nty-four hours earlier.

"Bully for you, Win," he answered.

CHAPTER XXXIX

A CREE RUNNER BRINGS NEWS

"Don't you worry about that lad, Jessie. He's got as many lives as a
cat--and then some. I've knew him ever since he was knee-high to a
grasshopper."

Brad Stearns was talking. He sat in the big family room at the McRae
house and puffed clouds of tobacco, smoke to the rafters.

"Meaning Mr. Beresford?" asked Jessie demurely. She was patching a
pair of leather trousers for Fergus and she did not raise her eyes
from the work.

"Meanin' Tom Morse," the old-timer said. "Not but what Beresford's a
good lad too. Sand in his craw an' a kick like a mule in his fist. But
he was brought up somewheres in the East, an' o' course he's a leetle
mite less tough than Tom. No, sir. Tom'll bob up one o' these here
days good as ever. Don't you worry none about that. Why, he ain't been
gone but--lemme see, a week or so better'n four months. When a man's
got to go to the North Pole an' back, four months--"

Beneath her long lashes the girl slanted a swift look at Brad. "That
makes twice you've told me in two minutes not to worry about Mr.
Morse. Do I look peaked? Am I lying awake nights thinking about him,
do you think?" She held up the renewed trousers and surveyed her
handiwork critically.

Brad gazed at her through narrowed lids. "I'll be doggoned if I know
whether you are or you ain't. I'd bet a pair o' red-topped boots it's
one of them lads. 'Course Beresford's got a red coat an' spurs that
jingle an' a fine line o' talk. Tom he ain't got ary one o' the three.
But if it's a man you're lookin' for, a two-fisted man who--"

A wave of mirth crossed Jessie's face like a ripple on still water.
Her voice mimicked his. "Why do you want to saw off an old maid on
that two-fisted man you've knew ever since he was knee-high to a
grasshopper? What did he ever do to you that was so doggoned mean?"

"Now looky here, you can laugh at me all you've a mind to. All I'm
sayin' is--"

"Oh, I'm not laughing at you," she interposed hurriedly with an
assumption of anxiety her bubbling eyes belied. "If you could show me
how to get your two-fisted man when he comes back--or even the one
with the red coat and the spurs and the fine line of talk--"

"I ain't sayin' he ain't a man from the ground up too," Brad broke in.
"Considerin' his opportunities he's a right hefty young fellow. But
Tom Morse he--"

"That's it exactly. Tom Morse he