and.

'Take away that one chance, and--they won't play.' He turned to the man
in charge of the Post. 'Storekeeper, weight out three fathoms of your
best half-inch manila.

'We'll establish a precedent which will last the men of Forty-Mile to
the end of time,' he prophesied. Then he coiled the rope about his arm
and led his followers out of doors, just in time to meet the principals.

'What danged right'd he to fetch my wife in?' thundered Bettles to the
soothing overtures of a friend. ''Twa'n't called for,' he concluded
decisively. ''Twa'n't called for,' he reiterated again and again,
pacing up and down and waiting for Lon McFane.

And Lon McFane--his face was hot and tongue rapid as he flaunted
insurrection in the face of the Church. 'Then, father,' he cried, 'it's
with an aisy heart I'll roll in me flamy blankets, the broad of me back
on a bed of coals. Niver shall it be said that Lon McFane took a lie
'twixt the teeth without iver liftin' a hand! An' I'll not ask a
blessin'. The years have been wild, but it's the heart was in the right
place.' 'But it's not the heart, Lon,' interposed Father Roubeau; 'It's
pride that bids you forth to slay your fellow man.' 'Yer Frinch,' Lon
replied. And then, turning to leave him, 'An' will ye say a mass if the
luck is against me?' But the priest smiled, thrust his moccasined feet
to the fore, and went out upon the white breast of the silent river. A
packed trail, the width of a sixteen-inch sled, led out to the
waterhole. On either side lay the deep, soft snow. The men trod in
single file, without conversation; and the black-stoled priest in their
midst gave to the function the solemn aspect of a funeral. It was a
warm winter's day for Forty-Mile--a day in which the sky, filled with
heaviness, drew closer to the earth, and the mercury sought the
unwonted level of twenty below. But there was no cheer in the warmth.
There was little air in the upper strata, and the clouds hung
motionless, giving sullen promise of an early snowfall. And the earth,
unresponsive, made no preparation, content in its hibernation.

When the waterhole was reached, Bettles, having evidently reviewed the
quarrel during the silent walk, burst out in a final ''Twa'n't called
for,' while Lon McFane kept grim silence. Indignation so choked him
that he could not speak.

Yet deep down, whenever their own wrongs were not uppermost, both men
wondered at their comrades. They had expected opposition, and this
ta