g flesh, while the mittened hands he beat upon his breast fell
solidly on his wrappings without separate motion of the fingers. Once
or twice the horse stamped fretfully, but a touch of hand and heel
quieted him, for though the frozen flesh may shrink, unwavering
obedience is demanded equally from man and beast enrolled in the
service of the Northwest police.

"Stiddy, now," said the lad, partly to discover if he still retained
the power of speech. "Sure ye know the order that was given me, and if
it's a funeral that comes of it the Government will bury ye."

He sighed as he beat his hands upon his breast again, and when a
flicker of moonlight smote a passing track of brightness athwart the
tossing birches his young face was very grim. Like many another
trooper of the Northwest police, Shannon had his story, and he
remembered the one trace of romance that had brightened his hard bare
life that night as he waited for the man who had dissipated it.

When Larry Blake moved West from Ontario, Shannon, drawn by his
sister's dark eyes, followed him, and took up a Government grant of
prairie sod. His dollars were few, but he had a stout heart and two
working oxen, and nothing seemed impossible while Ailly Blake smiled on
him, and she smiled tolerably frequently, for Shannon was a
well-favored lad. He had worked harder than most grown men could do,
won one good harvest, and had a few dollars in the bank when Courthorne
rode up to Blake's homestead on his big black horse. After that, all
Shannon's hopes and ambitions came down with a crash; and the day he
found Blake gray in face with shame and rage, he offered Sergeant
Stimson his services. Now he was filled with an unholy content that he
had done so, for he came of a race that does not forget an injury and
has sufficient cause for a jealous pride in the virtue of its women.
He and Larry might have forgiven a pistol shot, but they could not
forget the shame.

Suddenly he stiffened to attention, for though a man of the cities
would probably have heard nothing but the wailing of the wind, he
caught a faint rhythmic drumming which might have been made by a
galloping horse. It ceased, and he surmised, probably correctly, that
it was trooper Payne returning. It was, however, his business to watch
the forking of the trail, and when he could only hear the thrashing of
the birches, he moved his mittened hand from the bridle, and patted the
restive horse. Just then the blu