Bradley and
his clique have blocked me everywhere from getting credit, and I'd give
five years of my life to beat them in their dirty game. If I fail to get
it at Aspen Vale I'm done. But I'll have a try, a good big try. How far
exactly is it? I've never gone by this trail."

Bulrush shook his head reprovingly. "It's too long a journey for you to
take after your knock-out. You're not fit to travel yet. I don't like
it a bit. Lydia said this morning it was a crime against yourself, going
off like this, and--"

"Lydia?--oh yes, pardonnez-moi, m'sieu'! I did not know her name was
Lydia."

"I didn't either till after we were engaged." Crozier stared in blank
amazement. "You didn't know her name till after you were engaged? What
did you call her before that?"

"Why, I called her Nurse." answered the fat lover. "We all called her
that, and it sounded comfortable and homelike and good for every day.
It had a sort of York-shilling confidence, and your life was in her
hands--a first-class you-and-me kind of feeling."

"Why don't you stick to it, then?"

"She doesn't want it. She says it sounds so old, and that I'd be calling
her 'mother' next."

"And won't you?" asked Crozier slyly. "Everything in season," beamed
Jesse, and he shone, and was at once happy and composed. Crozier
relapsed into silence, for he was thinking that the lost years had been
barren of children. He turned to look at the home they had left. It was
some distance away now, but he could see Kitty still at the corner of
the house with a small harvest of laundered linen in her hand.

"She made that fresh bed of boughs for me--ah, but I had a good sleep
last night!" he added aloud. "I feel fit for the fight before me." He
drew himself up and began to nod here and there to people who greeted
him.

In the house behind them at that moment Kitty was saying to her mother,
"Where is he going, mother?"

"To Aspen Vale," was the reply. "If you'd been at breakfast you'd have
heard. He'll be gone two days, perhaps three."

Three days! She regretted now that she had not said to herself,
"Courage, soldier," and gone to say good-bye to him when he called
to her. Perhaps she would not see him again till after the other
woman--till after the wife-came. Then--then the house would be empty;
then the house would be so still. And then John Sibley would come and--

CHAPTER XI. IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER

Three days passed, but before they ended there came anot