iet on the big
black horse. 'Any way, I can't tell you where she is just now because
she left the dancing saloon she was in down in Montana when I last saw
her.'

"I had the big whip that day, and I forgot everything as I heard the
hiss of it round my shoulder. It came home across the ugly face of
him, and then I flung it down and grabbed the carbine as he swung the
black around with one hand fumbling in his jacket. It came out empty,
an' we sat there a moment, the two of us, Courthorne white as death,
his eyes like burning coals, and the fingers of me trembling on the
carbine. Sorrow on the man that he hadn't a pistol or I'd have sent
the black soul of him to the divil it came from."

The lad panted, and Payne, who had guessed at his hopeless devotion to
the girl who had listened to Courthorne, made a gesture of disapproval
that was tempered by sympathy. It was for her sake, he fancied,
Shannon had left the Ontario clearing and followed Larry Blake to the
West.

"I'm glad he hadn't, Pat," said Payne. "What was the end of it?"

"I remembered," said the other with a groan, "remembered I was Trooper
Shannon, an' dropped the carbine into the wagon. Courthorne wheels the
black horse round, an' I saw the red line across the face of him."

"'You'll be sorry for this, my lad,' says he."

"He's a dangerous man," Payne said, thoughtfully. "Pat, you came near
being a ---- ass that day. Any way, it's time we went in, and as
Larry's here I shouldn't wonder if we saw Courthorne again before the
morning."

The icy cold went through them to the bone as they left the stables,
and it was a relief to enter the loghouse which was heated to fustiness
by the glowing stove. A lamp hung from a rough birch beam, and its
uncertain radiance showed motionless figures wrapped in blankets in the
bunks round the walls. Two men were, however, dressing, and one
already in uniform sat at a table talking to another swathed in furs,
who was from his appearance a prairie farmer. The man at the table was
lean and weather-bronzed, with grizzled hair and observant eyes. They
were fixed steadily upon the farmer, who knew that very little which
happened upon the prairie escaped the vigilance of Sergeant Stimson.

"It's straight talk you're giving me, Larry? What do you figure on
making by it?" he said.

The farmer laughed mirthlessly, "Not much, any way, beyond the chance
of getting a bullet in me back; or me best steer lifted one dark