had their duel out in the half-shadows, no one knowing,
till the shots rang on the night, and John Marcey, without a cry, sprang
into the air and fell face upwards, shot through the heart.

They tried to take the child away, but she would not go; and when they
carried Marcey on the shutter she followed close by, resisting her
father's wishes and commands. And just before they made a prisoner of
Laforce, she said to him very quietly--so like a woman she was--"I will
give you back the basket, and the riding-whip, and the other things, and
I will never forgive you--never--no, never!"

Stroke Laforce had given himself up, had himself ridden to Winnipeg, a
thousand miles, and told his story. Then the sergeant's stripes had been
stripped from his arm, he had been tried, and on his own statement had
got twelve years' imprisonment. Ten years had passed since then--since
Marcey was put away in his grave, since Pierre left Fort Ste. Anne, and
he had not seen it or Lucille in all that time. But he knew that Gyng
was dead, and that his widow and her child had gone south or east
somewhere; of Laforce after his sentence he had never heard.

He stood looking at the house from the shade of the solitary pine-tree
near it, recalling every incident of that fatal night. He had the gift
of looking at a thing in its true proportions, perhaps because he had
little emotion and a strong brain, or perhaps because early in life his
emotions were rationalised. Presently he heard the voice again:

"He waits at the threshold stone--
(Why should the key-hole rust?)
The eagle broods at his side,
(Why should the blind be drawn?)
Long has he watched, and far has he called
The lonely sentinel of the North:
"Who goes there?" to the wandering soul:
Heavy of heart is the Red Patrol
(Why should the key-hole rust?)
The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home,
(Why should the blind be drawn?)"

Now he recognised the voice. Its golden timbre brought back a young
girl's golden face and golden hair. It was summer, and the window with
the broken shutter was open. He was about to go to it, when a door of
the house opened, and a girl appeared. She was tall, with rich, yellow
hair falling loosely about her head; she had a strong, finely cut chin
and a broad brow, under which a pair of deep blue eyes shone-violet
blue, rare and fine. She stood looking down at the Fort for a few