away and get the thrilling thing which would still the demon within
him.

There had been moments when his doom seemed certain--he knew and she knew
that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one
occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire,
but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only enemy,
the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there came a sudden
call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the war-path. It saved
him, it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, with the antidote and
stimulant of responsibility driving him on.

Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle
for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from the
rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and
hilarity were common. Suddenly--more suddenly than it had ever come, the
demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the
gray-stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved
anybody in all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical
assault he must make upon his superior officer if he raised a glass to his
lips, when salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far down on
the railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had that very
day been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair the manager
had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, for the Riders of
the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every trouble in the Far
North.

Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he had
learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, arrived
at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received them--by
sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the amazement and
pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured in the accident,
against the coming of the relief train, and nursing the sick operator
through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, he passed a crisis of
his own disease triumphantly; but not the last crisis.

So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety.

III

"Please, I want to go, too, Jim."

Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms.

"Say, how dare you call your father _Jim_--eh, tell me that?"

"It's what mummy calls you--it's pretty."

"I don't call her 'mummy' because you do, and you mustn't