me on here."

I felt like a beast, as if I had struck her with my fist, but at any
rate, it was all told; all that she need ever know. I sat still and
watched her, wondering nervously what she would do.

It was a strain to sit there silent, for Lyn neither did or said
anything at first. Perhaps she cried afterward, when she got by herself,
but not then; just looked at me, through me, almost, her face white and
drawn into pained lines, and those purple-blue eyes perfectly black. I
got up at last, and put one hand on her shoulder.

"It's hell, little girl, I know." I said this hardly realizing that I
swore. "We can't bring the old man back to life, but we can surely run
down the cold-blooded devils that killed him. I have a crow to pick with
them myself; but that doesn't matter; I'd be in the game anyway. We'll
get them somehow, when Mac gets out and can play his hand again. It was
finding your father and giving him decent burial that kept us out so
long. I don't understand, yet, why Lessard should pitch into MacRae so
hard for doing that much. You know Mac, Lyn, and you know me--we'll do
what we can."

She didn't move for a minute, and the shocked, stricken look in her eyes
grew more intense. Then she dropped her head in the palms of her hands
with a little sobbing cry. "Sarge, I--I wish you'd go, now," she
whispered. "I want to--to be all by myself, for a while. I'll be all
right by and by."

I stood irresolute for a second. It may have been my fancy, but I seemed
to hear her whisper, "Oh, Gordon, Gordon!" Then I hesitated no longer,
but turned away and left her alone with her grief; it was not for me to
comfort her. And when I had walked a hundred yards or more, I looked
back. She was still sitting as I had left her, head bowed on her hands,
and the afternoon sun playing hide-and-seek in the heavy coils of her
tawny-gold hair.

CHAPTER IX.

AN IDLE AFTERNOON.

For the next hour or two I poked aimlessly around the post buildings,
chafing at the forced inaction and wondering what I would better do
after I'd gone with the squad of redcoats to those graves and helped
bring the bodies in. Even if I had a pack-horse and a grub-stake, it
would be on a par with chasing a rainbow for me to start on a lone hunt
for Hank Rowan's _cache_. I didn't know the Writing-Stone country, and a
man had no business wandering up and down those somber ridges alone,
away from the big freight-trails, unless he was anxious to be