te waste,
and only the coyote knows their resting-place, but the watch and ward
is kept, and the lonely settler dwells as safe in the wilderness as he
would in an English town.

Trooper Shannon was an Irishman from the bush of Ontario; Trooper
Payne, English, and a scion of a somewhat distinguished family in the
old country, but while he told nobody why he left it suddenly, nobody
thought of asking him. He was known to be a bold rider and careful of
his beast, and that was sufficient for his comrades and the keen-eyed
Sergeant Stimson. He glanced at his companion thoughtfully as he said,
"She was a pretty girl. You knew her in Ontario?"

Shannon's hands trembled a little. "Sure," he said. "Larry's place
was just a mile beyont our clearing, an' there was never a bonnier
thing than Ailly Blake came out from the old country--but is it need
there is for talking when ye've seen her? There was once I watched her
smile at ye with the black eyes that would have melted the heart out of
any man. Waking and sleeping they're with me still."

Three generations of the Shannons had hewn the lonely clearing further
into the bush of Ontario and married the daughters of the soil, but the
Celtic strain, it was evident, had not run out yet. Payne, however,
came of English stock, and expressed himself differently.

"It was a--shame," he said. "Of course he flung her over. I think you
saw him, Pat?"

Shannon's face grew grayer, and he quivered visibly as his passion
shook him, while Payne felt his own blood pulse faster as he remembered
the graceful dark-eyed girl who had given him and his comrade many a
welcome meal when their duty took them near her brother's homestead.
That was, however, before one black day for Ailly and Larry Blake when
Lance Courthorne also rode that way.

"Yes," said the lad from Ontario, "I was driving in for the stores when
I met him in the willow bluff, an' Courthorne pulls his divil of a
black horse up with as little ugly smile on the lips of him when I
swung the wagon right across the trail.

"'That's not civil, trooper,' says he.

"'I'm wanting a word,' says I, with the black hate choking me at the
sight of him. 'What have ye done with Ailly?'

"'Is it anything to you?' says he.

"'It's everything,' says I. 'And if ye will not tell me I'll tear it
out of ye.'

"Courthorne laughs a little, but I saw the divil in his eyes. 'I don't
think you're quite man enough,' says he, sitting very qu