u will understand, Phil?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Danvers, realizing that he had been too long silent.
"Write to me when you can, Arthur. You know what the winters are up in
this country."

They smoked in silence for an hour or more--that strange communion that
men find gives greater sympathy than any speech. Then Danvers wrung the
hand of his friend, and set out for the barracks.

Many sober faces clustered around Eva when she said good-bye next
morning, but Burroughs' was not among them. He had said nothing of his
humiliation, but had avoided meeting Miss Thornhill again. Her father
was greatly dissatisfied; he thought that Eva's reception of the
attention of other men had offended the trader, and he did not spare his
blame for such a condition of things. Eva maintained her equanimity,
feeling that she had done well to preserve the secret of her engagement,
and to win Philip's pledge to silence.

Two months later Robert Burroughs sold out his trading-post, and he,
too, prepared to return to the States. When he told Pine Coulee that she
was to return to her father's lodge with the boy, he was, for the first
time, afraid of the woman. All her savage blood surged in protest; his
offers to support their child were spurned. He was glad when the squaw
was sullenly silent in the lodges of her tribe, and he determined never
to come again to Macleod--to leave the past behind him. That was his
dominant thought as he started out for Fort Benton, accompanied by his
familiar, Wild Cat Bill.

Their life at Fort Macleod had been in many ways one of jeopardy. He had
run incredible risks of exposure and ruin, but he had won, through sheer
audacity and bravado. He smiled covertly as he recalled the fact that
he, the greatest whiskey smuggler in the Whoop Up Country, was also the
privileged friend of an unsuspecting, honorable, upright
officer--Colonel Macleod. Even his hardened conscience pricked as he
thought how he had deceived one who, with somewhat more of acumen, and
somewhat less of belief in men, would have been most severe on his
wrong-doing.

But that was over. To turn to less reprehensible and underhand ways
would be easy, he was sure. Or, if he found that the old ways of
accomplishing his purpose were more profitable, he would exercise them
on bigger projects in Montana. He had made a fortune in the Whoop Up
Country. Now he intended to increase it in the development of Montana's
resources. He proposed to marry and rear a