o of the buffalo-hunters exchanged words with us while Mac was
building his cigarette and lighting it. Old Piegan stretched himself in
the grass, and in a few moments was snoring energetically, his grizzled
face bared to the cloudless sky. The camp grew still, except for the
rough and ready cook pottering about the fire, boiling buffalo-meat and
mixing biscuit-dough. The fire crackled around the Dutch ovens, and the
odor of coffee came floating by. Then Mac hunched himself against a
wagon-wheel and began to talk.

"I suppose it looks odd to you, Sarge, to see me in this rig?" he asked
whimsically. "It beats punching cows, though--that is, when a fellow
discovers that he isn't a successful cowpuncher."

"Does it?" I returned dryly. "You were making good in the cow business
last time I saw you. What did you see in the Mounted Police that took
your fancy?"

He shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "They're making history in
this neck of the woods," he said, "and I joined for lack of something
better to do. You'll find us a cosmopolitan lot, and not bad specimens
as men go. It's a tolerably satisfying life--once you get out of the
ranks."

"How about that?" I queried; and as I asked the question I noticed for
the first time the gilt bars on his coat sleeve. "You've got past the
buck trooper stage then? How long have you been in the force?"

"Joined the year they took over the Territory," he replied. "Yes, I've
prospered in the service. Got to be a sergeant; I'm in charge of a
line-post on Milk River--Pend d' Oreille. You'd better come on over and
stay with me a day or two, Sarge."

"I was heading in that direction," I answered, "only I expected to cross
the river farther up. But, man, I never thought to see you up here. I
thought you'd settled down for keeps; supposed you were playing
major-domo for the Double R down on the Canadian River, and the father
of a family by this time. How we do get switched around in this old
world."

"Don't we, though," he said reflectively. "It's a great game. You never
know when nor where your trail is liable to fork and lead you to new
countries and new faces, or maybe plumb over the big divide. Oh, well,
it'll be all the same a hundred years from now, as Bill Frayne used to
say."

"You've turned cynic," I told him, and he smiled.

"No," he declared, "I rather think I'd be classed as a philosopher; if
you could call a man a philosopher who can enjoy hammering over this
bald cou