Before they had made up their minds night had fallen, and Tit’Be, who had been at Eutrope Gagnon’s helping him to saw his firewood, came back bringing Eutrope along with him.

Eutrope has a remedy,” said he.  They all gathered round Eutrope, who took a little tin box from his pocket and opened it deliberately.

“This is what I have,” he announced rather dubiously.  “They are little pills.  When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and he declares it is a good medicine.  Of course his trouble did not leave him at once, but he says that this did him good.  It comes from the States ...”

Without word said they looked at the little gray pills rolling about on the bottom of the box ...  A remedy compounded by some man in a distant land famed for his wisdom ...  And they felt the awe of the savage for his broth of herbs simmered on a night of the full moon beneath the medicineman’s incantations.

Maria asked doubtfully:  “Is it certain that her trouble has only to do with the kidneys?”

“I thought it was just that, from what Tit’Be told me.”

A motion of Chapdelaine’s hand eked out his words.—­“She strained herself lifting a bag of flour, as she says; and now she has pains everywhere.  How can we tell ...”

“The newspaper that spoke of this medicine,” Eutrope Gagnon went on, “put it that whenever a person falls sick and is in pain it is always the kidneys; and for trouble in the kidneys these pills here are first-rate.  That is what the paper said, and my brother as well.”

“Even if they are not for this very sickness,” said Tit’Be deferentially, “they are a remedy all the same.”

“She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on like this.”

They drew near the bed where the sick woman was moaning and breathing heavily, attempting from time to time to make slight movements which were followed by sharper outcries.

“Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura.”

“I have no faith in your cures,” she groaned out.  But yet she was ready to look at the little gray pills ever running round in the tin box as if they were alive.

“My brother took some of these three years ago when he had the kidney trouble so badly that he was hardly able to work at all, and he says that they cured him.  It is a fine remedy, Madame Chapdelaine, there is not a question of it!” His former doubts had vanished in speech and he felt wholly confident.  This is going to cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us.  It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent expressly from the States.  You may be sure that you would never find a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe.”

“It cannot make her worse?” Maria asked, some doubt lingering.  “It is not a poison, or anything of that sort?”