e
old Shakespearian sonnet, with a sort of dreamy, gentle bitterness: "As
binifits forghot--forghot!--as binifits forghot! . . . . Luk tu that
now! eyah! 'tis th' trute, lad! . . . . for here--unless I am mistuk,
comes me bould Yorkey--an' dhrunk as 'a fiddler's ---- again. Tchkk! an'
me on'y just afther warnin' um. . . ."

And, a far-away black spot as yet, down the moonlit, snow-banked trail,
indistinctly they beheld an unsteady figure slowly weaving its way
towards the detachment. At intervals the night-wind wafted to them
snatches of song.

"Singin', singin'," muttered Slavin, "from break av morrn 'till jewy
eve! . . . Misther B---- Yorke! luks 'tis goin' large y'are th' night."

Nearer and nearer approached the stumbling black figure, weaving an
eccentric course in and out along the line of telephone poles; and, to
their ears came the voice of one crying in the wilderness:--

"_O, the Midnight Son! the Midnight Son! (hic)
You needn't go trottin' to Norway--
You'll find him in ev'ry doorway--_"

A sudden cessation of the music, coupled with certain slightly
indistinct, weird contortions of the vocalist's figure, apprised the
watchers that a snow-bank had momentarily claimed him. Then, suddenly
and saucily, as if without a break, the throbbing, high-pitched tenor
piped up again--

"_You'll behold him in his glory
If you on'y take a run (hic)
Down the Strand--that's the Land
Of the Midnight Son_."

Dewy eve indeed!--a far cry to the Strand! . . . How freakish sounded
that old London variety stage ditty ridiculing the nightly silence of the
great snow-bound Nor' West. Redmond could not refrain an explosive,
snorting chuckle as he remarked the erratic gait of the slowly
approaching pedestrian. As Slavin had opined, he was "going large." His
vocal efforts had ceased temporarily, and now it was the junior
constable's merriment that broke the frosty stillness of the night.

But Slavin did not laugh. Watchfully he waited there--curiously still,
his head jutting forward loweringly from between his huge shoulders.

"Tchkk!" he clucked in gentle distaste--"In uniform . . . an' just afther
comin' off the thrain! . . . th' like av that now 'tis--'tis
scandh'lus! . . ."

Suddenly Redmond shivered, and his mirth died within him. The air seemed
to have become charged with a tense, ominous something that filled him
with a great dread--of what? he knew not. He felt an inexplicable
impulse to