r cared anything for?"

He shrugged his shoulders tolerantly. "What did you expect of me?"

"You might have--oh, well, I suppose you'll go your own gait,
regardless," I sputtered. "That's your privilege. But I don't see how
you had the nerve to pass _her_ up that way. Especially since that Stony
Crossing deal."

Mac took a dozen steps before he answered me.

"You don't understand the lay of things, Sarge," he said, rather
hesitatingly. "If I have the situation sized up right, Lyn is
practically alone here, and things are going to look pretty black to her
when she learns what has happened. Hank never had anything much to do
with his people. I doubt if Lyn has even a speaking acquaintance with
her nearest kin. She has friends in the South--plenty of them who'd be
more than glad to do as much for her as you or I. But we're a long way
from the Canadian River, now. And so if she has made friends among the
official set here, it's up to me to stand back--until that _cache_ is
found, anyway."

"Then you're not going to try and see her, and tell her about this thing
yourself?" I asked.

"I can't," he replied impatiently. "You'll have to do that, Sarge. Hang
it, can't you see where I stand? The mere fact that Lessard was taking
her about shows that these officers' women have received her with open
arms. They form a clique as exclusive as a quarantined smallpox patient,
and a 'non-com' like myself is barred out, until I win a pair of
shoulder-straps; when my rank would make me socially possible. Meantime,
I'm a sergeant, and if Lyn went to picking friends out of the ranks, I'm
not sure they wouldn't drop her like a hot potato. Sounds rotten, but
that's their style; and you've been through the mill at home enough to
know what it is to be knifed socially. It's different with you; you're
an American citizen, a countryman of hers. You understand?"

"Yes," I answered tartly. "But I don't understand how you can stomach
this sort of existence. What is there in it? Where is the profit or
satisfaction in this kind of thing, for you? Will the man in the ranks
get credit for taming the Northwest when his work is done? Why the devil
don't you quit the job? Cut loose and be a free agent again."

"It is a temptation, the way things have come up in the last day or
two," he mused. "I'd like to be foot-loose, so I could work it out
without any string attached to me. But there are only two ways I could
get out of the Force, and neither is