.

"I guess I've had enough," he said. "Playing for stakes of this kind
isn't good enough for you!"

Winston laughed a little to hide his resentment, as he said, "I don't
quite understand."

"Pshaw!" said the American, with a contemptuous gesture. "Three times
out of four I've spoiled your hand, and if I didn't know that black
horse I'd take you for some blamed Canadian rancher. You didn't handle
the pictures that way when you stripped the boys to the hide at Regent,
Mr. Courthorne."

"Regent?" said Winston.

The hotel-keeper laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "I wouldn't go back
there too soon, any way. The boys don't seem quite contented, and I
don't figure they would be very nice to you. Well, now, I've no use
for fooling with a man who's too proud to take my dollars, and I've a
pair of horses just stuffed with wickedness in the stable. There's not
much you don't know about a beast, any way, and you can take them out a
league or two if you feel like it."

Winston, who had grown very tired of his host, was glad of any
distraction, especially as he surmised that while the man had never
seen Courthorne, he knew rather more than he did himself about his
doings. Accordingly, he got into the sleigh that was brought out by
and by, and enjoyed the struggle with the half-tamed team, which stood
with ears laid back, prepared for conflict. Oats had been very
plentiful, and prices low that season. Winston, who knew at least as
much about a horse as Lance Courthorne, however, bent them to his will,
and the team were trotting quietly through the shadow of a big birch
bluff a league from town, when he heard a faint clip-clop coming down
the trail behind him. It led straight beneath the leafless branches,
and was beaten smooth and firm, while Winston, who had noticed already
that whenever he strayed any distance from the hotel there was a
mounted cavalryman somewhere in the vicinity, shook the reins.

The team swung into faster stride, the cold wind whistled past him, and
the snow whirled up from beneath the runners, but while he listened,
the rhythmic drumming behind him also quickened a little. Then a
faintly musical jingle of steel accompanied the beat of hoofs, and
Winston glanced about him with a little laugh of annoyance. The dusk
was creeping across the prairie, and a pale star or two growing into
brilliancy in the cloudless sweep of indigo.

"It's getting a trifle tiresome. I'll find out what the fellow wa