nd she's in a dive in Winnipeg
now. As nice a girl--as nice a little girl she was, and could ride any
broncho that ever bucked. What she saw in him--but there, she was only a
child, just the mind of a child she had, and didn't understand. He'd ha'
been tarred and feathered if it'd been known. But old Mick Sarnia said
hush, for his wife's sake, and so we hushed, and Sarnia's wife doesn't
know even now. I thought a lot of Lil, as much almost as if she'd been
my own; and lots o' times, when I think of it, I sit up straight, and
the thing freezes me; and I want to get Marchand by the scruff of the
neck. I got a horse, the worst that ever was--so bad I haven't had the
heart to ride him or sell him. He's so bad he makes me laugh. There's
nothing he won't do, from biting to bolting. Well, I'd like to tie Mr.
Felix Marchand, Esquire, to his back, and let him loose on the prairie,
and pray the Lord to save him if he thought fit. I fancy I know what the
Lord would do. And Lil Sarnia's only one. Since he come back from
the States, he's the limit, oh, the damnedest limit. He's a pest all
round-and now, this!"

Ingolby kept blinking reflectively as Jowett talked. He was doing two
things at once with a facility quite his own. He was understanding all
Jowett was saying, but he was also weighing the whole situation. His
mind was gone fishing, figuratively speaking. He was essentially a man
of action, but his action was the bullet of his mind; he had to be quiet
physically when he was really thinking. Then he was as one in a dream
where all physical motion was mechanical, and his body was acting
automatically. His concentration, and therefore his abstraction, was
phenomenal. Jowett's reminiscences at a time so critical did not disturb
him--did not, indeed, seem to be irrelevant. It was as though Felix
Marchand was being passed in review before him in a series of aspects.
He nodded encouragement to Jowett to go on.

"It's because Marchand hates you, Chief. The bump he got when you
dropped him on the ground that day at Carillon hurts still. It's a
chronic inflammation. Closing them railway offices at Manitou, and
dislodging the officials give him his first good chance. The feud
between the towns is worse now than it's ever been. Make no mistake.
There's a whole lot of toughs in Manitou. Then there's religion,
and there's race, and there's a want-to-stand-still and
leave-me-alone-feeling. They don't want to get on. They don't want
progre