e correct phrase, is it not?--and noosing, no, roping you there."

When he looked up from the letter the landscape was blurred for a time.
But soon he wondered at the new splendour of the day, the sweetness of
the air, the mellow music of the meadow-lark. A new glory was upon sky
and earth and a new rapture in his heart.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Dear little soul! She doesn't know, and
yet, even if she did, I believe it would make no difference."

Experience proved that he had rightly estimated her. For a year and a
half she had stood by her husband's side, making sunshine for him that
no clouds could dim nor blizzards blow out. It was this that threw into
her husband's tone as he said, "My wife, Mr. Macgregor," the tenderness
and pride. It made Shock's heart quiver, for there came to him the
picture of a tall girl with wonderful dark grey eyes that looked
straight into his while she said, "You know I will not forget." It was
this that made him hold the little woman's hand till she wondered at
him, but with a woman's divining she read his story in the deep blue
eyes, alight now with the memory of love.

"That light is not for me," she said to herself, and welcomed him with
a welcome of one who had been so recently and, indeed, was still a
lover.

The interval between supper and bed-time was spent in eager talk over
Shock's field. A rough map, showing trails, streams, sloughs, coolies,
and some of the larger ranches lay before them on the table.

"This is The Fort," said McIntyre, putting his finger upon a dot on the
left side of the map. "Twenty-five miles west and south is Loon Lake,
the centre of your field, where it is best that you should live, if you
can; and then further away up toward the Pass they tell me there is a
queer kind of ungodly settlement--ranchers, freighters, whisky-runners,
cattle thieves, miners, almost anything you can name. You'll have to do
some exploration work there."

"Prospecting, eh?" said Shock.

"Exactly. Prospecting is the word," said McIntyre. "The Fort end of
your field won't be bad in one way. You'll find the people quite
civilised. Indeed, The Fort is quite the social centre for the whole
district. Afternoon teas, hunts, tennis, card-parties, and dancing
parties make life one gay whirl for them. Mind you, I'm not saying a
word against them. In this country anything clean in the way of sport
ought to be encouraged, but unfortunately there is a broad, bad streak
running thr