"How far to the north the sunset glow is now."

Stonor understood. He answered in the same tone: "At this season it
doesn't fade out all night. The sun is such a little way below the rim
there, that the light just travels around the northern horizon, and
becomes the dawn in a little while."

For a while they talked of indifferent matters.

By and by she said casually: "When you go out to Swan River, take me
with you."

He thought she was joking. "I say, that would be a lark!"

She laughed a little nervously.

He tried to keep it up, though his heart set up a furious beating at the
bare idea of such a trip. "Can you bake bannock?"

"I can make good biscuits."

"What would we do for a chaperon?"

"Nobody has chaperons nowadays."

"You don't know what a moral community this is!"

"I meant it," she said suddenly, in a tone there was no mistaking.

All his jokes deserted him, and left him trembling a little. Indeed he
was scandalized, too, being less advanced, probably, in his ideas than
she. "It's--it's impossible!" he stammered at last.

"Why?" she asked calmly.

He could not give the real reason, of course. "To take the trail, you!
To ride all day and sleep on the hard ground! And the river trip, an
unknown river with Heaven knows what rapids and other difficulties! A
fragile little thing like you!"

Opposition stimulated her. "What you call my fragility is more apparent
than real," she said with spirit. "As a matter of fact I have more
endurance than most big women. I have less to carry. I am accustomed to
living and travelling in the open. I can ride all day--or walk if need
be."

"It's impossible!" he repeated. It was the policeman who spoke. The
man's blood was leaping, and his imagination painting the most alluring
pictures. How often on his lonely journeys had he not dreamed of the
wild delights of such companionship!

"What is your real reason?" she asked.

"Well, how could you go--with me, you know?" he said, blushing into the
dusk.

"I'm not afraid," she answered instantly. "Anyway, that's my look-out,
isn't it?"

"No," he said, "I have to think of it. The responsibility would be
mine." Here the man broke through--"Oh, I talk like a prig!" he cried.
"But don't you see, I'm not up here on my own. I can't do what I would
like. A policeman has got to be proper, hasn't he?"

She smiled at his _naivete_. "But if I have business out there?"

This sounded heartless to Stonor. It was the firs