Drennen had
laughed at her. He had told her brutally that he had no more use for a
woman in his life than he had for a cat. Certainly not for a woman
like her. His words had been given after Drennen's fashion; like a
slap in the face. All this had been less than a year ago.

Elated at the success with which his words had met, Blunt Rand laughed.
Again Kootanie George looked at him steadily.

"What are you lookin' for Drennen for?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, nothin'," rejoined the other lightly. "Only when I come through
Little Smoky the other day an ol' flame of his asked about him. The
Fire Bird they call her. Know her?"

Ernestine Dumont's face grew a shade redder in its mortification even
while she knew that the man was lying to tease her. Then she sat back
with a little gasp and even slow moving Kootanie George turned quickly
as a heavy voice called from the door:

"You're a liar, Blunt Rand."

It was No-luck Drennen just come in and standing now, his hat far back
upon his head, his hands upon his hips, staring across the room at
Blunt Rand.

CHAPTER III

THE MAN UNDER THE CLOAK

Dave Drennen was a big man, no man here so big save Kootanie George
alone, who was two inches the taller and fully thirty pounds the
heavier. The Canadian stood four inches better than six feet in his
squat, low-heeled boots and must turn sideways to get his massive
shoulders through most doors hereabouts. Unlike most very tall men
George carried himself straight, his enormous chest thrust forward.

Drennen was younger by half a dozen years, slenderer, of cleaner build.
Any man at Pere Marquette's would have emptied his pockets that night
to witness a fight between the two. Men as a rule liked Kootanie
George, slow moving, slow spoken, heavily good humoured. And as an
even more unbroken rule they disliked Dave Drennen. Throughout the far
places of the great northwest into which of recent years he had fitted
restlessly he was known as a man at once too silent and too
quarrelsome. He trod his own trail alone. Other men had "pardners";
Drennen was no man's friend. He was hard and he was bitter. Not yet
at the end of his first score and ten, his mouth had grown set in
stern, harsh lines, his heavy brows had acquired the habit of bunching
ominously over eyes in which was the glint of steel. He was a man
whose smile was unpleasant, whose laugh could be as ugly as many a
man's curse.

It looked like a quarrel be