've got to put her out of your mind, my son--or just keep
her as a lovely dream not to be taken in earnest. Hardly likely, after
seeing the world, that she'd look twice at a sergeant of police!"

In his innocence Stonor adopted the best possible way of attracting her
attention to himself. More than once, when he was not looking, her eyes
sought him out curiously. In answer to her questions of the other men it
appeared that it was Stonor who had sent the natives out in advance to
drive the game past them: it was Stonor who surprised them with a cloth
already spread under a poplar tree: it was Stonor who cooked the birds
so deliciously. She was neither vain nor silly, but at the same time in
a company where every man lay down at her feet, so to speak, and begged
her to tread on him, it could not but seem peculiar to her that the
best-looking man of them all should so studiously avoid her.

Next day they all crossed the river and rode up to Simon Grampierre's
place, where the half-breeds repeated the Victoria Day games for the
amusement of the visitors. (These days are still talked of at Fort
Enterprise.) Stonor was finally induced to give an exhibition of
high-school riding as taught to the police recruits, and thereby threw
all the other events in the shade. But their plaudits overwhelmed him.
He disappeared and was seen no more that day.

Sunday followed. Mr. Pringle and his sister had got the little church in
order, and services were held there for the first time in many months.
The mission was half a mile east of the Company buildings, and after
church they walked home beside the fields of sprouting grain, in a
comfortable Sabbath peace that was much the same at Enterprise as
elsewhere in the world.

The procession travelled in the following order: First, four surveyors
marching with their heads over their shoulders, at imminent risk of an
undignified stumble in the trail; next, Clare Starling, flanked on one
side by Gaviller, on the other by Doc Giddings, with two more surveyors
on the outlying wings, peering forward to get a glimpse of her; then
Captain Stinson, Mathews, and Sergeant Stonor in a line, talking about
the state of the crops, and making believe to pay no attention to what
was going on ahead; lastly, Mr. Pringle and his sister hurrying to catch
up.

Half-way home Miss Starling, _a propos_ of nothing, suddenly stopped and
turned her head. "Sergeant Stonor," she said. He stepped to her side.
Since she