racted.
Decisions about places are as intuitive as convictions about people. One
place is liked, another disliked, and no logical reason can be given for
either. Fort Benton, that blue and golden day, touched his heart so
deeply that the sentiment never left him. Others might see only a raw,
rough frontier trading post; but for the trooper, the glamour of the
West was mingled with the faint, curling smoke dissolving into the
clear atmosphere. He had been right in his strong impulse to cross the
seas! Never had he been more sure.

By this time the steamer had cautiously nosed its way to its moorings
and tied up to a snubbing post. An officer from Fort Macleod came on
board to look after his recruits, and in the bustle of landing Philip
saw Scar Faced Charlie and little Winifred but a moment. Soon the doctor
and Latimer disappeared around the end of a long warehouse on their way
to the hotel, after a promise to look him up on the morrow.

The captain was ordering his men, and presently Burroughs sauntered
near.

"Well, here we are! I wonder 'f I'll see Miss Thornhill again?" As
Danvers made no reply. Burroughs smiled heavily. "I'll see yeh agin.
Likely I'll pull m' freight soon after you do and we'll meet at
Macleod."

* * * * *

"G'bow thar! ye cussed, Texas horned toad! Haw, thar! ye bull-headed son
of a gun, pull ahead! Whoa! Haw! Ye long-horned, mackerel-back cross
between a shanghai rooster an' a mud-hen, I'll skin ye alive in about a
minute!" The pop of a bull-whip followed like a pistol shot.

These vibrating adjurations, rending the balmy Sunday air, would have
amazed and shocked the citizens of a more cultured community, but
served in Fort Benton merely to start Scar Faced Charlie's bull-team,
loaded almost beyond hauling.

Charlie's shouts, delivered in the vernacular which he avoided when his
small kin was near, waked Philip Danvers, and soon he was outside the
walls of the 'dobe fort which Major Thornhill had courteously placed at
the service of the Canadian officer and his recruits. He called to the
driver and fell into step beside the bull-team heading for the western
bluffs, while the bull-whacker told him that little Winifred was being
cared for by "a real nice old lady."

As he returned to town, after a pleasant good-by, he turned more than
once to note the slow, swinging plod of the bulls. Finally he walked
more briskly, and, finding the doctor and Latimer, they s