appointment.

After Philip retired that night the monotone of the soldiers' talk
merged into confused and indistinct recollections of his first Sunday at
Fort Benton. Eva Thornhill's scornful yet inviting face seemed drawing
him through deep waters, to be replaced by the face of the child
Winifred, terror-stricken as when she was in the river. Then came the
memory of the even-song at home, threading its sweetly haunting way
through the wild shouts of a frontier town that continued joyously its
night of revelry, until, at last, he fell asleep.

[Illustration]

BOOK II

_THE PRAIRIE_

_"On Darden plain
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions."
--Troilus and Cressida_

[Illustration]

Chapter I

Under the Union Jack

The arrival of the troopers at Fort Macleod, after the long journey on
horseback over the prairie, was a relief to Philip Danvers, and the
weeks that followed were full of interest. Nevertheless, he felt a
loneliness which was all the greater when he remembered his new-found
friends at Fort Benton. The two hundred miles that separated him from
the doctor and Arthur Latimer might have been two thousand for all he
saw of them, and save for an occasional letter from the hopeful
Southerner he had little that could be called companionship. Among all
the troopers and traders there were none that appealed to Danvers, and
had it not been for the devotion of O'Dwyer he would have been alone
indeed.

This gay Irish trooper had come out the year previous, and when the
recruits arrived from Fort Benton had been the first to welcome them,
"from the owld counthry." There was nothing in common between the silent
Englishman and this son of Erin, but from the night when Danvers had
discovered him, some miles from the Fort, deserted by his two convivial
companions, and had assisted him to the barracks, O'Dwyer had been his
loyal subject and devoted slave.

Now, after three months, his zeal had not abated, and while Danvers lay
stretched on the bank of the wide slough, O'Dwyer could be seen, not far
distant, sunning himself like a contented dog at his master's feet.

Long the English lad lay looking over the infinite reaches of tranquil
prairie, domed with a cloudless September sky.

This island in Old Man's River had become the little world in which he
lived. To the right was the Fort--a square stockade of cottonwoo