"Then open the second door down the corridor in about twenty minutes," she said.

She moved away and left him to join the others about the stove, until the time she mentioned had elapsed, when he sauntered out of the room and opened the door she had indicated. It led into a little room apparently used as a household store. Here Ailly Blake was standing, while a litter of forks, spoons, and nickeled knives showed what her occupation had been. Courthorne sat down on a table and looked at her with a little smile, though she stood intent, and quivering a little.

"Well," she said, almost harshly, "what is it you want?"

Courthorne laughed. "Need you ask? Is it astonishing that I was anxious to see you? I don't think it's necessary to point out that you are quite as good to look at as ever."

The girl's lips trembled a little, and it was evident that she put a constraint upon herself.

"You haven't changed either," she said bitterly. "You have still the smooth tongue and the laugh in your eyes that should warn folks against it. I listened to it once, and it brought me black shame and sorrow."

"I almost fancy, Ailly, that if I wanted you to very much you would listen again."

The girl shrank from him a little and then straightened herself suddenly and faced him with a flash in her eyes.

"No," she said. "Once I would have put my hand in the fire for you; but when you left me in that dance house I knew all there was to know of you,—and I hoped you might never come in my way again. Shamed as I am, I could not fall so low as you did then."

"I don't know that I'm very proud of the part I played," and though Courthorne smiled there was a faint flush in his face. "Still, you see, I hadn't a dollar then, and what could I do? Any way, that's done with, and I was wondering if you would let me congratulate you. Potter seems to be a general favorite."

He saw the apprehension once more creep into the girl's eyes and noticed the little tremor in her voice as she said, "You have heard of it? Of course, you would. What do you mean to do?"

"Nothing," and Courthorne smiled reassuringly. "Why should I do anything? After all, I owe you a little reparation. Silence is easy and in our case, I think, advisable. Presumably you are as fond of the worthy Potter as you were of me, and there is no doubt that he is considerably more deserving of affection."

His good-humored acquiescence was in one respect almost brutal, and the girl winced under it, in spite of her evident relief.

"Lance," she said, with a curious forceful gravity, "Frank Potter is such a man as you could never be. There can't be many like him. As I said, there was a time when I would have slaved for you and starved with you cheerfully; but you threw me off,—and, now this man who is big and strong enough to forget what you brought me to has given me a chance to wipe out the past, I do not think I need be afraid of you. At first I was a little so, but it wasn't altogether for myself. I want to warn you. If you try to make mischief he will kill you."

"Ah," said Courthorne quietly. "Well, it wouldn't be very astonishing if he attempted it, and nobody would blame him; but I have, as it happens, no intention of provoking him. After all, it was my fault, and you were too good for me, Ailly."

He stopped a moment and smiled, for there was in him a certain half-whimsical cruelty. "Still, perhaps, it's a little rough on the excellent Potter, though from what you said one would think that you had told him—something."

The crimson crept into the girl's cheek. "He knows everything—except who you are. That is why I am afraid. If he found out, I think one of you would never leave this place."

Courthorne shrugged his shoulders. "I believe I owe you enough to go away to-morrow. It would be wiser. I am not, as you know, a model of discretion, and it's, perhaps, natural that, now you have given me up, you appear rather more attractive than ever. In fact, I almost feel tempted to stay to see if I'm not a match for Potter. Still, I'll go away. I suppose you haven't heard from Larry lately?"

He saw the returning fear in her face give place to pain and bitterness as he concluded, and he made a little sign of comprehension.

"Well, perhaps, one couldn't blame him. You are going back to England with Potter after the wedding?"

His companion said she was, and Courthorne sat silent a moment or two, for the news was at once a relief to him and a cause of thoughtfulness. Ailly Blake, who would never be deceived by the resemblance between him and Winston, was a standing menace while she remained anywhere near the frontier of Canada. He had discovered that it is usually the last thing one expects or desires that happens, and it was clearly advisable for Lance Courthorne to efface himself very shortly, while the easiest way to do it was to merge his identity with that of the man who had gone in his name to Silverdale. Winston had, so far as everybody else knew, been drowned, and he must in the meanwhile, at least, not be compelled to appear again. It would simplify everything if Ailly Blake, who evidently did not know of Trooper Shannon's death, went away.

"Well," he said, "I'm glad to hear it, and I'm leaving this country, too. I'm going east to-morrow to Silverdale. I wonder if I could be permitted to send you a wedding present."

The girl turned to him with a crimson spot in her cheek, and there was a little hoarse thrill in her voice that made its impression even on him.

"Once I thought I'd have every little thing you gave me buried with me," she said. "I felt I couldn't part with them, and now I'll remember you often when I should forget,—but whatever you send I'll burn. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I can't help it. Perhaps it's mad, foolish, but I want you to think well of me still."

She stopped and caught her breath with a little gasp, while her voice grew strained and broken as she went on.

"Lance," she said passionately, "can't you understand? It's my one chance to creep back to where I was before you came my way—and Potter's kind to me. At least, I can be straight with him, and I pray I'll never see your face, or hear your name again. Now go—go—I can't bear any more from you."

Courthorne stood still, looking at her, for almost a minute, while the wild reckless devil that was in him awoke. Clever as he was, he was apt now and then to fling prudence to the winds, and he was swayed by an almost uncontrollable impulse to stay beside the girl who, he realized, though she recognized his worthlessness, loved him still. That he did not love her, and, perhaps, never had done so, did not count with him. It was in his nature to find pleasure in snatching her from a better man. Then some faint sense of the wantonness and cruelty of it came upon him, and by a tense effort he made her a little inclination that was not ironical.

"Well," he said, "if they are worth anything my good wishes go with you. At least, they can't hurt you."

He held his hand out, but Ailly Blake shrank away from him and pointed to the door.

"Go," she said hoarsely. "Go now."

Courthorne made a little gesture that might have meant anything, and then he swung round abruptly without another look at her. When the door dosed behind him he went down the corridor with a little wry smile in his eyes.

"After all, it's the gambler first," he said. "A little rough on the straight man—as usual."

Then he sat down beside the stove in the bare general room and thoughtfully smoked a cigar. Ailly was going to England, Winston, to save his neck, had gone as Courthorne to Silverdale, and in another day or two the latter would have disappeared. He could not claim his new possessions without forcing facts better left unmentioned upon everybody's attention, since Winston would doubtless object to jeopardize himself to please him, and the land at Silverdale could not in any case be sold without the consent of Colonel Barrington. Winston was also an excellent farmer and a man he had confidence in, one who could be depended on to subsidize the real owner, which would suit the gambler a good deal better than farming. When he had come to this decision he threw his cigar end away and strolled towards the bar.

"Boys," he said to the loungers, "I want you to have a drink with me. Somebody has left me land and property in the very select colony of Silverdale on the Canadian prairie, and I'm going back there to take possession first thing to-morrow."

Most of them joined him, and the second time his glass was filled he lifted it and glanced at Potter.

"Long life to you and the prettiest girl on either side of the frontier!" he said.

They drank the toast with acclamation, and Courthorne, who strolled away, retired early and started for the railroad before daylight next morning. He laughed softly as he glanced back a moment at the lights of the settlement.

"There are a good many places on this side of the frontier that will suit me better than Silverdale," he said. "In fact, it's probable that most of his friends have seen the last of Lance Courthorne."



CHAPTER X

AN ARMISTICE

The dismal afternoon was drawing in when Winston, driving home from the railroad, came into sight of a lonely farm. It lifted itself out of the prairie, a blur of huddled buildings on the crest of a long rise, but at first sight Winston scarcely noticed it. He was gazing abstractedly down the sinuous smear of trail which unrolled itself like an endless ribbon across the great white desolation, and his brain was busy. Four months had passed since he came to Silverdale, and they had left their mark on him.

At first there had been the constant fear of detection, and when that had lessened and he was accepted as Lance Courthorne, the latter's unfortunate record had met him at every turn. It accounted for the suspicions of Colonel Barrington, the reserve of his niece, and the aloofness of some of his neighbors, while there had been times when Winston found Silverdale almost unendurable. He was, however, an obstinate man, and there was on the opposite side the gracious kindliness of the little gray-haired lady, who had from the beginning been his champion, and the friendship of Dane, and one or two of the older men. Winston had also proved his right to be listened to, and treated, outwardly at least, with due civility, while something in his resolute quietness rendered an impertinence impossible. He knew by this time that he could hold his own at Silverdale, and based his conduct on the fact, but that was only one aspect of the question, and he speculated as to the consummation.

It was, however, evident that in the meanwhile he must continue to pose as Courthorne, and he felt, rightly or wrongly, that the possession of his estate was, after all, a small reparation for the injury the outlaw had done him, but the affair was complicated by the fact that, in taking Courthorne's inheritance, he had deprived Maud Barrington of part of hers. The girl's coldness stung him, but her unquestionable beauty and strength of character had not been without their effect, and the man winced as he remembered that she had no pity for anything false or mean. He had decided only upon two things, first that he would vindicate himself in her eyes, and, since nobody else could apparently do it, pull the property that should have been hers out of the ruin it had been drifting into under her uncle's guardianship. When this had been done, and the killing of Trooper Shannon forgotten, it would be time for him to slip back into the obscurity he came from.

Then the fact that the homestead was growing nearer forced itself upon his perceptions, and he glanced doubtfully across the prairie as he approached the forking of the trail. A gray dimness was creeping across the wilderness and the smoky sky seemed to hang lower above the dully gleaming snow, while the moaning wind flung little clouds of icy dust about him. It was evident that the snow was not far away, and it was still two leagues to Silverdale, but Winston, who had been to Winnipeg, had business with the farmer, and had faced a prairie storm before. Accordingly he swung the team into the forking trail and shook the reins. There was, he knew, little time to lose, and in another five minutes he stood, still wearing his white-sprinkled furs, in a room of the birch-log building.

"Here are your accounts, Macdonald, and while we've pulled up our losses, I can't help thinking we have just got out in time," he said. "The market is but little stiffer yet, but there is less selling, and before a few months are over we're going to see a sharp recovery."

The farmer glanced at the documents, and smiled with contentment as he took the check. "I'm glad I listened to you," he said. "It's unfortunate for him and his niece that Barrington wouldn't—at least, not until he had lost the opportunity."

"I don't understand," said Winston.

"No," said the farmer, "you've been away. Well, you know it takes a long while to get an idea into the Colonel's head, but once it's in, it's even harder to get it out again. Now Barrington looked down on wheat jobbing, but money's tight at Silverdale, and when he saw what you were making, he commenced to think. Accordingly, he's going to sell, and, as he seems convinced that wheat will not go up again, let half the acreage lie fallow this season. The worst of it is, the others will follow him, and he controls Maud Barrington's property as well as his own."

Winston's face was grave. "I heard In Winnipeg that most of the smaller men, who had lost courage, were doing the same thing. That means a very small crop of western hard, and millers paying our own prices. Somebody must stop the Colonel."

"Well," said Macdonald dryly, "I wouldn't like to be the man, and after all, it's only your opinion. As you have seen, the small men here and in Minnesota are afraid to plow."

Winston laughed softly. "The man who makes the dollars is the one who sees farther than the crowd. Any way, I found the views of one or two men who make big deals were much the same as mine, and I'll speak to Miss Barrington."

"Then, if you wait a little, you will have an opportunity. She is here, you see."

Winston looked disconcerted. "She should not have been. Why didn't you send her home? There'll be snow before she reaches Silverdale."

Macdonald laughed. "I hadn't noticed the weather, and, though my wife wished her to stay, there is no use in attempting to persuade Miss Barrington to do anything when she does not want to. In some respects she is very like the Colonel."

The farmer led the way into another room, and Winston flushed a little when the girl returned his greeting in a fashion which he fancied the presence of Mrs. Macdonald alone rendered distantly cordial. Still, a glance through the windows showed him that delay was inadvisable.

"I think you had better stay here all night, Miss Barrington," he said. "There is snow coming."

"I am sorry our views do not coincide," said the girl. "I have several things to attend to at the Grange."

"Then Macdonald will keep your team, and I will drive you home," said Winston. "Mine are the best horses at Silverdale, and I fancy we will need all their strength."

Miss Barrington looked up sharply. There had been a little ring in Winston's voice, but there was also a solicitude in his face which almost astonished her, and when Macdonald urged her to comply she rose leisurely.

"I will be ready in ten minutes," she said.

Winston waited at least twenty, very impatiently, but when at last the girl appeared, handed her with quiet deference into the sleigh, and then took his place, as far as the dimensions of the vehicle permitted, apart from her. Once he fancied she noticed it with faint amusement, but the horses knew what was coming, and it was only when he pulled them up to a trot again on the slope of a rise that he found speech convenient.

"I am glad we are alone, though I feel a little diffidence in asking a favor of you because unfortunately when I venture to recommend anything you usually set yourself against it," he said. "This is, in the language of this country, tolerably straight."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I could find no fault with it on the score of ambiguity."

"Well," said Winston, "I believe your uncle is going to sell wheat for you, and let a good deal of your land go out of cultivation. Now, as you perhaps do not know, the laws which govern the markets are very simple and almost immutable, but the trouble is that a good many people do not understand their application."

"You apparently consider yourself an exception," said the girl.

Winston nodded. "I do just now. Still, I do not wish to talk about myself. You see, the people back there in Europe must be fed, and the latest news from wheat-growing countries does not promise more than an average crop, while half the faint-hearted farmers here are not going to sow much this year. Therefore when the demand comes for Western wheat there will be little to sell."

"But how is it that you alone see this? Isn't it a trifle egotistical?"

Winston laughed. "Can't we leave my virtues, or the reverse, out of the question? I feel that I am right, and want you to dissuade your uncle. It would be even better if, when I return to Winnipeg, you would empower me to buy wheat for you."

Maud Barrington looked at him curiously. "I am a little perplexed as to why you should wish me to."

"No doubt," said Winston. "Still, is there any reason why I should be debarred the usual privilege of taking an interest in my neighbor's affairs?"

"No," said the girl slowly. "But can you not see that it is out of the question that I should intrust you with this commission?"

Winston's hands closed on the reins, and his face grew a trifle grim as he said, "From the point of view you evidently take, I presume it is."

A flush of crimson suffused the girl's cheeks. "I never meant that, and I can scarcely forgive you for fancying I did. Of course I could trust you with—you have made me use the word—the dollars, but you must realize that I could not do anything in public opposition to my uncle's opinion."

Winston was sensible of a great relief, but it did not appear advisable to show it. "There are so many things you apparently find it difficult to forgive me—and we will let this one pass," he said. "Still, I cannot help thinking that Colonel Barrington will have a good deal to answer for."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but she was sensible of a respect which appeared quite unwarranted for the dryly-spoken man, who, though she guessed her words stung him now and then, bore them without wincing. While she sat silent, shivering under her furs, darkness crept down. The smoky cloud dropped lower, the horizon closed in as the gray obscurity rolled up to meet them across a rapidly-narrowing strip of snow. Then she could scarcely see the horses, and the muffled drumming of their hoofs was lost in a doleful wail of wind. It also seemed to her that the cold, which was already almost insupportable, suddenly increased, as it not infrequently does in that country before the snow. Then a white powder was whirled into her face, filling her eyes and searing the skin, while the horses were plunging at a gallop through a filmy haze, and Winston, whitened all over, leaned forward with lowered head hurling hoarse encouragement at them. His voice reached her fitfully through the roar of wind, until sight and hearing were lost alike as the white haze closed about them, and it was not until the wild gust had passed she heard him again. He was apparently shouting, "Come nearer."

Maud Barrington was not sure whether she obeyed him or he seized and drew her towards him. She, however, felt the furs piled high about her neck and that there was an arm round her shoulder, and for a moment was sensible of an almost overwhelming revulsion from the contact. She was proud and very dainty, and fancied she knew what this man had been, while now she was drawn in to his side, and felt her chilled blood respond to the warmth of his body. Indeed she grew suddenly hot to the neck, and felt that henceforward she could never forgive him or herself, but the mood passed almost as swiftly, for again the awful blast shrieked about them and she only remembered her companion's humanity, as the differences of sex and character vanished under that destroying cold. They were no longer man and woman, but only beings of flesh and blood, clinging desperately to the life that was in them, for the first rush of the Western snowstorm has more than a physical effect, and man exposed to its fury loses all but his animal instincts in the primitive struggle with the elements.

Then, while the snow folded them closely in its white embrace during a lull, the girl recovered herself, and her strained voice was faintly audible.

"This is my fault. Why don't you tell me so?" she said.

A hoarse laugh seemed to issue from the whitened object beside her, and she was drawn closer to it again. "We needn't go into that just now. You have one thing to do, and that is to keep warm."

One of the horses stumbled, the grasp that was around her became relaxed and she heard the swish of the whip followed by hoarse expletives, and did not resent it. The man, it seemed, was fighting for her life as well as his own, and even brutal virility was necessary. After that, there was a space of oblivion while the storm raged about them, until, when the wind fell a trifle, it became evident that the horses had left the trail.

"You are off the track, and will never make the Grange unless you find it," she said.

Winston seemed to nod. "We are not going there," he said, and if he added anything, it was lost in the scream of a returning gust.

Again Maud Barrington's reason reasserted itself, and remembering the man's history she became sensible of a curious dismay, but it also passed and left her with the vague realization that he and she were actuated alike only by the desire to escape extinction. Presently she became sensible that the sleigh had stopped beside a formless mound of white and the man was shaking her.

"Hold those furs about you while I lift you down," he said.

She did his bidding, and did not shrink when she felt his arms about her, while next moment she was standing knee-deep in the snow and the man shouting something she did not catch. Team and sleigh seemed to vanish, and she saw her companion dimly for a moment before he was lost in the sliding whiteness, too. Then a horrible fear came upon her.

It seemed a very long while before he reappeared, and thrust her in through what seemed to be a door. Then there was another waiting before the light of a lamp blinked out, and she saw that she was standing in a little log-walled room with bare floor and a few trusses of straw in a comer. There was also a rusty stove, and a very small pile of billets beside it. Winston, who had closed the door, stood looking at them with a curious expression.

"Where is the team?" she gasped.

"Heading for a birch bluff or Silverdale, though I scarcely think they will get there," said the man. "I have never stopped here, and it wasn't astonishing they fancied the place a pile of snow. While I was getting the furs out, they slipped from me."

Miss Barrington now knew where they were. The shanty was used by the remoter settlers as a half-way house where they slept occasionally on their long journey to the railroad, and as there was a birch bluff not far away, it was the rule that whoever occupied it should replace the fuel he had consumed. The last man had, however, not been liberal.

"But what are we to do?" she asked, with a little gasp of dismay.

"Stay here until the morning," said Winston quietly. "Unfortunately, I can't even spare you my company. The stable has fallen in, and it would be death to stand outside, you see. In the meanwhile, pull out some of the straw and put it in the stove."

"Can you not do that?" asked Miss Barrington, feeling that she must commence at once, if she was to keep this man at a befitting distance.

Winston laughed. "Oh, yes, but you will freeze if you stand still, and these billets require splitting. Still, if you have special objections to doing what I ask you, you can walk up and down rapidly."

The girl glanced at him a moment and then lowered her eyes. "Of course I was wrong. Do you wish to hear that I am sorry?"

Winston, answering nothing, swung an ax round his head, and the girl kneeling beside the stove noticed the sinewy suppleness of his frame and the precision with which the heavy blade cleft the billets. The ax, she knew, is by no means an easy tool to handle. At last the red flame crackled, and, though she had not intended the question to be malicious, there was a faint trace of irony in her voice as she asked, "Is there any other thing you wish me to do?"

Winston flung two bundles of straw down beside the stove, and stood looking at her gravely. "Yes," he said. "I want you to sit down and let me wrap this sleigh robe about you."

The girl submitted, and did not shrink visibly from his touch, when he drew the fur robe about her shoulders and packed the end of it round her feet. Still, there was a faint warmth in her face, and she was grateful for his unconcernedness.

"Fate or fortune has placed me in charge of you until to-morrow, and if the position is distasteful to you, it is not my fault," he said. "Still, I feel the responsibility, and it would be a little less difficult if you would accept the fact tacitly."

Maud Barrington would not have shivered if she could have avoided it, but the cold was too great for her, and she did not know whether she was vexed or pleased at the gleam of compassion in the man's gray eyes. It was more eloquent than anything of the kind she had ever seen, but it had gone, and he was only quietly deferent, when she glanced at him again.

"I will endeavor to be good," she said, and then flushed with annoyance at the adjective. Half-dazed by the cold as she was, she could not think of a more suitable one. Winston, however, retained his gravity.

"Now, Macdonald gave you no supper, and he has dinner at noon," he said. "I brought some eatables along, and you must make the best meal you can."

He opened a packet, and laid it with a little silver flask upon her knee.

"I cannot eat all this—and it is raw spirit," said Maud Barrington.

Winston laughed. "Are you not forgetting your promise? Still, we will melt a little snow into the cup."

An icy gust swept in when he opened the door, and it was only by a strenuous effort he closed it again, while when he came back panting with the top of the flask a little color crept into Maud Barrington's face. "I am sorry," she said. "That at least is your due."

"I really don't want my due," said Winston, with a deprecatory gesture, as he laid the silver cup upon the stove. "Can't we forget we are not exactly friends, just for to-night? If so, you will drink this and commence at once on the provisions—to please me."

Maud Barrington was glad of the reviving draught, for she was very cold, but presently she held out the packet.

"One really cannot eat many crackers at once, will you help me?"

Winston laughed as he took one of the biscuits. "If I had expected any one would share my meal, I would have provided a better one. Still, I have been glad to feast upon more unappetizing things occasionally."

"When were you unfortunate?" said the girl.

Winston smiled somewhat dryly. "I was unfortunate for six years on end."

He was aware of the blunder when he had spoken, but Maud Barrington appeared to be looking at the flask thoughtfully.

"The design is very pretty," she said. "You got it in England?"

The man knew that it was the name F. Winston his companion's eyes rested on, but his face was expressionless. "Yes," he said. "It is one of the things they make for presentation in the old country."

Maud Barrington noticed the absence of any attempt at explanation, and having considerable pride of her own, was sensible of a faint approval. "You are making slow progress," she said, with a slight but perceptible difference in her tone. "Now, you can have eaten nothing since breakfast."

Winston said nothing, but by and by poured a little of the spirit into a rusty can, and the girl, who understood why he did so, felt that it covered several of his offenses. "Now," she said graciously, "you may smoke if you wish to."

Winston pointed to the few billets left and shook his head. "I'm afraid I must get more wood."

The roar of wind almost drowned his voice, and the birch logs seemed to tremble under the impact of the blast, while Maud Barrington shivered as she asked, "Is it safe?"

"It is necessary," said Winston, with the little laugh she had already found reassuring.

He had gone out in another minute, and the girl felt curiously lonely as she remembered stories of men who had left their homesteads during a blizzard to see to the safety of the horses in a neighboring stable, and were found afterwards as still as the snow that covered them. Maud Barrington was not unduly timorous, but the roar of that awful icy gale would have stricken dismay into the hearts of most men, and she found herself glancing with feverish impatience at a diminutive gold watch and wondering whether the cold had retarded its progress. Ten minutes passed very slowly, lengthened to twenty more slowly still, and then it flashed upon her that there was at least something she could do, and scraping up a little of the snow that sifted in, she melted it in the can. Then she set the flask top upon the stove, and once more listened for the man's footsteps very eagerly.

She did not hear them, but at last the door swung open, and carrying a load of birch branches Winston staggered in. He dropped them, strove to close the door and failed, then leaned against it, gasping, with a livid face, for there are few men who can withstand the cold of a snow-laden gale at forty degrees below.

How Maud Barrington closed the door she did not know, but it was with a little imperious gesture she turned to the man.

"Shake those furs at once," she said, and drawing him towards the stove held up the steaming cup. "Now sit there, and drink it."

Winston stooped and reached out for the can, but the girl swept it off the stove. "Oh, I know the silver was for me," she said. "Still, is this a time for trifles such as that?"

Worn out by a very grim struggle, Winston did as he was bidden, and looked up with a twinkle in his eyes, when with the faintest trace of color in her cheeks the girl sat down close to him and drew part of the fur robe about him.

"I really believe you were a little pleased to see me come back just now," he said.

"Was that quite necessary?" asked Maud Barrington. "Still, I was."

Winston made a little deprecatory gesture. "Of course," he said. "Now, we can resume our former footing to-morrow, but in the meanwhile I would like to know why you are so hard upon me, Miss Barrington, because I really have not done much harm to any one at Silverdale. Your aunt,"—and he made a little respectful inclination of his head which pleased the girl—"is at least giving me a fair trial."

"It is difficult to tell you—but it was your own doing," said Maud Barrington. "At the beginning you prejudiced us when you told us you could only play cards indifferently. It was so unnecessary, and we knew a good deal about you!"

"Well," said Winston quietly, "I have only my word to offer, and I wonder if you will believe me now, but I don't think I ever won five dollars at cards in my life."

Maud Barrington watched him closely, but his tone carried conviction, and again she was glad that he attempted no explanation. "I am quite willing to take it," she said. "Still, you can understand—"

"Yes," said Winston. "It puts a strain upon your faith, but some day I may be able to make a good deal that puzzles you quite clear."

Maud Barrington glanced at the flask. "I wonder if that is connected with the explanation, but I will wait. Now, you have not lighted your cigar."

Winston understood that the topic was dismissed, and sat thoughtfully still while the girl nestled against the birch logs close beside him under the same furs, for the wind went through the building and the cold was unbearable a few feet from the stove. The birch rafters shook above their heads, and every now and then it seemed that a roaring gust would lift the roof from them. Still the stove glowed and snapped, and close in about it there was a drowsy heat, while presently the girl's eyes grew heavy. Finally, for there are few who can resist the desire for sleep in the cold of the Northwest, her head sank back, and Winston, rising very slowly, held his breath as he piled the furs about her. That done, he stooped and looked down upon her while the blood crept to his face. Maud Barrington lay very still, the long dark lashes resting on her cold tinted cheek, and the patrician serenity of her face was even more marked in her sleep. Then he turned away feeling like one who had committed a desecration, knowing that he had looked too long already upon the sleeping girl who believed he had been an outcast and yet had taken his word, for it was borne in upon him that a time would come when he would try her faith even more severely. Moving softly he paced up and down the room.

Winston afterwards wondered how many miles he walked that night, for though the loghouse was not longer than thirty feet, the cold bit deep; but at last he heard a sigh as he glanced towards the stove, and immediately swung round again. When he next turned, Miss Barrington stood upright, a little flushed in face but otherwise very calm, and the man stood still, shivering in spite of his efforts and blue with cold. The wind had fallen, but the sting of the frost that followed it made itself felt beside the stove.

"You had only your deerskin jacket—and you let me sleep under all the furs," she said.

Winston shook his head, and hoped he did not look as guilty as he felt, when he remembered that it must have been evident to his companion that the furs did not get into the position they had occupied themselves.

"I only fancied you were a trifle drowsy and not inclined to talk," he said, with an absence of concern, for which Miss Barrington, who did not believe him, felt grateful. "You see,"—and the inspiration was a trifle too evident—"I was too sleepy to notice anything myself. Still, I am glad you are awake now, because I must make my way to the Grange."

"But the snow will be ever so deep, and I could not come," said Maud Barrington.

Winston shook his head. "I'm afraid you must stay here, but I will be back with Colonel Barrington in a few hours at latest."

The girl deemed it advisable to hide her consternation. "But you might not find the trail," she said. "The ravine would lead you to Graham's homestead."

"Still," said Winston slowly, "I am going to the Grange."

Then Maud Barrington remembered, and glanced aside from him. It was evident this man thought of everything, and she made no answer when Winston, who thrust more billets into the stove, turned to her with a little smile.

"I think we need remember nothing when we meet again, beyond the fact that you will give me a chance of showing that the Lance Courthorne whose fame you know has ceased to exist."

Then he went out, and the girl stood with flushed cheeks looking down at the furs he had left behind him.



CHAPTER XI

MAUD BARRINGTON'S PROMISE

Daylight had not broken across the prairie when, floundering through a foot of dusty snow, Winston reached the Grange. He was aching from fatigue and cold, and the deerskin jacket stood out from his numbed body stiff with frost, when, leaning heavily on a table, he awaited Colonel Barrington. The latter, on entering, stared at him, and then flung open a cupboard and poured out a glass of wine.

"Drink that before you talk. You look half-dead," he said.

Winston shook his head. "Perhaps you had better hear me first."

Barrington thrust the glass upon him. "I could make nothing of what you told me while you speak like that. Drink it, and then sit still until you get used to the different temperature."

Winston drained the glass, and sank limply into a chair. As yet his face was colorless, though his chilled flesh tingled horribly as the blood once more crept into the surface tissues. Then he fixed his eyes upon his host as he told his story. Barrington stood very straight watching his visitor, but his face was drawn, for the resolution which supported him through the day was less noticeable in the early morning, and it was evident now at least that he was an old man carrying a heavy load of anxiety. Still, as the story proceeded, a little blood crept into his cheeks, while Winston guessed that he found it difficult to retain his grim immobility.

"I am to understand that an attempt to reach the Grange through the snow would have been perilous?" he said.

"Yes," said Winston quietly.

The older man stood very still regarding him intently, until he said, "I don't mind admitting that it was distinctly regrettable!"

Winston stopped him with a gesture. "It was at least unavoidable, sir. The team would not face the snow, and no one could have reached the Grange alive."

"No doubt you did your best—and, as a connection of the family, I am glad it was you. Still—and there are cases in which it is desirable to speak plainly—the affair, which you will, of course, dismiss from your recollection, is to be considered as closed now."

Winston smiled, and a trace of irony he could not quite repress was just discernible in his voice. "I scarcely think that was necessary, sir. It is, of course, sufficient for me to have rendered a small service to the distinguished family which has given me an opportunity; of proving my right to recognition, and neither you, nor Miss Barrington, need have any apprehension that I will presume upon it!"

Barrington wheeled round. "You have the Courthorne temper, at least, and perhaps I deserved this display of it. You acted with commendable discretion in coming straight to me—and the astonishment I got drove the other aspect of the question out of my head. If it hadn't been for you, my niece would have frozen."

"I'm afraid I spoke unguardedly, sir, but I am very tired. Still, if you will wait a few minutes, I will get the horses out without troubling the hired man."

Barrington made a little gesture of comprehension, and then shook his head. "You are fit for nothing further, and need rest and sleep."

"You will want somebody, sir," said Winston. "The snow is very loose and deep."

He went out, and Barrington, who looked after him with a curious expression in his face, nodded twice as if in approval. Twenty minutes later, he took his place in the sleigh that slid away from the Grange, which lay a league behind it when the sunrise flamed across the prairie. The wind had gone, and there was only a pitiless brightness and a devastating cold, while the snow lay blown in wisps, dried dusty and fine as flour by the frost. It had no cohesion, the runners sank in it, and Winston was almost waist-deep when he dragged the floundering team through the drifts. A day had passed since he had eaten anything worth mention, but he held on with an endurance which his companion, who was incapable of rendering him assistance, wondered at. There were belts of deep snow the almost buried sleigh must be dragged through, and tracts from which the wind had swept the dusty covering, leaving bare the grasses the runners would not slide over, where the team came to a standstill, and could scarcely be urged to continue the struggle.

At last, however, the loghouse rose, a lonely mound of whiteness, out of the prairie, and Winston drew in a deep breath of contentment when a dusky figure appeared for a moment in the doorway. His weariness seemed to fall from him, and once more his companion wondered at the tirelessness of the man, as floundering on foot beside them he urged the team through the powdery drifts beneath the big birch bluff. Winston did not go in, however, when they reached the house, and when, five minutes later, Maud Barrington came out, she saw him leaning with a drawn face very wearily against the sleigh. He straightened himself suddenly at the sight of her, but she had seen sufficient, and her heart softened towards him. Whatever the man's history had been he had borne a good deal for her.

The return journey was even more arduous, and now and then Maud Barrington felt a curious throb of pity for the worn-out man, who during most of it walked beside the team; but it was accomplished at last, and she contrived to find means of thanking him alone when they reached the Grange.

Winston shook his head, and then smiled a little. "It isn't nice to make a bargain," he said. "Still, it is less pleasant now and then to feel under an obligation, though there is no reason why you should."

Maud Barrington was not altogether pleased, but she could not blind herself to facts, and it was plain that there was an obligation. "I am afraid I cannot quite believe that, but I do not see what you are leading to."

Winston's eyes twinkled. "Well," he said reflectively, "I don't want you to fancy that last night commits you to any line of conduct in regard to me. I only asked for a truce, you see."

Maud Barrington was a trifle nettled. "Yes?" she said.

"Then, I want to show you how you can discharge any trifling obligation you may fancy you may owe me, which of course would be more pleasant to you. Do not allow your uncle to sell any wheat forward to you, and persuade him to sow every acre that belongs to you this spring."

"But however would this benefit you?" asked the girl.

Winston laughed. "I have a fancy that I can straighten up things at Silverdale, if I can get my way. It would please me, and I believe they want it. Of course a desire to improve anything appears curious in me!"

Maud Barrington was relieved of the necessity of answering, for the Colonel came up just then, but, moved by some sudden impulse, she nodded as if in agreement.

It was afternoon when she awakened from a refreshing sleep, and descending to the room set apart for herself and her aunt, sat thoughtfully still a while in a chair beside the stove. Then, stretching out her hand, she took up a little case of photographs and slipped out one of them. It was a portrait of a boy and pony, but there was a significance in the fact that she knew just where to find it. The picture was a good one, and once more Maud Barrington noticed the arrogance, which did not, however, seem out of place there in the lad's face. It was also a comely face, but there was a hint of sensuality in it that marred its beauty. Then with a growing perplexity she compared it with that of the weary man who had plodded beside the team. Winston was not arrogant, but resolute, and there was no stamp of indulgence in his face. Indeed, the girl had from the beginning recognized the virility in it that was tinged with asceticism and sprang from a simple strenuous life of toil in the wind and sun.

Just then there was a rustle of fabric, and she laid down the photograph a moment too late, as her aunt came in. As it happened, the elder lady's eyes rested on the picture, and a faint flush of annoyance crept into the face of the girl. It was scarcely perceptible, but Miss Barrington saw it, and though she felt tempted, did not smile.

"I did not know you were down," she said. "Lance is still asleep. He seemed very tired."

"Yes," said the girl. "That is very probable. He left the railroad before daylight, and had driven round to several farms before he came to Macdonald's, and he was very considerate. He made me take all the furs, and, I fancy, walked up and down all night long, with nothing on but his indoor clothing, though the wind went through the building, and one could scarcely keep alive a few feet from the stove."

Again the faint flicker of color crept into the girl's cheek, and the eyes that were keen as well as gentle noticed it.

"I think you owe him a good deal," said Miss Barrington.

"Yes," said her niece, with a little laugh which appeared to imply a trace of resentment. "I believe I do, but he seemed unusually anxious to relieve me of that impression. He was also good enough to hint that nothing he might have done need prevent me being—the right word is a trifle difficult to find—but I fancy he meant unpleasant to him if I wished it."

There was a little twinkle in Miss Barrington's eyes. "Are you not a trifle hard to please, my dear? Now, if he had attempted to insist on a claim to your gratitude you would have resented it."

"Of course," said the girl reflectively. "Still, it is annoying to be debarred from offering it. There are times, aunt, when I can't help wishing that Lance Courthorne had never come to Silverdale. There are men who leave nothing just as they found it, and whom one can't ignore."

Miss Barrington shook her head. "I fancy you are wrong. He has offended, after all?"

She was pleased to see her niece's face relax into a smile that expressed unconcern. "We are all exacting now and then," said the girl. "Still, he made me promise to give him a fair trial, which was not flattering, because it suggested that I had been unnecessarily harsh, and then hinted this morning that he had no intention of holding me to it. It really was not gratifying to find he held the concession he asked for of so small account. You are, however, as easily swayed by trifles as I am, because Lance can do no wrong since he kissed your hand."

"I really think I liked him the better for it," said the little silver-haired lady. "The respect was not assumed, but wholly genuine, you see, and whether I was entitled to it or not, it was a good deal in Lance's favor that he should offer it to me. There must be some good in the man who can be moved to reverence anything, even if he is mistaken."

"No man with any sense could help adoring you," said Maud Barrington. "Still, I wonder why you believe I was wrong in wishing he had not come to Silverdale?"

Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "I will tell you, my dear. There are few better men than my brother, but his thoughts, and the traditions he is bound by, are those of fifty years ago, while the restless life of the prairie is a thing of to-day. We have fallen too far behind it at Silverdale, and a crisis is coming that none of us are prepared for. Even Dane is scarcely fitted to help my brother to face it, and the rest are either over-fond of their pleasure or untrained boys. Brave lads they are, but none of them have been taught that it is only by mental strain, or the ceaseless toil of his body, the man without an inheritance can win himself a competence now. This is why they want a leader who has known hardship and hunger, instead of ease, and won what he holds with his own hand in place of having it given him."

"You fancy we could find one in such a man as Lance has been?"

Miss Barrington looked grave. "I believe the prodigal was afterwards a better as well as a wiser man than the one who stayed at home, and I am not quite sure that Lance's history is so nearly like that of the son in the parable as we have believed it to be. A residence in the sty is apt to leave a stain which I have not found on him, though I have looked for it."

The eyes of the two women met, and, though nothing more was said, each realized that the other was perplexed by the same question, while the girl was astonished to find her vague suspicions shared. While they sat silent, Colonel Barrington came in.

"I am glad to see you looking so much better, Maud," he said, with a trace of embarrassment. "Courthorne is still resting. Now, I can't help feeling that we have been a trifle more distant than was needful with him. The man has really behaved very discreetly. I mean in everything."

This was a great admission, and Miss Barrington smiled. "Did it hurt you very much to tell us that?" she asked.

The Colonel laughed. "I know what you mean, and if you put me on my mettle, I'll retract. After all, it was no great credit to him, because blood will tell, and he is, of course, a Courthorne."

Almost without her intention, Maud Barrington's eyes wandered towards the photograph, and then looking up she met those of her aunt, and once more saw the thought that troubled her in them.

"The Courthorne blood is responsible for a good deal more than discretion," said Miss Barrington, who went out quietly.

Her brother appeared a trifle perplexed. "Now, I fancied your aunt had taken him under her wing, and when I was about to suggest that, considering the connection between the families, we might ask him over to dinner occasionally, she goes away," he said.

The girl looked down a moment, for realizing that her uncle recognized the obligation he was under to the man he did not like, she remembered that she herself owed him considerably more, and he had asked for something in return. It was not altogether easy to grant, but she had tacitly pledged herself, and turning suddenly she laid a hand on Barrington's arm.

"Of course, but I want to talk of something else just now," she said. "You know I have very seldom asked you questions about my affairs, but I wish to take a little practical interest in them this year."

"Yes?" said Barrington, with a smile. "Well, I am at your service, my dear, and quite ready to account for my stewardship. You are no longer my ward, except by your own wishes."

"I am still your niece," said the girl, patting his arm. "Now, there is, of course, nobody who could manage the farming better than you do, but I would like to raise a large crop of wheat this season."

"It wouldn't pay," and the Colonel grew suddenly grave. "Very few men in the district are going to sow all their holding. Wheat is steadily going down."

"Then if nobody sows there will be very little, and shouldn't that put up the prices?"

Barrington's eyes twinkled. "Who has been teaching you commercial economy? You are too pretty to understand such things, and the argument is fallacious, because the wheat is consumed in Europe; and even if we have not much to offer, they can get plenty from California, Chile, India, and Australia."

"Oh, yes—and Russia," said the girl. "Still, you see, the big mills in Winnipeg and Minneapolis depend upon the prairie. They couldn't very well bring wheat in from Australia."

Barrington was still smiling with his eyes, but his lips were set. "A little knowledge is dangerous, my dear, and if you could understand me better, I could show you where you were wrong. As it is, I can only tell you that I have decided to sell wheat forward and plow very little."

"But that was a policy you condemned with your usual vigor. You really know you did."

"My dear," said the Colonel, with a little impatient gesture, "one can never argue with a lady. You see—circumstances alter cases considerably."

He nodded with an air of wisdom as though that decided it, but the girl persisted. "Uncle," she said, drawing closer to him with lithe gracefulness, "I want you to let me have my own way just for once, and if I am wrong, I will never do anything you do not approve of again. After all, it is a very little thing, and you would like to please me."

"It is a trifle that is likely to cost you a good deal of money," said the Colonel dryly.

"I think I could afford it, and you could not refuse me."

"As I am only your uncle, and no longer a trustee, I could not," said Barrington. "Still, you would not act against my wishes?"

His eyes were gentle, unusually so, for he was not as a rule very patient when any one questioned his will, but there was a reproach in them that hurt the girl. Still, because she had promised, she persisted.

"No," she said. "That is why it would be ever so much nicer if you would just think as I did."

Barrington looked at her steadily. "If you insist, I can at least hope for the best," he said, with a gravity that brought a faint color to the listener's cheek.

It was next day when Winston took his leave, and Maud Barrington stood beside him, as he put on his driving furs.

"You told me there was something you wished me to do, and, though it was difficult, it is done," she said. "My holding will be sown with wheat this spring."

Winston turned his head aside a moment, and apparently found it needful to fumble at the fastenings of the furs, while there was a curious expression in his eyes when he looked round again.

"Then," he said, with a little smile, "we are quits. That cancels any little obligation which may have existed."

He had gone in another minute, and Maud Barrington turned back into the stove-warmed room very quietly. Her lips were, however, somewhat closely set.



CHAPTER XII

SPEED THE PLOW

Winter had fled back beyond the barrens to the lonely North at last, and though here and there a little slushy snow still lay soaking the black loam in a hollow, a warm wind swept the vast levels, when one morning Colonel Barrington rode with his niece and sister across the prairie. Spring comes suddenly in that region, and the frost-bleached sod was steaming under an effulgent sun, while in places a hardy flower peeped through. It was six hundred miles to the forests on the Rockies' eastern slope, and as far to the Athabascan pines, but it seemed to Maud Barrington that their resinous sweetness was in the glorious western wind, which awoke a musical sighing from the sea of rippling grass. It rolled away before her in billows of lustrous silver-gray, and had for sole boundary the first upward spring of the arch of cloudless blue, across which the vanguard of the feathered host pressed on, company by company, towards the Pole.

The freshness of it all stirred her blood like wine, and the brightness that flooded the prairie had crept into her eyes, for those who bear the iron winter of that lonely land realize the wonder of the reawakening, which in a little space of days dresses the waste, that has lain for long months white and silent as the dead, in living green. It also has its subtle significance that the grimmest toiler feels, and the essence of it is hope eternal and triumphant life. The girl felt the thrill of it, and gave thanks by an answering brightness, as the murmuring grasses and peeping flowerets did, but there was behind her instinctive gladness a vague wonder and expectancy. She had read widely, and seen the life of the cities with understanding eyes, and now she was to be provided with the edifying spectacle of the gambler and outcast turned farmer.

Had she been asked a few months earlier whether the man who had, as Courthorne had done, cast away his honor and wallowed in the mire, could come forth again and purge himself from the stain, her answer would have been coldly skeptical, but now with the old familiar miracle and what it symbolized before her eyes, the thing looked less improbable. Why this should give her pleasure she did not know, or would not admit that she did, but the fact remained that it was so.

Trotting down the slope of the next rise, they came upon him, as he stood by a great breaker plow with very little sign of dissolute living upon him. In front of him, the quarter-mile furrow led on beyond the tall sighting poles on the crest of the next rise, and four splendid horses, of a kind not very usual on the prairie, were stamping the steaming clods at his side. Bronzed by frost and sun, with his brick-red neck and arch of chest revealed by the coarse blue shirt that, belted at the waist, enhanced his slenderness, the repentant prodigal was at least a passable specimen of the animal man, but it was the strength and patience in his face that struck the girl, as he turned towards her, bareheaded, with a little smile in his eyes. She also noticed the difference he presented with his ingrained hands and the stain of the soil upon him, to her uncle, who sat his horse, immaculate as usual, with gloved hand on the bridle, for the Englishmen at Silverdale usually hired other men to do their coarser work for them.

"So you are commencing in earnest in face of my opinion?" said Barrington. "Of course, I wish you success, but that consummation appears distinctly doubtful."

Winston laughed as he pointed to a great machine which, hauled by four horses, rolled towards them, scattering the black clods in its wake. "I'm doing what I can to achieve it, sir," he said. "In fact, I'm staking somewhat heavily. That team with the gang plows and cultivators cost me more dollars than I care to remember."

"No doubt," said Barrington dryly. "Still, we have always considered oxen good enough for breaking prairie at Silverdale."

Winston nodded. "I used to do so, sir, when I could get nothing better, but after driving oxen for eight years one finds out their disadvantages."

Barrington's face grew a trifle stern. "There are times when you tax our patience, Lance," he said. "Still, there is nothing to be gained by questioning your assertion. What I fail to see, is where your reward for all this will come from, because I am still convinced that the soil will, so to speak, give you back eighty cents for every dollar you put into it. I would, however, like to look at those implements. I have never seen better ones."

He dismounted and helped his companion down, for Winston made no answer. The farmer was never sure what actuated him, but, save in an occasional fit of irony, he had not attempted by any reference to make his past fall into line with Courthorne's since he had first been accepted as the latter at Silverdale. He had taken the dead man's inheritance for a while, but he would stoop no further, and to speak the truth, which he saw was not credited, brought him a grim amusement and also flung a sop to his pride. Presently, however, Miss Barrington turned to him, and there was a kindly gleam in her eyes as she glanced at the splendid horses and widening strip of plowing.

"You have the hope of youth, Lance, to make this venture when all looks black—and it pleases me," she said. "Sometimes I fancy that men had braver hearts than they have now, when I was young."

Winston flushed a trifle, and stretching out an arm swept his hand round the horizon. "All that looked dead a very little while ago, and now you can see the creeping greenness in the sod," he said. "The lean years cannot last forever, and, even if one is beaten again, there is a consolation in knowing that one has made a struggle. Now, I am quite aware that you are fancying a speech of this kind does not come well from me."

Maud Barrington had seen his gesture, and something in the thought that impelled it, as well as the almost statuesque pose of his thinly-clad figure, appealed to her. Courthorne as farmer, with the damp of clean effort on his forehead and the stain of the good soil that would faithfully repay it on his garments, had very little in common with the profligate and gambler. Vaguely she wondered whether he was not working out his own redemption by every wheat furrow torn from the virgin prairie, and then again the doubt crept in. Could this man have ever found pleasure in the mire?

"You will plow your holding, Lance?" asked the elder lady, who had not answered his last speech yet, but meant to later.

"Yes," said the man. "All I can. It's a big venture, and, if it fails, will cripple me, but I seem to feel, apart from any reason I can discern, that wheat is going up again, and I must go through with this plowing. Of course, it does not sound very sensible."

Miss Barrington looked at him gravely, for there was a curious and steadily-tightening bond between the two. "It depends upon what you mean by sense. Can we reason out all we feel, and is there nothing, intangible but real, behind the impulses which may be sent to us?"

"Well," said Winston, with a little smile, "that is a trifle too deep for me, and it's difficult to think of anything but the work I have to do. But you were the first at Silverdale to hold out a hand to me—and I have a feeling that your good wishes would go a long way now. Is it altogether fantastic to believe that the good-will of my first friend would help to bring me prosperity?"

The white-haired lady's eyes grew momentarily soft, and, with a gravity that did not seem out of place, she moved forward and laid her hand on a big horse's neck, and smiled when the dumb beast responded to her gentle touch.

"It is a good work," she said. "Lance, there is more than dollars, or the bread that somebody is needing, behind what you are doing, and because I loved your mother I know how her approval would have followed you. And now sow in hope, and God speed your plow!"

She turned away almost abruptly, and Winston stood still with one hand closed tightly and a little deeper tint in the bronze of his face, sensible at once of an unchanged resolution and a horrible degradation. Then he saw that the Colonel had helped Miss Barrington into the saddle and her niece was speaking.

"I have something to ask Mr. Courthorne and will overtake you," she said.

The others rode on, and the girl turned to Winston. "I made you a promise and did my best to keep it, but I find it harder than I fancied it would be," she said. "I want you to release me."

"I should like to hear your reasons," said Winston.

The girl made a faint gesture of impatience. "Of course, if you insist."

"I do," said Winston quietly.

"Then I promised you to have my holding sown this year, and I am still willing to do so, but though my uncle makes no protest, I know he feels my opposition very keenly, and it hurts me horribly. Unspoken reproaches are the worst to bear, you know, and now Dane and some of the others are following your lead, it is painful to feel that I am taking part with them against the man who has always been kind to me."

"And you would prefer to be loyal to Colonel Barrington, even if it costs you a good deal?"

"Of course!" said Maud Barrington. "Can you ask me?"

Winston saw the sparkle in her eyes and the half-contemptuous pride in the poise of the shapely head. Loyalty, it was evident, was not a figure of speech with her, but he felt that he had seen enough and turned his face aside.

"I knew it would be difficult when I asked," he said. "Still, I cannot give you back that promise. We are going to see a great change this year, and I have set my heart on making all I can for you."

"But why should you?" asked Maud Barrington, somewhat astonished that she did not feel more angry.

"Well," said Winston gravely, "I may tell you by and by, and in the meanwhile you can set it down to vanity. This may be my last venture at Silverdale, and I want to make it a big success."

The girl glanced at him sharply, and it was because the news caused her an unreasonable concern that there was a trace of irony in her voice.

"Your last venture! Have we been unkind to you, or does it imply that, as you once insinuated, an exemplary life becomes monotonous?"

Winston laughed. "No. I should like to stay here—a very long while," he said, and the girl saw he spoke the truth, as she watched him glance wistfully at the splendid teams, great plows, and rich black soil. "In fact, strange as it may appear, it will be virtue, given the rein for once, that drives me out when I go away."

"But where are you going to?"

Winston glanced vaguely across the prairie, and the girl was puzzled by the look in his eyes. "Back to my own station," he said softly, as though to himself, and then turned with a little shrug of his shoulders. "In the meanwhile there is a good deal to do, and once more I am sorry I cannot release you."

"Then, there is an end of it. You cannot expect me to beg you to, so we will discuss the practical difficulty. I cannot under the circumstances borrow my uncle's teams, and I am told I have not sufficient men or horses to put a large crop in."

"Of course!" said Winston quietly. "Well, I have now the best teams and machines on this part of the prairies, and I am bringing Ontario men in—I will do the plowing—and, if it will make it easier for you, you can pay me for the services."

There was a little flush on the girl's face. "It is all distasteful, but as you will not give me back my word, I will keep it to the letter. Still, it almost makes me reluctant to ask you a further favor."

"This one is promised before you ask it," said Winston quietly.

It cost Maud Barrington some trouble to make her wishes clear, and Winston's smile was not wholly one of pleasure as he listened. One of the young English lads, who was, it appeared, a distant connection of the girl's, had been losing large sums of money at a gaming table, and seeking other equally undesirable relaxations at the railroad settlement. For the sake of his mother in England, Miss Barrington desired him brought to his senses, but was afraid to appeal to the Colonel, whose measures were occasionally more Draconic than wise.

"I will do what I can," said Winston. "Still, I am not sure that a lad of the kind is worth your worrying over, and I am a trifle curious as to what induced you to entrust the mission to me?"

The girl felt embarrassed, but she saw that an answer was expected. "Since you ask, it occurred to me that you could do it better than anybody else," she said.

"Please don't misunderstand me, but I fancy it is the other man who is leading him away."

Winston smiled somewhat grimly. "Your meaning is quite plain, and I am already looking forward to the encounter with my fellow-gambler. You believe that I will prove a match for him."

Maud Barrington, to her annoyance, felt the blood creep to her forehead, but she looked at the man steadily, noticing the quiet forcefulness beneath his somewhat caustic amusement.

"Yes," she said, simply; "and I shall be grateful."

In another few minutes she was galloping across the prairie, and when she rejoined her aunt and Barrington, endeavored to draw out the latter's opinion respecting Courthorne's venture by a few discreet questions.

"Heaven knows where he was taught it, but there is no doubt that the man is an excellent farmer," he said. "It is a pity that he is also to all intents and purposes mad."

Miss Barrington glanced at her niece, and both of them smiled, for the Colonel usually took for granted the insanity of any one who questioned his opinions.

In the meanwhile Winston sat swaying on the driving-seat, mechanically guiding the horses, and noticing how the prairie sod rolled away in black waves beneath the great plow. He heard the crackle of fibers beneath the triple shares, and the swish of greasy loam along the moldboard's side, but his thoughts were far away, and when he raised his head, he looked into the dim future beyond the long furrow that cut the skyline on the rise.

It was shadowy and uncertain, but one thing was clear to him, and that was that he could not stay at Silverdale. At first, he had almost hoped he might do this, for the good land and the means of efficiently working it had been a great temptation. That was before he reckoned on Maud Barrington's attractions, but of late he had seen what these were leading him to, and all that was good in him recoiled from an attempt to win her. Once he had dared to wonder whether it could be done, for his grim life had left him self-centered and bitter, but that mood had passed, and it was with disgust he looked back upon it. Now he knew that the sooner he left Silverdale the less difficult it would be to forget her, but he was still determined to vindicate himself by the work he did, and make her affairs secure. Then, with or without a confession, he would slip back into the obscurity he came from.

While he worked the soft wind rioted about him, and the harbingers of summer passed north in battalions overhead—crane, brant-goose, and mallard, in crescents, skeins, and wedges, after the fashion of their kind. Little long-tailed gophers whisked across the whitened sod, and when the great plow rolled through the shadows of a bluff, jack rabbits, pied white and gray, scurried amidst the rustling leaves. Even the birches were fragrant in that vivifying air, and seemed to rejoice as all animate creatures did, but the man's face grew more somber as the day of toil wore on. Still, he did his work with the grim, unwavering diligence that had already carried him, dismayed but unyielding, through years of drought and harvest hail, and the stars shone down on the prairies when at last he loosed his second team.

Then, standing in the door of his lonely homestead, he glanced at the great shadowy granaries and barns, and clenched his hand as he saw what he could do if the things that had been forced upon him were rightfully his. He knew his own mettle, and that he could hold them if he would, but the pale, cold face of a woman rose up in judgment against him, and he also knew that because of the love of her, that was casting its toils about him, he must give them up.

Far back on the prairie a lonely coyote howled, and a faint wind, that was now like snow-cooled wine, brought the sighing of limitless grasses out of the silence. There was no cloud in the crystalline ether, and something in the vastness and stillness that spoke of infinity, brought a curious sense of peace to him. Impostor though he was, he would leave Silverdale better than he found it, and afterwards it would be of no great moment what became of him. Countless generations of toiling men had borne their petty sorrows before him, and gone back to the dust they sprang from, but still, in due succession, harvest followed seed-time, and the world whirled on. Then, remembering that, in the meanwhile, he had much to do which would commence with the sun on the morrow, he went back into the house and shook the fancies from him.



CHAPTER XIII

MASTERY RECOGNIZED

There was, considering the latest price of wheat, a somewhat astonishing attendance in the long room of the hotel at the railroad settlement one Saturday evening. A big stove in the midst of it diffused a stuffy and almost unnecessary heat, gaudy nickeled lamps an uncertain brilliancy, and the place was filled with the drifting smoke of indifferent tobacco. Oleographs, barbaric in color and drawing, hung about the roughly-boarded walls, and any critical stranger would have found the saloon comfortless and tawdry.

It was, however, filled that night with bronzed-faced men who expected nothing better. Most of them wore jackets of soft black leather or embroidered deerskin, and the jean trousers and long boots of not a few apparently stood in need of repairing, though the sprinkling of more conventional apparel and paler faces showed that the storekeepers of the settlement had been drawn together, as well as the prairie farmers who had driven in to buy provisions or take up their mail. There was, however, but little laughter, and their voices were low, for boisterousness and assertion are not generally met with on the silent prairie. Indeed, the attitude of some of the men was mildly deprecatory, as though they felt that in assisting in what was going forward they were doing an unusual thing. Still, the eyes of all were turned towards the table where a man, who differed widely in appearance from most of them, dealt out the cards.

He wore city clothes, and a white shirt with a fine diamond in the front of it, while there was a keen intentness behind the half-ironical smile in his somewhat colorless face. The whiteness of his long nervous fingers and the quickness of his gestures would also have stamped his as a being of different order from the slowly-spoken prairie farmers, while the slenderness of the little pile of coins in front of him testified that his endeavors to tempt them to speculation on games of chance had met with no very marked success as yet. Gambling for stakes of moment is not a popular amusement in that country; where the soil demands his best from every man in return; for the scanty dollars it yields him, but the gamester had chosen his time well, and the men who had borne the dreary solitude of winter in outlying farms, and now only saw another adverse season opening before them, were for once in the mood to clutch at any excitement that would relieve the monotony of their toilsome lives.

A few were betting small sums with an apparent lack of interest which did not in the least deceive the dealer, and when he handed a few dollars out he laughed a little as he turned to the barkeeper.

"Set them up again. I want a drink to pass the time," he said. "I'll play you at anything you like to put a name to, boys, if this game don't suit you, but you'll have to give me the chance of making my hotel bill. In my country I've seen folks livelier at a funeral."

The glasses were handed around, but when the gambler reached out towards the silver at his side, a big, bronze-skinned rancher stopped him.

"No," he drawled. "We're not sticking you for a locomotive tank, and this comes out of my treasury. I'll call you three dollars, and take my chances on the draw."

"Well," said the dealer, "that's a little more encouraging. Anybody wanting to make it better?"

A young lad in elaborately-embroidered deerskin with a flushed face leaned upon the table. "Show you how we play cards in the old country," he said. "I'll make it thirty—for a beginning."

There was a momentary silence, for the lad had staked heavily and lost of late, but one or two more bets were made. Then the cards were turned up, and the lad smiled fatuously as he took up his winnings.

"Now I'll let you see," he said. "This time we'll make it fifty."

He won twice more in succession, and the men closed in about the table, while, for the dealer knew when to strike, the glasses went around again, and in the growing interest nobody quite noticed who paid for the refreshment. Then, while the dollars began to trickle in, the lad flung a bill for a hundred down.

"Go on," he said, a trifle huskily. "To-night you can't beat me!"

Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room. One of them signed to the hotel keeper.

"What's going on? The boys seem kind of keen," he said.

The other man laughed a little. "Ferris has struck a streak of luck, but I wouldn't be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He has had as much as he can carry already, and I don't want anybody broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn't know when to stop."

Winston glanced at his companion, who nodded. "The young fool!" he said.

They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his winnings again, and Winston laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.

"Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show," he said. "You seem to have done tolerably well, and it's usually wise to stop while the chances are going with you."

The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men, who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.

"Were you addressing me?" he asked.

"I was," said Winston quietly. "I was in fact inviting you to share our refreshment. You see we have just come in."

"Then," said the lad, "it was condemnable impertinence. Since you have taken this fellow up, couldn't you teach him that it's bad taste to thrust his company upon people who don't want it, Dane?"

Winston said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.

"You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne. How are you going to get the young ass out?" he said.

"Well," said Winston, "it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but as I don't know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I'll have to tackle the gambler. I don't know him, but as he comes from across the frontier it's more than likely he has heard of me. There are advantages in having a record like mine, you see."

"It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad's people—but the young fool is scarcely worth it, and it's not your affair," said Dane reflectively.

Winston guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a confidence, and laughed a little. "It's not often I have done any one a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions."

Dane did not appear contented with this explanation, but he asked nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who were evidently growing eager.

"That's two hundred the kid has let go," said somebody.

There was a murmur of excited voices, and one rose hoarse and a trifle shaky in the consonants above the rest.

"Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys. Throw them out again. Two hundred this time on the game!"

There was silence and the rustle of shuffled cards; then once more the voices went up. "Against him! Better let up before he takes your farm. Oh, let him face it and show his grit—the man who slings around his hundreds can afford to lose!"

The lad's face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke, though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there was the stillness of expectancy through which a strained voice rose.

"Going to get it all back. I'll stake you four hundred!"

Winston rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then stood still where he could see the table. He had also very observant eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the game. Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler's face he watched. For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down his cards and stood up with a grayness in his cheeks and his hands shaking.

"You've got all my money now," he said. "But I'll play you doubles if you'll take my paper."

The gambler nodded and flung down a big pile of bills. "I guess I'll trust you. Mine are here."

The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the lad, who stood tensely still, while Winston watched the face of the man at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph in his eyes, and that decided him. Again, one by one, the cards went down, and then while everybody waited in strained expectancy the lad seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.

"You can let up," he said hoarsely. "I've gone down!"

Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, "Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one."

In an instant the gambler's hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Winston leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over beneath him and the cards were on the gambler's knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.

It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Winston's right hand had closed upon his wrist and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate it. He was a muscular man, with, doubtless, a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for eight long years. Before another few seconds had passed he was wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle of bills Winston handed him.

"Now," said the latter, "I want to do the square thing. If you'll let us strip you and turn out your pockets, we'll see you get any winnings you're entitled to when we've straightened up the cards."

The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to Winston.

"And who the —— are you?" he asked.

Winston smiled grimly. "I guess you have heard of me. Any way, there are a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne. Quite sure I know a straight game when I see it!"

The man's resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he laughed as he swept his glance around at the angry faces turned upon him.

"If you don't there's nobody does," he said. "Still, as you've got my pistol and 'most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a partner out of this."

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad's face showed livid with fury and humiliation, but Winston turned quietly to the hotel keeper.

"You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him there," he said. "Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had better sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you'll get whatever the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I ask you, and you'd have had nothing but for me, you'll put him in his wagon and turn him out quietly upon the prairie."

"That's sense, and we don't want no circus here," said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more Draconic measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then Winston reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

"Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You'll get most of what you lost back to-morrow, and we're going to take you home," he said.

Ferris turned upon him hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and swaying a trifle on his feet, while Winston noticed that he drew one arm back.

"Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?" he asked. "Keep your distance. I'm going to stay here, and, if I'd had my way, we'd have kicked you out of Silverdale."

Winston dropped his hand, but the next moment the ornament of a distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at Dane.

"We've had enough of this fooling, and he'll be grateful to me to-morrow," he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room, and with Dane's assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which he was flung almost speechless with indignation.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "you've given us a good deal more trouble than you're worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again I'll break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from you."

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track and were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great breath of the cool night air, and laughed quietly.

"It's a good deal more wholesome here in several ways," said he. "If you're wise, you'll let up on card playing and hanging around the settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming. Even if you lose almost as many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better. Now, that's all I'm going to tell you, but I know what I'm speaking of, because I've had my fling—and it's costing me more than I care to figure out still. You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no doubt found out a good deal, if you're not all a fool. Curiosity's at the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn't it, Courthorne? We want to know what the things forbidden actually taste like."

"Well," said Winston dryly, "I don't quite know. You see, I had very little money in the old country and still less leisure here to spend either on that kind of experimenting. Where to get enough to eat was the one problem that worried me."

Dane turned a trifle sharply. "We are, I fancy, tolerably good friends. Isn't it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with me?"

Winston laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing at all. Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him, or he was moodily resentful, for it was not until Winston pulled up before the homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington's supervision, that he opened his mouth.

"You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you're wise you'll let that kind of thing alone in future," said Winston quietly.

The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still. "I resent advice from you as much as I do your—uncalled for insolence an hour or two ago," he said. "To lie low until honest men got used to him would be considerably more becoming to a man like you."

"Well," said Winston, stung into forgetfulness, "I'm not going to offend in that fashion again, and you can go to the devil in the way that most pleases you. In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted interest in you, asked me to."

Ferris stared up at him, and his face showed almost livid through the luminous night.

"She asked you to!" he said. "By the Lord, I'll make you sorry for this."

Winston said nothing, but shook the reins, and when the wagon lurched forward Dane looked at him.

"I didn't know that before," he said.

"Well," said Winston dryly, "if I hadn't lost my temper with the lad, you wouldn't have known now."

Dane smiled. "You miss the point of it. Our engaging friend made himself the laughing-stock of the colony by favoring Maud Barrington with his attentions when he came out. In fact, I fancy the lady in desperation had to turn her uncle loose on him before he could be made to understand that they were not appreciated. I'd keep my eye on him, Courthorne, for the little beast has shown himself abominably vindictive occasionally, though I have a notion he's scarcely to be held accountable. It's a case of too pure a strain and consanguinity. Two branches of the family—marriage between land and money, you see."

"It will be my heel if he gets in my way," said Winston grimly.

It was late when they reached his homestead, where Dane was to stay the night, and when they went in a youthful figure in uniform rose up in the big log-walled hall. For a moment Winston's heart almost stood still, and then holding himself in hand by a strenuous effort, he moved forward and stood where the light of a lamp did not shine quite fully upon him. He knew that uniform, and he had also seen the lad who wore it, once or twice before, at an outpost six hundred miles away across the prairie. He knew the risk he took was great, but it was evident to him that if his identity escaped detection at first sight, use would do the rest, and while he had worn a short-pointed beard on the Western prairie, he was cleanly shaven now.

The lad stood quite still a moment staring at him, and Winston returning his gaze steadily felt his pulses throb.

"Well, trooper, what has brought you here?" he said.

"Homestead visitation, sir," said the lad, who had a pleasant English voice. "Mr. Courthorne, I presume—accept my regrets if I stared too hard at you—but for a moment you reminded me of a man I knew. They've changed us round lately, and I'm from the Alberta squadron just sent into this district. It was late when I rode in, and your people were kind enough to put me up."

Winston laughed. "I have been taken for another man before. Would you like anything to drink, or a smoke before you turn in, trooper?"

"No, sir," said the lad. "If you'll sign my docket to show I've been here, I'll get some sleep. I've sixty miles to ride to-morrow."

Winston did as he was asked, and the trooper withdrew, while when they sat down to a last cigar it seemed to Dane that his companion's face was graver than usual.

"Did you notice the lad's astonishment when you came in?" he asked. "He looked very much as if he had seen a ghost."

Winston smiled. "I believe he fancied he had. There was a man in the district he came from, who some folks considered resembled me. In reality, I was by no means like him, and he's dead now."

"Likenesses are curious things, and it's stranger still how folks alter," said Dane. "Now, they've a photograph at Barrington's of you as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, nobody with any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like you. Still, that's of no great moment, and I want to know just how you spotted the gambler. I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games of chance in my callow days, and haven't forgotten completely what I was taught then, but though I watched the game, I saw nothing that led me to suspect crooked play."

Winston laughed. "I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I was right."

"Well," said Dane dryly, "you don't need your nerves toned up. With only a suspicion to go upon, it was a tolerably risky game. Still, of course, you had advantages."

"I have played a more risky one, but I don't know that I have cause to be very grateful for anything I acquired in the past," said Winston with a curious smile.

Dane stood up and flung his cigar away. "It's time I was asleep," he said. "Still, since our talk has turned in this direction, I want to tell you that, as you have doubtless seen, there is something about you that puzzles me occasionally. I don't ask your confidence until you are ready to give it me—but if ever you want anybody to stand behind you in a difficulty, you'll find me rather more than willing."

He went out, and Winston sat still, very grave in face, for at least another hour.



CHAPTER XIV

A FAIR ADVOCATE

Thanks to the fashion in which the hotel keeper managed the affair, the gambler left the settlement without personal injury, but very little richer than when he entered it. The rest of those who were present at his meeting with Winston were also not desirous that their friends should know that they had been victimized, and because Dane was discreet news of what had happened might never have reached Silverdale had not one of the younger men ridden in to the railroad a few days later. Odd scraps of conversation overheard led him to suspect that something unusual had taken place, but as nobody seemed to be willing to supply details, he returned to Silverdale with his curiosity unsatisfied. As it happened, he was shortly afterwards present at a gathering of his neighbors at Macdonald's farm and came across Ferris there.

"I heard fragments of a curious story at the settlement," he said. "There was trouble of some kind in which a professional gambler figured last Saturday night, and though nobody seemed to want to talk about it, I surmised that somebody from Silverdale was concerned in it."

He had perhaps spoken a trifle more loudly than he had intended, and there were a good many of the Silverdale farmers with a few of their wives and daughters whose attention was not wholly confined to the efforts of Mrs. Macdonald at the piano in the long room just then. In any case a voice broke through the silence that followed the final chords.

"Ferris could tell us if he liked. He was there that night."

Ferris, who had cause for doing so, looked uncomfortable, and endeavored to sign to the first speaker that it was not desirable to pursue the topic.

"I have been in tolerably often of late. Had things to attend to," he said.

The other man was, however, possessed by a mischievous spirit or did not understand him. "You may just as well tell us now as later, because you never kept a secret in your life," he said.

In the meantime, several of the others had gathered about them, and Mrs. Macdonald, who had joined the group, smiled as she said, "There is evidently something interesting going on. Mayn't I know, Gordon?"

"Of course," said the man who had visited the settlement. "You shall know as much as I do, though that is little, and if it excites your curiosity, you can ask Ferris for the rest. He is only anxious to enhance the value of his story by being mysterious. Well, there was a more or less dramatic happening, of the kind our friends in the old country unwarrantably fancy is typical of the West, in the saloon of the settlement not long ago. Cards, pistols, a professional gambler, and the unmasking of foul play, don't you know. Somebody from Silverdale played the leading role."

"How interesting!" said a young English girl. "Now, I used to fancy something of that kind happened here every day before I came out to the prairie. Please tell us, Mr. Ferris! One would like to find there is just a trace of reality in our picturesque fancies of debonair desperadoes and big-hatted cavaliers."

There was a curious expression in Ferris's face, but as he glanced around at the rest, who were regarding him expectantly, he did not observe that Maud Barrington and her aunt had just come in and stood close behind him.

"Can't you see there's no getting out of it, Ferris?" said somebody.

"Well," said the lad in desperation, "I can only admit that Gordon is right. There was foul play and a pistol drawn, but I'm sorry that I can't add anything further. In fact, it wouldn't be quite fair of me."

"But the man from Silverdale?" asked Mrs. Macdonald.

"I'm afraid," said Ferris, with the air of one shielding a friend, "I can't tell you anything about him."

"I know Mr. Courthorne drove in that night," said the young English girl, who was not endued with very much discretion.

"Courthorne," said one of the bystanders, and there was a momentary silence that was very expressive. "Was he concerned in what took place, Ferris?"

"Yes," said the lad with apparent reluctance. "Mrs. Macdonald, you will remember that they dragged it out of me, but I will tell you nothing more whatever."

"It seems to me you have told us quite sufficient and perhaps a trifle too much," said somebody.

There was a curious silence. All of those present were more or less acquainted with Courthorne's past history, and the suggestion of foul play coupled with the mention of a professional gambler had been significant. Ferris, while committing himself in no way, had certainly said sufficient. Then there was a sudden turning of heads as a young woman moved quietly into the midst of the group. She was ominously calm, but she stood very straight, and there was a little hard glitter in her eyes, which reminded one or two of the men who noticed it of those of Colonel Barrington. The fingers of one hand were also closed at her side.

"I overheard you telling a story, Ferris, but you have a bad memory and left rather too much out," she said.