man’s.  His experience in physical battle was well-nigh unlimited.  But so, too, was his debauchery.