fcv
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 ?? TO EXC 
 TfflS BOO 
 
 STRATF r 
 
 642-644 So. M;
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 G. B . LANCASTER 
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 BY 
 
 G. B. LANCASTER P 5-eu 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SONS O'MEN." "THE SPUR," 
 "THE ALTAR STAIR." ETC. 
 
 L_ 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1913. 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 PR 
 
 TO MY GOOD CANADIAN FRIENDS, 
 
 DR. HELEN MACMURCHY AND 
 
 MISS MARJORY MACMURCHY, 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS, WITH MEMORIES AND HOPES 
 
 G. B. L. 
 
 2131145
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. "Two WHO WERE FRIENDS" .... 11 
 
 II. " WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL " . 29 
 
 III. " I KNOW WHAT I'M AT " 52 
 
 IV. " GRANGE'S ANDREE " 70 
 
 V. " WE GENERALLY DON'T " 94 
 
 VI. " THE YOUNG GOD FREY " 114 
 
 VII. "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " . . . . 139 
 
 VIII. "ON THE ATHABASKA " 169 
 
 IX. " You UNDERSTAND " ...... 198 
 
 X. " THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY "... 228 
 
 XI. " IL M'AIME, JE Vous Dis " .... 254 
 
 XII. "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" . . . . 276 
 
 XIII. "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" .... 298 
 
 XIV. " ON THE LONG TRAIL " 322 
 
 XV. " THE BARREN GROUNDS " 346 
 
 XVI. " THE LAW Is POWERLESS THERE "... 365 
 
 XVII. " BUT THAT CAN'T BE " 377 
 
 XVIII. " THE EPITOME OF LIFE " 396 
 
 XIX. "THE LONE PATROL" 417 
 
 XX. "You MEAN TO Do IT?" 435 
 
 XXI. " THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE " . . 454 
 
 XXII. " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 470
 
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS

 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS " 
 
 OVER the firred hill-top, behind the squat freighter's shack 
 the wind came, shouting strongly. It clattered the stiff 
 saskatoon bushes, and thrust at the young poplars until 
 they ran in yellow waves along the crest, and leapt down 
 on the river with a bullying roar that drove the water 
 into startled foam. All across the sky the clouds were 
 reefing, tall as churches, to the westward where the sun 
 lay, like a blot of red paint, on clouds livid as bruised 
 flesh. 
 
 There was a moan in the air; an uneasiness, as though 
 Nature was afraid, not knowing why. Down the grey line 
 of the river a loon flew, low and swift. It cried out, 
 turning its bold black head left and right; and the harsh, 
 unearthly sound struck a note of warning to the man who 
 shot round the cotton-wood promontory with the long, tire- 
 less, white-man paddle-stroke. He swung the canoe-nose 
 for the shore by the shack and halted, gripping the bunch- 
 grass with a strong hand, and glancing left and right with 
 bold, keen eyes, even as the loon had done. 
 
 Up-stream the cut-banks veered in, rough rock and tall 
 earth-faces seamed with forest. Across the river, where 
 the spruces stood, black-shouldered against the west, the 
 wind was stringing wild harmonies such as the seamen 
 know, and in the clearing the yellowed grass sighed and 
 shuddered, over-ripe for the scythe. 
 
 The man looked at the shack, bringing his eyes back, 
 step by step, over the grass to the water-lip. Then he 
 came ashore, hauling his canoe after him, and stood up- 
 right to fill his pipe. He had read all that the clumsily- 
 hidden grass-trail had to tell, and all that was meant by 
 the clumsily-hidden nose of that canoe in the brush-pile. 
 This was a trap; laid skilfully, but not skilfully enough, 
 for it explained itself to the keen-eyed man as a trap. It 
 explained a little more; just enough to bring a tight smile 
 
 11
 
 12 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 to the sun-blistered lips as the man lit his pipe under the 
 curve of a well-shaped hand scarred with rough work. 
 This was the end of the long, stern chase through three 
 full months of storm and sunshine. This was the end, with 
 defiance to the Law in place of submission and defiance 
 with a solid log-and-daub shack wall before it. 
 
 There was not any doubt that he had been watched from 
 the moment when the canoe nosed the sedgy bank of the 
 clearing. The man smiled again, ground the match out 
 under a moccasined heel, jerked his revolver into easy posi- 
 tion for sharp work, and walked straight for the shack 
 door with the springy, alert step that tells of the drill- 
 yard. On his shoulders the pale khaki of his tunic had 
 faded to a dirty blurr; one of the black buffalo-head collar- 
 badges, which marked him as a unit of the Royal North- 
 West Mounted Police of Canada out hunting, was missing, 
 and his Stetson hat looked as though it had been slept in 
 more often than his bed for these many weeks past. 
 
 His loins were cramped with the canoe-ache and his body 
 dried up with heat. But he walked lightly, with the wind 
 plucking at him petulantly and the sunset flooding into the 
 clearing until the grass seemed to splash away in spurts of 
 blood from his steady feet. And, behind that sagging door 
 and those eyeless windows, the man whom he had hunted 
 so long was waiting him at last. In the Blue Books the one 
 man was down as Reg. No. 4769 Corporal Heriot, R. L., 
 and the other as Samuel Moonias, half-breed, wanted on 
 two charges of murder. But no living soul called Moonias 
 by his first name, any more than they called Dick Heriot 
 by his second, although there were many who used the 
 same terms of disapprobation for both. 
 
 Dick's inner knowledge, that special gift to the roving 
 men who guard their lives by head and hand, had put the 
 situation crystal-clear before him. Moonias had a duck- 
 gun only, one loaded with extra-heavy slugs and given to 
 kicking. Moonias believed that Dick, thinking he had come 
 ashore for sleep, would go in, swift and straightly, expect- 
 ing to catch him unready. Because of these things Moonias 
 would wait for a close shot. One in the face as Dick 
 pushed the door open, most likely. He might try a pot- 
 shot from the window. Chance would have to take care of
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 13 
 
 the other man then. But if it was the door Dick 
 
 leapt the last three feet like a slung stone, splintering the 
 crazy door on its one hinge, and bearing down beneath the 
 wood Moonias and his duck-gun. The exoloding charge 
 blew a turf of thatch off the roof, and on the earth floor 
 the two men clinched grimly, dumb, sweating; with the net 
 of death shaken out loosely to catch them, and that un- 
 healthy red of the sunset spurting over wide-bladed knife 
 and revolver-barrel. 
 
 The half-breed was brutally strong; but that finer, su- 
 perber courage which God gives the gentlemen of His earth 
 when they have absolved themselves from most of the other 
 merits brought the handcuffs round Moonias' thick wrists 
 at last. Then Dick rose lightly ; breathed, but civil. 
 
 " You put up a good fight, Moonias," he said. " And 
 though it's not manners to resist the Law, I don't blame 
 you. No, not at all. But I do blame you for not seeing 
 the strategic possibilities of that window, though I guessed 
 you wouldn't. Get up." 
 
 He went through the half-breed's pockets, nodded, and 
 turned on his heel. 
 
 " You likely know better than to try any game with those 
 on you," he said, and the words broke with a yawn. " I 
 think we can do with some sleep, Moonias. I haven't had 
 any for three nights, and I'll swear you haven't either. 
 That's why you made such a damned bad break in your 
 judgment, maybe. Get right over into that corner." 
 
 The breed obeyed, and flung himself down straightway 
 in that animal acceptance of the inevitable which was his 
 heritage. Whistling softly, Dick crossed to what looked 
 like a pile of old feed-sacks in the dark under the window, 
 laid hold of them with both hands, and exploded into a 
 sudden oath that straightened him up with the force of it. 
 Then he stooped again; slid his arms round the man who 
 lay huddled there, and carried him out into the thin slivers 
 of light which were all the low sun sent through the 
 spruces. 
 
 The man was dripping with water. His legs left a wet 
 trail as Dick dragged him over the earth floor, and his 
 long arms and bare head fell limp. Moonias stared out of 
 his shock of coarse hair with a sudden eye-glitter.
 
 14 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Him finish," he said, and the cluck of his tongue was 
 pure satisfaction. 
 
 " I wish you were going to be lynched," said Dick un- 
 emotionally. " I'd invite every man along the river to 
 mark you. I imagine you're responsible for this, eh? It's 
 probably the Sergeant from Grey Wolf by his stripes. 
 But " 
 
 His voice broke short as he pulled the white face up 
 across his knee in the red level track of the light. Stark 
 river and clearing, and pines blackening in the night 
 changed in a flash to an orchard of bees and apple- 
 blossoms ; to a scent of thyme that sickened his memory to 
 this day, and to a girl's sobbing voice saying words that did 
 not hold Tempest's name and that yet were full of Tem- 
 pest. A cruel look came into his eyes as he stared down 
 on the still face with the short drooped upper lip and the 
 well-set jaw and throat. 
 
 " If you married her she made you pay for it, or you 
 wouldn't be here," he said to it. " And if you didn't 
 was it she who lied, and not you ? " 
 
 The face gave no answer. The red rays slid off it, 
 leaving it ashen. And then Dick took in his hands the 
 body of this man whose heart he once had known and 
 tended it skilfully; binding the forearm that was broken 
 just below the elbow, and strapping as best he might the 
 flesh that a dead snag in the river had ripped open. 
 
 " Spilt out of his canoe, of course," he said. '" You have 
 a clean sheet there, Moonias. Unless did you bring him 
 in?" 
 
 The breed grunted. He seemed to feel no hate towards 
 Dick, no interest in the man whom he had salvaged from 
 the river. 
 
 " Aha," he said. " But him no gun. No use him." 
 
 Dick's brief smile had a little bitter twist to it. 
 
 " We are not all so frank regarding the reasons for our 
 actions, my friend," he said, lightly. " Now, if " 
 
 And then Tempest opened his eyes wide and wonder- 
 ing as a child's, and looked up at the man above him. 
 He seemed like one in a waking dream, who hears the 
 ghosts of other years light-heeled about his head. 
 
 " The wind is bitter bad across the Barren Lands to-
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 15 
 
 niglit, Dick," he said. " I saw a wolverine white as a 
 leper just now." 
 
 The rowel of memory touched him. He sat up with his 
 brown, sensitive face hardening, and the other looked at 
 him through the mask of amused indifference which hid 
 him when he cared to hide. For a lie lay between these 
 two; high as a woman's yellow head, and unstable as the 
 young love they both had given her. Tempest asked ques- 
 tions, and Dick answered civilly, according to his station. 
 Then he turned his back on Tempest, and walked to the 
 door, looking out. The sun was dead on the livid bowl 
 of the sky and the pale river where the wind blew. His 
 love for the yellow-haired woman had been dead long 
 since. But his love for this man who had trodden the 
 outer trails of the north with him was quick yet; how 
 quick he had not known until he felt the shivering beat 
 of Tempest's heart under his hand just now. 
 
 Later, he brought food from his canoe; lit the rusty, 
 broken stove, and spread his thin waterproof mattress and 
 his blanket for Tempest. This was bare duty only be- 
 cause of that extra stripe on Tempest's sleeve. Then, 
 using still the language of passers-by, they lay down; 
 Tempest in restless pain by the stove, and Dick on the 
 threshold, with cheek on arm and his revolver pushed like 
 the nose of a dog into his palm. And beyond their sleep- 
 ing bodies stretched that great land which had fashioned 
 and hardened them; which had known the tread of their 
 moccasins along the forest-trails beaten asphalt-smooth by 
 the passing of many generations, and had heard their 
 voices call each other across rivers that had never parted 
 them as the after years had done. 
 
 In the morning Dick found a sturgeon-head scow in the 
 reeds, and he went to Tempest, suggesting with colourless 
 civility the advisability of tracking her up river with 
 Tempest aboard. 
 
 " She has probably got loose from Pitcher Portage," he 
 said. " Moonias has ripped the side out of his canoe, and 
 you've lost yours. We could freight all we have left on 
 the scow." 
 
 Tempest nodded consent. He walked and moved with 
 the crisp strength Dick knew of old, and his eyes were
 
 16 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 vital, forelooking, despite the pain in them. He was 
 dreamer still; dreaming mightily, as he had once dreamed 
 with Dick in those long-past mornings of life, that the 
 other man would not think of now. But sudden memory 
 of them roughened Dick's easy manner a little as he fitted 
 his breast to the strap that clipped him from shoulder to 
 arm-pit, even as, two yards further along the thin tow- 
 line, a similar strap clipped Moonias. 
 
 When the two men had first fallen apart at the touch of 
 the yellow-haired girl, a desperation of pain had driven 
 Dick into more evil than the straight clean work of these 
 latter days would wipe out of his face again. Then he 
 sickened of it; sickened of what the town-cradled men and 
 women could give him. And then, because he had denied 
 all law and all gods in his madness of soul, he chose to 
 fit the yoke of the Law to his neck, and to take his oath 
 to it in the name of God. And after that he did his 
 penance daily. 
 
 For the Wild was the only mistress who could ever 
 hold Dick's soul for long, and the Wild had whistled him 
 back to her so many times of late. Whistled him back 
 in the long, far, sharp-smelling sedges where the wild duck 
 fly south in thin, black, broken lines, and the red sun sets 
 alone in the silence; whistled him back where Lake Atha- 
 baska and the Great Slave roll their stately deep-sea har- 
 monies below horizon; where the rivers brawl, driving 
 their jetsam north to meet the ice; where the snow-tang 
 savours the air with its promise, and the caribou lift their 
 heads, winding man, and the keen wolf-cry drifts over the 
 stilling land. 
 
 To-day that haunting, heart-pulling whistle was silent. 
 To-day, when he leaned in the traces as canal-horses lean, 
 side-stepping the rough track irregularly, with the humped 
 shoulders of Moonias before him. All the sun of these 
 last breathless fall days was cast down into the thin gut 
 of the river. The far sky was sick-white with heat. The 
 coulees were brimful of it. Along the mighty web of 
 water-veins that bring blood to Canada's heart it reeled 
 in giddy mirage, and it danced in the clearings like a thing 
 alive. The smell of heat was abroad on the earth; sharp, 
 clean and resinous in the tang of spruce and jack-pine;
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 17 
 
 warm and dusty in the grass that seeded where a burn had 
 run last year; evil in the rotting weed above the water-line, 
 and strangely intoxicating in the dry breath of forest- 
 fires that made haze of the blue tumbled hills to west- 
 ward. 
 
 Dick stooped as he pulled, taking the smite of the heat 
 on his burnt forehead, and his sweat ran down to the 
 earth, as each tangled loop of river was rounded, and each 
 bold breast of forest slid by. He was tough as the men 
 of the north needs must be; brown, and wiry, and spare. 
 But the long months of canoe- work had slacked his leg- 
 muscles more than he knew, and Moonias, setting his un- 
 tiring pace in the strength of a half-breed nursed on the 
 river, became a living instrument of punishment. But if 
 Moonias was punishment to Dick, the man who trod the 
 thwart of the blunt-nosed scow which left a wake like a 
 liner was hell. For he was What Was, and What Might 
 Have Been, and What Couldn't Be. He jerked into life 
 again memories which Dick had buried with care, and 
 their resurrection was a shameful and unpleasant thing. 
 
 And Tempest, breasting the sweep through the long 
 hours, had memories too. He was thinking of something 
 which Molson of Regina Barracks had once told him 
 concerning a certain Corporal of E Division who had 
 offended Molson. 
 
 " For absolute cold-drawn callousness and impudence 
 you can commend me to him," said Molson. " He has 
 the blackest sheet of any man in the Force, and yet he's 
 the best man we've got on the trail. You can't whip him 
 off it once he has sensed it. He'll go till he's dead and 
 after. And he knows his worth, and takes advantage of 
 it. Eh ? Oh, well ; what's the matter with all of this sort ? 
 Drink, cards, women anything at all. He takes his 
 pleasures where he likes, and he's completely indifferent 
 to punishment. We give him all the lone patrol work we 
 can, and he's superb at it. I should imagine he has been 
 pretty effectively through the mill in his time." 
 
 " Gentleman, of course ? " said Tempest. 
 
 " Sure. A lineal descendant by right of spirit from ' the 
 Worshipful Company of Gentleman-adventurers trading 
 with Prince Rupert in the North Seas ' in the days when
 
 18 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the Hudson Bay Company was born. And he is certainly 
 one of the drift of the world one of the homeless 
 men." 
 
 " We need those men/' said Tempest. " They break 
 out the new flags of Empire, and beat the new trails. 
 And die the old deaths when all's done. What's his 
 name? " 
 
 Molson gave it. And thereafter Tempest had sat silent 
 as he stood silent now, thinking of the man who had been 
 his friend. 
 
 He had known Dick with rather unusual intimacy in 
 the days of their raw boyhood and adolescence, and even 
 then he had known of the inner fastness in the big, hu- 
 morous, good-looking boy who flashed so swiftly from lazy 
 indifference to a blaze of temper. An inner fastness which 
 he never could penetrate, for all the real love they bore 
 each other. Now, in the light of later knowledge, Tem- 
 pest wondered if Dick had held that fastness, ashamed 
 and half-afraid, knowing it for the embryo of his future 
 life; the thing which the world was to make him. 
 
 He glanced from Dick's tattered tunic in the scow to 
 Dick himself, treading the tracking-step with loose-swung 
 arms and slack hips and head low. Where dried grass was 
 slippery under heel; where branches whipped their faces, 
 and cut-banks broke under their hands; and where the 
 track led them hip-high in the snow-shed water, the two 
 men passed, silent and uncomplaining. Half-breeds live 
 this life six months in the year for perhaps eight years. 
 Then they drop out, crippled and helpless, and the water- 
 ways of Canada forget them, and for them the roaring 
 hotels at the " Landings " and the jovial talk and laughter 
 are gone by. A white man usually suffers in the lines. 
 He is not fitted for them, and the quarter-hour rest every 
 forty minutes does no more than give his over-strained 
 muscles time to stiffen. 
 
 Knowing all this, Tempest spoke to Dick at the next 
 halt; choosing his words carefully, as is needful with the 
 man who has been one's friend. 
 
 " I fancy we'd best camp on the trail to-night," he 
 said. " The Portage is going to be rather a. long stunt 
 for one day."
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 19 
 
 Dick looked at him through half-shut eyes, and the smile 
 on his lips was unpleasant. He was too tired to allow it 
 to any man least of all to Tempest. 
 
 " You have got the right spirit for the North- West," he 
 said suavely. 
 
 Tempest flushed. The golding western light was in his 
 thick, bright hair, and the eager face which no weariness 
 could blurr. He looked curiously vital with the shaggy 
 forehead of the bank behind him in its red and yellow 
 glory. 
 
 " Exactly," he said quietly. " I know when we have 
 had enough." 
 
 " Ah," said Dick, and the sneer of his smile had got 
 into his voice. " I have heard vulgar men call that 
 knowledge cold feet." 
 
 He turned on his heel, with a contemptuous swing, 
 climbed the low bank, and flung himself down in shade of 
 the young poplars and tall raspberry bushes. But his 
 dark bold eyes were not contemptuous ; they were angry, 
 as a man has a right to be angry when forced into con- 
 tact with a better man than himself. Dick had been a 
 drunkard of Life all his days. He had wronged men and 
 fought with them; he had loved women, and wasted the 
 wine of his heritage ; and if he had found huge joy in 
 the doing of these things he found little in the remem- 
 brance. But Tempest was the same fine, gallant soul of 
 earlier years ; still climbing his way upward, with eyes 
 lit and hair blown back by the wind of the heights. He 
 had governed himself in wisdom while Dick's temper had 
 governed him as a fool; and the difference lay stark and 
 wide between them now for all men to understand. But 
 the little canker of cynical laughter which lived in Dick's 
 heart came to his aid. 
 
 " For though it might frighten him to live with my 
 memories it would certainly bore me to death to live with 
 his," he said ; and got up and went down the bank again 
 in obedience to the long guttural cry of the breed. On the 
 beach he found Tempest standing in the traces with Moon- 
 ias a thicker bulk before him, and he halted, smiling. 
 
 " When a man shows he is stung there is generally rea- 
 son for it/' he said.
 
 20 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Get into the scow and pole/' said Tempest quietly. 
 " We're wasting daylight." 
 
 " Get out of that strap," said Dick in sudden rough- 
 ness. " You know you can't pull." And then Tempest 
 looked him between the eyes. 
 
 " You're in a lone patrol, my man," he said. " But 
 when you come in contact with your superiors you'll do 
 them the honour of remembering that they are your su- 
 periors. Now, get into that scow sharp." 
 
 He fitted the belt to his waist, for the broken arm was 
 strapped over his breast, and trod forward to take up the 
 slack. And in the trace before him Moonias bowed his 
 black bullet head with the groan of a bull. Dick flung 
 himself over the thwart and laid hands on the idle sweep; 
 and behind his amusement at Tempest's moral reproof 
 stood the uneasy knowledge that he was not obeying the 
 superior officer only, but the superior man. 
 
 The hour dropped through brief twilight into dark. 
 Sharp bush-scents moved on the quickening chill of the 
 air. Stars opened wide and calm over the forest, laying 
 reflections as calm on the river until the scow burst them 
 into a myriad meteors. Back in the trails a brown bear 
 swung his clumsy way and a red dog-fox flicked like a 
 passing thought. That tense silence which is the essence 
 of sound strengthened as the forest-life waked and walked. 
 In the dusk the crashing of the two men on the bank 
 marked their way. In the scow the third man trod the 
 treadmill step to the sweep. But their bodies were hid 
 from each other even as their hearts were hid. 
 
 Past a snake-fence and a clearing three Indian dogs 
 came racing, pallid blurrs like strayed souls on the dark. 
 A white-man's voice roared at them, and a white-man 
 tread came down the river over the level-laid swathes 
 of hay. And then Dick heard Randal of Pitcher's Port- 
 age calling: 
 
 " Give us a holt there. My is that you, Sergeant ? 
 Well, I've got a fire an' some grub up to the shack. Turn- 
 in' cold, ain't it? " 
 
 The scow felt the new vigour of the pull and made a 
 squattering, snuffling haste through the water. Round the 
 bend Randal's home-lights swung in sight, and to Tern-
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 21 
 
 pest, heavily staggering over the beaten trail, came the 
 vision of what home-lights mean to a man in this land of 
 the last West. For these are very truly the home-lights 
 of Canada; of the mother who breeds and binds her sons 
 from the East to the West and takes into sonship those 
 who come to her from the outer seas. By the naked frame- 
 house on the ocean of prairie she sits waiting; by the lone 
 shack of yellow pine in the Rockies; at the door of the 
 Indian tepee in the forest; at the white tent in the white 
 silence of the Barren Lands. And night by night they 
 come home to her, those sons ; going with the tread of tired 
 men across the blowing peairie-grass, stepping sure-foot 
 among the towering glaciers of the ranges, brushing quick 
 feet through the fallen gold of the forest-trails, kicking 
 powdered dust or snow as powder-dry before them out 
 where the trees fail and the winds stand up and scream at 
 the silence and the tent-ropes squeal to the strain. 
 
 They come home: to sleep, and to tell of the day's les- 
 sons in the knowledge of men who have learnt first-hand 
 in this merciful, merciless great nursery of beginnings 
 which we call Life. And she sits and listens, the mother; 
 heartening the weak, who fear and slide round the edges 
 of understanding, scarifying the cheat in the Anight when 
 the big lonely places do their talking, giving comfort to 
 the gallant courage that could not win out, and boisterous 
 laughter to the daring men who have stripped themselves 
 naked that they may buy broadcloth and joy of the gam- 
 bler Chance. 
 
 Tempest stood aside with his heart watching those home- 
 lights while the scow was run up, the freight unloaded, 
 and Moonias put into a large shed with a lock and a run- 
 ning door. 
 
 " Reckon that'll holt him safe," said Randal. " The 
 linemen kep* all their lumber into it when they was layin' 
 this section. Come right along to the shack." 
 
 Over the door-sill Dick trod on something soft that 
 gave, making no sound. Lifted up it proved itself an In- 
 dian baby, staring with black, placid eyes and round, 
 pursed mouth. 
 
 " Yours ? " he asked idly, and saw Randal's eyes go 
 suddenly bloodshot.
 
 22 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 "Mine! What d'yer take me for? It belongs to that 
 tepee acrost the clearing. They're e-ternally crawlin' in 
 here, the little beasts like they was flies or bugs. Chuck 
 it down, an' let it crawl home." 
 
 Dick arranged the baby wth its nose in a direct line 
 with the tepee ; watched its progress for two yards towards 
 the band of light, then followed into the shack. 
 
 The shack was more crowded than most shacks; for, 
 besides the inevitable black stove, narrow bunk, box with 
 tin basin, boots, team-harness, gun, axes, and other neces- 
 saries, there was a telephone battery in the north wall and 
 a counter behind which Randal had served the line-camp 
 running east under the window. Outside were some thou- 
 sand miles of sweeping forest and plain, of river and 
 lonely ranges. Beyond lay big, glowing, noisy towns, 
 where men hived, humming and throbbing with vivid life, 
 and Randal held on to them by the little steel key of the 
 battery. Through the winter he would guard his line-sec- 
 tion from fallen trees and snow as best he might. Through 
 spring and fall and summer he would be there; selling 
 tinned foods and cereals and chewing-gum to the line- 
 camps, and taking and transmitting messages concerning 
 the on-going work. And in between he watched half-breed 
 Indian babies crawl into his shack, suck his team-harness 
 in the simple belief that it was moosemeat, and crawl out 
 again. Besides, he chewed a great deal of gum, and pass- 
 ing freighters generally stopped to talk. 
 
 Dick kept his eyes from Tempest through the meal of 
 beans and bacon helped out with Randal's sodden ban- 
 nock. He knew that the man was suffering acutely, and 
 he was glad of it. For hate still held, iron-hard, against 
 the love that had been. Then Tempest got in a corner 
 with his pipe, dropping out of the talk and out of the 
 smudge of light from the dirty coal-oil lamp. Randal sat 
 full in the gleam of it, chewing in slow content. He was 
 like a cow in his great, awkward strength, and like a cow 
 in his indifference to most subjects until Dick chanced on 
 the one concerning which Randal was morbidly rabid. He 
 sat up, thrusting his rugged face forward. 
 
 " Who lives in the tepee? " he said. " Who orter live in 
 a tepee but a Injun an' his squaw? An* who do live there
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 23 
 
 but a heathen Russian Jew an' his squaw?" He flung out a 
 stubby hand where the thumb was blackened by the pipe- 
 dottel. " What right or call have we wi' heathen foreign- 
 ers in this land ? " he said. " Give me the men o' my own 
 breed. They're rotten some, but I know how an' why. I 
 can deal wi' them. But I'll have no dealin's wi' a Rus- 
 sian Jew what's gotten a squaw for wife, an' a bunch o' 
 papooses nasty as hisself. What do we want wi' his breed 
 in our country? What do we want wi' him?" 
 
 " We must colonise," said Dick derisively. 
 
 Randal sat back with a grunt. 
 
 " Colonise be What for do we want to colonise wi' 
 
 the alien for? Why arn't England sendin' us more of her 
 own? By all accounts she's got about a couple or more 
 too many in that London o' hers. Why arn't she sendin' 
 them to us an' why arn't we waitin' on her ? " 
 
 Dick spoke with intimate remembrance of some men 
 whom he knew. 
 
 " They are not entirely immaculate either," he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "What o' that? They come o' like blood. You can 
 reckon what they'll do if a man hits or curses them. But 
 the Lord A'mighty couldn't reckon on a Russian Jew 
 what's gotten a squaw to wife. That Russian acrost there 
 he took my axe last week, an' I tole him bring it back. 
 Sakes, he had the woman an' kids into that tepee like he 
 thought I was goin' to eat the whole bunch. I don't know 
 how to handle his sort, an' I don't want." Randal spat 
 out of the door; solemnly, reflectively, like one perform- 
 ing a rite. " Give me the men o' my own breed," he said 
 again. 
 
 " Does he ill-treat the squaw ? " demanded Dick. 
 
 Randal shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Not more'n nat'ral," he said. 
 
 "Which means not more than the men of our own 
 breed." Dick laughed. " Lord knows what the Cana- 
 dian of the future is going to be," he said. " But he won't 
 be that crawling baby with the high cheekbones, and he 
 won't quite be you or me. If he has luck he may be a 
 better man than either of us. Where are you going to bed 
 us down to-night, Randal ? "
 
 24 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Sergeant can have the bunk I reckon he's asleep 
 right now, ain't he? An' you can spread your kit behind 
 the counter. J'm goin' to sleep in the extension." 
 
 He nodded and went out, and Dick heard his heavy 
 tread round the shack-corner, among the refuse of spent 
 bottles and tins. It ceased with the slamming of a door 
 somewhere, and Dick crossed the floor to Tempest. 
 
 " I'm sleeping behind the counter/' he said. " Randal 
 left the bunk for you." 
 
 Tempest's eyelids flickered open, but the grey lines 
 round the mouth did not relax. 
 
 " Thanks/' he said. 
 
 Dick hesitated an instant. Then he turned sharp on 
 his heel; walked to his corner, pulled the blankets over 
 him and lay still. But he did not sleep. So much had 
 come and gone since first he and Tempest had answered 
 to the wild winds calling and had swung out with bold 
 forehead against the blast and a careless whistle up the 
 dark fir trail. So much had gone. Dick watched with 
 wide eyes where, beyond the open door, the light from the 
 tepee died down and out. The night was very still. Stars 
 rode in sight above the pointing pines. The slow talk of 
 the river grew louder. Somewhere one stick cracked as a 
 small night animal sprang to its kill. And either side 
 the shack two men lay motionless, with senses taut 
 with the contact of each to each; knowing the pull and 
 the resistance in each quivering nerve, and fighting it 
 sternly. 
 
 And to each man the Voices of the Dark were speaking, 
 and each man was interpreting as loneliness had taught 
 him to do. For those voices can never be understood of 
 the men who walk with the firm shoulder of a friend be- 
 side them, or the warm cheek of a woman laid to their own. 
 They sing a battle-song but it is for the lonely man. 
 They flash light down the long trail, where one pair of 
 feet shall tread. With the deep lancet-plunge of reality 
 they innoculate in man the inevitable lesson the need for 
 facing life's fires with shut lips and ready hands and 
 Death's grey waters with a jest. 
 
 Dick stirred in his bankets with a bitten-off groan. The 
 nightwind was blowing on his face, bringing the smell of
 
 25 
 
 warm ash from the tepee-fire. And all the burnt-out souls 
 of tamarac and pine and poplar-sticks called to him from 
 it until the wild soul turned in him and answered. The 
 God who made him vagrant knew why ; knew why neither 
 love of man nor woman could hold him, though he gave 
 love and took it many times ; knew why he must guard 
 the homes of others day and night, with never a home of 
 his own; knew why he should track men down for punish- 
 ment with clear eyes looking to the day when he should 
 be so tracked down himself. 
 
 He writhed on his bed like a man under the knife. 
 But he could not speak. He had wronged Tempest too 
 deeply for that. And then, because it was impossible that 
 Tempest should forgive and come to him, Tempest spoke. 
 
 " Dick, old man, would you jam some more wood in 
 that stove? I'm cold." 
 
 Dick got up and went out for it in silence. When he 
 came back Tempest was treading through and through the 
 shack with a light step that staggered and failed and went 
 on again under the pressure of tight-strung pain. He 
 smiled at Dick in the wan light from the riding stars. 
 
 " Thanks .awfully, Dick," he said. 
 
 Dick filled the stove and stood, looking down at the red 
 eye that winked at him wickedly. He felt that he could 
 neither go nor stay, and presently the power of that un- 
 even tread pulled the words out of him. 
 
 " Did you marry her ? " he said, unmoving. 
 
 Tempest's walk stopped. Then he said, slowly: 
 
 " Do you still think I'm a liar? " 
 
 " I don't know. But I will take your word now if you 
 give it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The quiet word brought the blood drumming to Dick's 
 temples. He spoke savagely to the red winking eye. 
 
 " I don't know. I guess because I have forgotten her 
 an* I haven't forgotten you." 
 
 " She married Ted Savile three months after you went," 
 said Tempest simply. " I never saw her again." 
 
 " But she loved you. And you loved her." 
 
 " Not so much as I did you, Dick." 
 
 That silence lasted long. So long that the red eye shut
 
 26 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 and the yellow tongue below it ceased to whimper. Then 
 Tempest spoke, half-nervously. 
 
 " I have heard a good deal about you, Dick/' he said. 
 
 " Ah ? " Dick's tone was lightly cynical. " We are not 
 boys any more. You have heard that, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Why I can't exactly say that I've heard you've 
 grown a man," said Tempest; and then Dick faced round 
 on him with drawn lips and eyes alight. 
 
 "No?" he said, with a soft bitterness that stung the 
 other. " And yet I fancy I did all a man could do be- 
 fore " 
 
 The little down-slide of the hand told the rest. Tem- 
 pest spoke sharply. 
 
 " A man has never done all he can do till he's dead," 
 he said. 
 
 Physically Dick knew that. The men of his kind 
 had proved it with their bodies often enough. But he 
 had stultified his beliefs, and he did not want them 
 roused. 
 
 " Oh, my dear fellow; that is as illogical as the rest of 
 our professions. We preach the divine right of free-will, 
 and we spend ourselves in crippling it. We build reform- 
 atories and prisons where the fruit of sin may rot because 
 our convictions are not strong enough to allow us to root 
 out the tree. We palter with what we are pleased to call 
 our beliefs because we know that not one of them will 
 stand a direct pull. We recognise that eternally the dog 
 will return to his vomit and the prodigal son to his husks, 
 and yet our civilisation gravely asserts that he would 
 sooner be good. He wouldn't sooner be anything of the 
 kind. Why should he? Inasmuch as man is an individual 
 he possesses individual rights. I recognise that, and yet I 
 earn my living by enforcing the contrary. The whole sys- 
 tem of mankind is a pose an illogical pose, and it is only 
 the divine humour of things which enables us to take it 
 seriously." 
 
 " Seriously ! My God ! " Tempest turned on him with 
 blazing eyes. "You can see life as we of the police see 
 it, and yet talk like that! You know that up through the 
 whole chaos of the world's history certain ethical rights 
 have been evolving, slowly and painfully, with the actual
 
 "TWO WHO WERE FRIENDS" 27 
 
 agony of a soul's birthpangs and the actual sweat of blood. 
 They have evolved because man, as a race, cannot do with- 
 out them. They have sprung from the flesh and blood of 
 our progenitors even as we have ; but because they come 
 from the loins of a race they are too strong for us. We 
 can't break them now. We can only break ourselves if we 
 struggle against them. A man's duty to himself; to women; 
 to the rest of men there is no imagination left about 
 thfose things. The soul-sweat of the whole of mankind has 
 gone to the clearing of the position there. We know what 
 we owe to our ancestors and to our posterity. We know 
 what Life requires of us on the broad lines of the physical 
 and mental bases " 
 
 "We, of the police, for instance?" 
 
 " Well we hold a unique position which brings unique 
 responsibilities. We are building directly for the future 
 of a nation, and there can never be anything quite like us 
 again. We do the work of an army, with each division a 
 regiment, and each man a company and we're barely the 
 strength of a regiment all told, Heaven help us. We are 
 policing the last West of the world, and all the restless 
 men of all the centuries have run West, until they are 
 here, in the last West of all. That makes it necessary 
 enough for us to define and cling to our ethical standards. 
 In all probability we won't have more than fifty years in 
 all for the enforcing of them. Then the Royal North- 
 West Mounted Police is done not wanted wiped off the 
 roll of service for ever. And it is for us we fellows who 
 are doing the cleaning up to say what sort of record the 
 Force is going to leave behind it " 
 
 " Give the devil his due too," suggested Dick amiably. 
 
 " Why ; we don't claim to be saints. We're something 
 the world wants more. We're men, doing men's work in 
 men's way. We're men of all ranks and all lives and all 
 lands, and I imagine most of us have got private memories 
 to trouble us when they get us alone on the trails. But 
 we do the work." He stopped suddenly. And we don't 
 talk about it," he added. " But you you know." 
 
 Dick flipped a light finger against his black metal collar- 
 badge. 
 
 " Maintien le droit," he said, as though he could read
 
 28 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the legend that circled it. " Do you or any other man 
 profess to say that you know what the right is a man's 
 personal, legitimate right, apart from the law? " 
 
 His tone brought the blood stingingly to Tempest's face. 
 
 " There was once a man who said, ' Stand fast in the 
 faith. Quit you like men. Be strong.' I can't call to 
 mind any law of the present day which tries to take away 
 our personal, legitimate right to do that." 
 
 Dick looked at him in slow amusement. 
 
 " You haven't changed much," he said. " You never 
 would remember that there are so many ways for a man 
 to go rotten." 
 
 He kicked aside the pile of blankets on the floor, and 
 went out to the night that stirred with waking senses to 
 meet the dawn. The stars were pale. The tall trees were 
 folded close in the hush of sleep. The tread of the com- 
 ing years passed heavily down the road of the river 
 years that would see the last fruitful waiting-places of 
 Canada unroll, to lie in the hands of whom? Dick 
 glanced at the thin strip of pallor that was the tepee. 
 Would they go to the coarse hands of such as that round- 
 eyed baby? Or would the firm, nervous hands of sons 
 born to such men as Tempest take them? And when he 
 and the manner of law which he represented were swept 
 away by the march of time, would Tempest's gathering- 
 call be the word that knit up the centuries? 
 
 Tempest's voice seemed to sound it again in his brain ; a 
 quiet voice; low, but great with inexorable, unbreakable 
 resolve. 
 
 " Quit you like men. Be strong ! " 
 
 A bird-note drifted thinly out of the heavy timber. The 
 wind of dawn smote the pine-trees suddenly. They swayed 
 and shivered, with their myriad little needles chattering 
 into wordless speech like frightened monkeys. 
 
 But Dick, taking the chill breath on his forehead, heard 
 what they said ; over and over again, with chuckles of 
 laughter. 
 
 " There are so many ways for a man to go rotten."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL " 
 
 GREY WOLF LANDING ran its one street along the river- 
 edge; a ragged, half-mile street, patched with cotton- wood 
 and poplar clumps and split into sections by the vaguer 
 trails that slid back from it into the forest. One end of 
 the street was flanked by the frame-built Church of Eng- 
 land; the other end by the Roman Catholic chapel, and in 
 between lay the reason of Grey Wolf the story of Fur; 
 of the trapper; of all the big and little four-footed ani- 
 mals that die yearly in the great North- West in order that 
 men may live. 
 
 Above the small Hudson Bay Store set sheer to the 
 loose plank side-walk the flag of the red cross and the 
 caribou rampant blew out from the staff as it had blown 
 across all the trackless North-West these two hundred 
 and fifty years past. The sun drew the smell of hot 
 leather and dust and groceries out from its gaping door; 
 mixed it with the smells found in the holes and broken 
 corduroy of the street, and let the idle wind take it for- 
 ward ; past the barracks of the Royal North-West Mounted 
 Police, standing back from their white-washed pickets; 
 past Revillon's Store and the little log-shack where Moore 
 and Holland did their trading, and flung it through the 
 windows over the counter and bottles of Grange's Hotel 
 on a corner lot. Across the street the low bank dipped 
 short to the river, where it breasted big to the Lake. Be- 
 yond the river the sword of the frost had touched the for- 
 est, so that the trees were yielding up their lives in drip- 
 ping blood-gouts that turned russet as they dried and fell, 
 leaving the grey limbs gaunt and naked in their yearly 
 death. 
 
 The thrill of vigorous, virile life was on Grey Wolf; 
 humming with the soft under-beat of moccasined feet along 
 the planking; ripped through and through with blasts of 
 
 29
 
 30 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 laughter, and rising to a steady roar where the swarm of 
 nuggetty, sturdy men clustered thickest round Grange's 
 Hotel and the Stores. Brown-faced and eyed, these men; 
 black-haired, with a flash of white teeth, and gleam of 
 gaudy handkerchief or Indian-work belt about the broad 
 hips, and a glint of things that shone on the slouch hat 
 and the moccasins that were bound with yellow thongs to 
 the ankle. They moved with the swinging tread born of 
 the snow-shoe; they sparred in noisy horse-play, laughing 
 like children, shrilly and often, and in the Hudson Bay 
 Store they drove the two young Ontario clerks to the thin 
 edge of idiocy with their quick-pattered demands in the 
 Cree and Slavi and the Chipewyan French of the outer 
 places. 
 
 For they were half-breeds all, from the handsome youth 
 with clear features and haughty head-carriage down 
 through the flat-nosed, slant-eyed Japanese-type to the 
 Indian throw-back, with his black hair, lank either side 
 the raised cheek-bones, and his chin-tuft turning grey. 
 They were the men of the backwoods whose stamping- 
 grounds lay with those of the Indian. They were the 
 men of the trapping-trails, of the silences ; the strong men 
 who pitted their flesh and spirit against the white might 
 of the land that bred them ; who wrested their right to live 
 from her or yielded her their lives at the call of the river 
 brules, or the breaking ice or the thin far threads of trail 
 in the forest. 
 
 By the river-bank lay the reason which had brought 
 them to Grey Wolf; a long line of scows stretched, each 
 behind each, with noses up ; broad-hulled and brown and 
 oily-smelling as whales. An hour back the spaces under 
 the wide, high seats and over the broken decking had been 
 bared of the great square packages of pelts, the year's 
 yield of Hudson Bay furs from the North, tracked by the 
 dark-faced breeds up three hundred miles and over of 
 rapid and river and lake. That sweating journey's end 
 came with Grey Wolf, and the long tin Hudson Bay sheds 
 were shut fast on the warm, close-pressed greasy bales 
 that waited the freighter's wagons and the railroad rattle 
 and the deep-sea ships beyond all. 
 
 At the window of the little dark office through the Store
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 31 
 
 end, Leigh, the Hudson Bay factor, was busy. For these 
 short hundred of men had a season's work behind them, 
 rated at something like thirty dollars a month, with board 
 and moccasins added. Round the window they shouldered 
 each other, good-natured, grinning and awkward ; reach- 
 ing hard, rough hands for the dirty bills that made half 
 their pay, and for the order which gave the rest in trade 
 at the counters. Then they surged back to Hotchkiss and 
 Lampard, swamping their substance in such things as the 
 light, coarse tobacco which filled every pipe, and fine- 
 tooth-combs, and scents, and blue and red and purple 
 satin ribbons. Tommy Joseph had a place of worship on 
 the counter, with legs swinging and hat thrust back from 
 the broad, grinning face. For Tommy Joseph had brought 
 in a silver-fox skin from the spring hunt before he went 
 North, and the hundred-dollar worth of it lay in his thick 
 hands now. Beyond the door and the reek of smoke and 
 the noise loitered two half-breed girls, tall and sinuous, 
 with the swarthy beauty that fades with such swiftness. 
 Two-young-men laughed, rolling a length of purple satin 
 between his sweating palms and stuffing it into his hairy 
 chest. 
 
 " Florestine, she laike vous retournez, Tommy," he said, 
 and Tommy slid off the counter with sheepish defiance on 
 his face. 
 
 " S'pose you donnez moi de perfume dat stinky-stuff," 
 he said, pointing; and Lampard brought down a gaudy, 
 gold-topped bottle of Jockey Club. 
 
 " I taike dat/' said Tommy Joseph. " T'anks beau- 
 coup." 
 
 He swept the change into his trouser-pocket and the 
 bottle into his jumper, and sprang out into the tide that 
 was setting towards Grange's Hotel. Little Beaver nod- 
 ded slowly. 
 
 " Me t'ink Florestine she please you tell Tommy," he 
 said. 
 
 " Bien," said Two-young-men, shrugging. " Flores- 
 tine's man he not say t'ank, mebbe. You t'ings in de scow 
 yet, Louis? " 
 
 " For sure," said the young breed, and shouldered his 
 way out and through the crowded street to the river. Here
 
 32 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 a few men slept in the smell of tobacco-smoke and bilge- 
 water, and a breed with huge rounded shoulders was shout- 
 ing up the bank to a white boy. 
 
 "Slicker! Are Ducane come in yet?" 
 
 The white boy looked down with eyes that were start- 
 lingly blue in the sunburnt face, and finished his whistle 
 through to the end. Then he said: 
 
 " Were you speaking to me?" 
 
 The breed's heavy face went purple. In law he classed 
 as a white man, and he had white relations. 
 
 " What d'yer think? " he said savagely. 
 
 " I thought you were," explained Slicker blandly. " But 
 I guess you've got my name wrong. It's Warriner 
 H. G. Warriner." 
 
 He turned and strolled off, and the breed came up the 
 bank with red flecking his little eyes. Slicker heard him 
 cross the street and shout through the mob of men round 
 the bar-door: 
 
 "Ducane! Any feller seed Ducane?" 
 
 " Slicker ! " 
 
 The boy's whistle broke sharply. Then his brown face 
 lit up. 
 
 " Hillo, Tempest," he said. " These fellows will be 
 going some soon." 
 
 " Why, certainly. They've been dry for six months, 
 and they've got to get rid of their pay before they pull 
 out again. Seen Ducane?" 
 
 Slicker's cousin happened to be married to Ducane. 
 But this was no matter of pride to Slicker. 
 
 " Why should all the world reckon I carry Ducane 
 around in my pocket? " he demanded. " I'm sick of the 
 name of the brute. Robinson was asking for him just 
 now." 
 
 "Slicker!" 
 
 " Now, what in the nation " Slicker wheeled and 
 
 looked into the eyes of Ducane's young wife. " You're 
 the third man to-day who has asked me where Ducane is," 
 he said. " And I don't know. I don't know. I don't 
 
 " But I never asked you." 
 
 " But you were just going to. You can't monkey with 
 me, Jennifer."
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 33 
 
 Jennifer laughed, glancing at Tempest where the light 
 struck on him from the broad-brimmed Stetson hat down 
 the straight-run body to the light spurred boots. 
 
 " He told me to bring the rig over for him this after- 
 noon," she explained. " I left it in the Hudson Bay yard. 
 But if he is in there " 
 
 She nodded towards the hotel with her small, delicate 
 face troubled, and Slicker patted her shoulder. Ducane 
 was J.P. for the district, but men had no occasion to hon- 
 our him therefore. 
 
 " I'll go hunt him out for you, honey. It's no place for 
 you. I'll get him." 
 
 He loped over the dusty road and in through the doors 
 where a cluster of breeds showed black as bees on the 
 comb. Tempest turned, keeping step with Jennifer, past 
 the barracks where blew the flag that spoke the law of the 
 English to the solitudes, and round the little post-office, 
 into the Hudson Bay yard. He knew Ducane as it was 
 his business to know men, and he knew small good of him. 
 The man had that big, blustering way of mind and body 
 which so many women mistake for manliness and so many 
 men do not mistake for something else; and since he had 
 brought his month-old wife to Grey Wolf three short 
 weeks ago Ducane had not improved to any noticeable 
 extent. 
 
 Jennifer patted the pony; cuddled it, and kissed its 
 nose, investing each movement with that quaint and deli- 
 cate charm which made men forget her lack of beauty and 
 remember her. Then she laughed up into Tempest's grave 
 eyes. 
 
 " Come back to supper. I'll make you some corn- 
 cake," she said. 
 
 " Sorry." Tempest did not smile. " I fancy I'm 
 needed here to-night. Too many trackers about. Why, 
 no I don't imagine there'll be trouble. But I must be 
 on deck. The other men are away." 
 
 " Your arm is just out of the sling. If any of 
 them " 
 
 " They won't. Besides, that's what I'm here for." He 
 laughed now. " I am not scared," he said. 
 
 " Well, of course a man never is," she said.
 
 34 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest had put Ducane sick with fear once already. 
 And he expected to do it again. He gave place to Slicker 
 with relief. 
 
 " Honey/' Slicker slid an arm through Jennifer's. 
 " You'll have to let me drive you home. Ducane will be 
 late business, you know. He won't be back to supper, 
 and he sent you his love." 
 
 Slicker's imagination was responsible for this last. His 
 boy- face was hard about the jaw, and, in the vernacular, 
 he " put Tempest wise " with a flicker of his left eye-lid. 
 Tempest unhitched the halter and stowed it under the seat 
 in silence. 
 
 " That's good of you, Slicker, dear," said Jennifer trem- 
 ulously. " But poor Harry does so hate the hotel meals. 
 He says they're horrid." 
 
 " I feed there, and they haven't killed me yet," said 
 Tempest cheerfully. But his face was grave again as 
 Slicker swung the rig down by the river to the grey haze 
 of the forest where the sweet-scented blanket of hill-fire 
 smoke clung. Then he went back swiftly, with his scarlet 
 tunic making a blot among the dark-shawled women squat- 
 ted on the side-walks, and the clustered loafing men in 
 their dingy store-clothes. 
 
 The knot round the bar-door gaped to let him in and 
 closed again. Their broken vivid speech came to him full 
 of the North. For to the men of " inside " the North- 
 West is the world, and kingdoms and captains may fail 
 and parliments run to red ruin unheeded so long as the 
 rabbits which feed the lynx swarm in their thousands, and 
 the running record between Fort Smith and anywhere else 
 is won by a man whom other men do not hate over well. 
 
 Drifted scraps concerning a bear-trap that broke, a man 
 who made no fur, little Marguerite who " vas si belle von 
 taime," and Jack Audoine, the breed who portaged a loaded 
 scow up the Rapids of the Damned ; rivulets of talk in the 
 Indian dialects, with the whole pock-marked by such fa- 
 miliar words as Mackenzie River, Fort Resolution, and 
 Good Hope, were as familiar to Tempest as the smell of 
 the river-wetted clothes and the moose-skin moccasins ; of 
 whiskey, and heated men, and the strong, light, coarse to- 
 bacco.
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 35 
 
 He crossed to the counter that ran up the north side of 
 the big bare room, and spoke to the bar-tender. 
 
 "Have you seen Mr. Ducane anywhere, Jimmy?" 
 
 " Why he's up to the balcony wi' Robison, Sergeant. 
 I guess they're talkin' some. They've sent for drinks 
 twice." 
 
 Tempest leaned over the bar. 
 
 "Not had any trouble yet, have you?" he said with 
 dropped voice. 
 
 ' Not a mite." Jimmy screwed his eyes up, looking 
 round the barn-bare place, where the dark breeds dozed 
 half-fallen on the benches, or smoked stolidly with spit- 
 toons between their moccasined feet, or talked in twos and 
 threes with the picturesque hand-movements which often 
 make half the speech of men who have lived among the 
 Indians. Jimmy nodded. 
 
 " Pretty as a Sunday-school," he said. . " We'll likely 
 have a few muzzy to-night. You wouldn't want to be hard 
 on them, Sergeant? They're as good a bunch of boys as 
 any along the river." 
 
 " Don't let them get too gay, then," said Tempest, and 
 went through the inner door and up the wide uncarpeted 
 staircase, seeking Ducane. 
 
 Grange's Hotel was the only one in Grey Wolf. The 
 only one " inside " which is to say, north of latitude fifty- 
 six along these water-ways! It carried the distinction of 
 its position, and of not much else just now; and Tem- 
 pest, turning along the upper landing, looked on the bare 
 rooms and tumbled beds with an indifference bred of fa- 
 miliarity. They were for the men of the trail, these places ; 
 surveyors, prospectors going through to the ore-beds of 
 the north ; traders on their home-way to another five years 
 " inside " ; the men of the Treaty Party, perhaps, or those 
 who took the long patrol with the Judge who Happened 
 to pass Grey Wolf in his yearly round. But they were 
 for men only. Few women travelled that trail which men's 
 feet found difficult at times, and those who passed it were 
 chiefly of the pioneer class ; brave-eyed, hard-handed 
 women, trekking with their home and their children and 
 their husbands into the loneliness, and sleeping at night 
 with the tent-peak and the stars above them.
 
 36 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 The ring of Tempest's spurred feet along the balcony 
 jerked Ducane out of his stooping, muttering talk with 
 Robison. He flung himself back in the creaking chair and 
 bawled out the jovial greeting which Tempest knew to be 
 false as the man himself. 
 
 " Hillo, Sergeant, hillo. We were just talking about 
 you; saying you'll want to keep the lead sounding to- 
 night, eh? " 
 
 " I don't expect any trouble," said Tempest, sitting 
 down. " They are good boys all right. And drunkenness 
 is one of the honest sins up here. It seldom hurts more 
 than the drinker." 
 
 Tone and words were casual enough, but Ducane shied 
 from them uneasily. Tempest had a way of making his 
 personality felt where he went, and there was much in 
 Ducane's life which would not bear the inspection of those 
 clear eyes. Robison grinned. He was long-armed and 
 hairy-chested as an ape, and he had all the ignorant, re- 
 sentful, cunning courage of an ape. 
 
 " Never thought such as you'd say as there was honest 
 sins, Sergeant," he remarked, and Tempest smiled, light- 
 ing his pipe. 
 
 " That is a social problem, I suppose. But when it 
 comes to a question of degrees of evil we must discrimi- 
 nate. I fancy Ducane will agree with me that a drunken 
 breed may very often do less harm, morally and socially, 
 than many a sober white-man." 
 
 Ducane's bloated, handsome face reddened. Tempest's 
 casual sentences had a way of dropping straight into the 
 well of a man's mind to trouble the waters. 
 
 " Oh, I guess all human nature is tarred with the same 
 stick, more or less," he said. " We can't all be plaster 
 saints, Tempest, or you'd be out of a job. But in lots of 
 cases bad men sin and worse men talk about it. Those 
 that like the taste of it on the tongue, and yet are afraid 
 of the fires on their skin. Not goin^, are you? Robison 
 was just telling me about some land he'd bought near 
 Grande Prairie." 
 
 Robison was trader and trapper in a small mysterious 
 way of his own, and of late he had become farmer also. 
 He launched into vernacular technicalities which Tempest
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 37 
 
 listened to idly. He was thinking of Ducane at present, 
 and of Ducane's young wife. 
 
 He supped with Ducane later in the big dining-place 
 where clerks from the trading-offices, a few half-breeds, 
 and a score of men more passed and passed again, fed at 
 the little tables, joked with Grange's good-tempered half- 
 breed wife, and watched, shyly or boldly, according to 
 their kind, the two white serving girls who bore the stamp 
 of town-life on them still. 
 
 Tempest came out at last from the noise and light to 
 stand in the pallor of the dreaming night. Beyond the 
 street lay the huge silent scows, emptied at last of the 
 sun-warmed, close-pressed furs. Behind were the men 
 who had warped them up, foot by foot, by the long-laid, 
 mysterious water-trails of the North, and who would so soon 
 seek their own again among the winter woods with the 
 light patter of moccasined feet sounding along every nerve 
 and fibre of the chilling land. It was part of the routine 
 like life, and death, and sleep, and all else, and it meant 
 as little to the men who did it as these things mean to the 
 most of us. But to Tempest something of the wonder of 
 the need for it all came restlessly, and he spoke without 
 turning to the man whose lagging footsteps had followed 
 him out. 
 
 " I'm going home, Grange. You'll know where to send 
 if I'm wanted." 
 
 Grange giggled. He was a little nervous man with a 
 great love of his many children, and of Moosta, his half- 
 breed wife. 
 
 " Sure, Sergeant, sure. But I reckon we ain't got much 
 hot stuff ter-night, barrin' Robison." He jerked his head 
 towards the bar. " They're on'y singin'," he said. *' My, 
 how that Pierre Dupuis kin drive the chune." 
 
 Tempest knew what make of men comes of French- 
 Indian blood. He knew of the occasional cast-back to the 
 vices of each; of the irresponsible temper flung to fury 
 from laughter before the white man can take heed; of the 
 frank, childish nature, which brings men to heel like eager 
 dogs before the voice of authority. He nodded. 
 
 " Well, don't forget to let me know," he said, and went 
 down to the lonely barracks with the deep-throated swing
 
 38 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 of the song welling up to the stars above him, and all the 
 soft, purring murmur of wooden dwellings settling into 
 the hush of sleep after the day's heat sounding through 
 the clearing. 
 
 Two hours later he found that Grange had not forgot- 
 ten, when young Forbes, a green English boy in Revil- 
 lon's Store, burst in on him with gasping breath and start- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " Pile out quick, Sergeant," he said. " Ducane and 
 Robison are killing each other." 
 
 Tempest distanced the boy back up the silent street and 
 over the flapping boards that made a following rattle like 
 musketry in the hills. He thrust between the half-breeds 
 who clustered thick round the door, and saw the two men 
 who struggled breast to breast, knee to knee; the white 
 face livid with fury and fear, the dark face like a bursting 
 plum. 
 
 The quarrel had been born in a flash, and the end of it 
 was likely to be as swift; for Robison had his knife out 
 as Tempest jumped forward with his lithe finish of move- 
 ment, and gripped each man by the shoulder. 
 
 " That's enough," he said, and his voice carried through 
 the noise. " Quit ! Sharp ! " 
 
 The men were blind and deaf with the wrath that held 
 them. Ducane wrenched away Robison's knife with a 
 quick wrist-turn, and then Tempest's face was thrust in 
 his with eyes blazing like the flash before the bullet. 
 
 " Quit ! " he said only. But the threat behind the word 
 drove terror into Ducane. 
 
 He fell away, dropping the knife, and Tempest flung 
 himself on Robison. The breed was too big and too heavy 
 for him ; but he would not have called for assistance when 
 he did if a sudden demon of mischief had not lit the idea 
 in his brain. Robison was a malignant hater, and there 
 was no man in Grey Wolf would have cared to bring him- 
 self under the harrow of that hate undesired. They stood 
 back, waiting on Tempest's call. And when it came it hit 
 the only man who did not look for it. 
 
 " Ducane," shouted Tempest. " Lend a hand here." 
 
 And Ducane it was, half-sobered and sick, who helped 
 pinion the big breed and guide his resisting feet down to
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 39 
 
 the barracks, and into the little cell with its grinning grat- 
 ing on the whitewashed wall. Then Tempest shut out the 
 approving crowd, who had followed; settled his tunic-col- 
 lar where the top hook was burst off, and looked at 
 Ducane. 
 
 " You'd best sit down and get your breath," he said. 
 " I want to hear some reasons why you shouldn't be in 
 right alongside Robison." 
 
 The heavy red flooded Ducane's skin. 
 
 " You forget who you're speaking to," he said. 
 
 " I'm likely to forget it when a gentleman brawls with 
 half-breeds in a public bar," said Tempest. " Is there a 
 shack or a tepee up or down river won't have that news 
 inside a week? We are teaching them to respect the white 
 man in Grey Wolf." 
 
 His level words bit like serpents' little tongues. Du- 
 cane came to his feet unsteadily, taking hold of his blus- 
 tering courage. 
 
 " You rather exceed your duty," he said. " I was pre- 
 venting Robison from assaulting a breed. Good- 
 night." 
 
 Tempest let him go. He had more work to do, and be- 
 fore morning the half-dozen cells were full with the frank 
 and ordinary cases of a pay-night. For in one night, or 
 two, these cheerful men of the child-heart had to " blow in 
 the wad " of a year's work ere they faced to the trail 
 again. Such was custom ; and Tempest, knowing, tem- 
 pered the wind to the shorn lamb in so far as he honestly 
 could. 
 
 There were mild fines and reproofs in the little court- 
 room next Tempest's bedroom in the morning; and then, 
 hour by hour, Grey Wolf slacked her sinews again, lying 
 inert until the next cataclysm of life should burst on her. 
 The fringe of it came three evenings later, when Tempest 
 rode home, on the bob-tailed cayuse known to all his world 
 as Gopher, and found the little steamer from Lower Land- 
 ing backing noisily into the stub-end of wharf. All the 
 population were out to make remarks, and Tempest added 
 his in amaze. 
 
 "But how the deuce did you cross the rapids, Mackay? " 
 he said. " They coudn't track the scows further, for she's
 
 40 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 closing so unusually early this year. You'll never get 
 back." 
 
 The brawny Scotchman laughed, reaching a hand over 
 the rail. 
 
 " Listen till I tell ye," he said. " I wadna hae daured 
 bring her, but Harris swore I couldna. He swore it in 
 company, ye see, an' I waur bound tae gie him the lie." 
 His heavy shoulders shook with his rumbling laugh. 
 " Every dommed pund o' freight I tracked over those rap- 
 ids in York boats," he said. " An' I go back by trail. The 
 ' Northland Flower ' is sleepin' in that backwater for her 
 winter bed, an' I thought more than aince she'd be sleepin' 
 on the rapids. It waur sure enough close skatin'. But 
 the fairies was wi' us." He lit his pipe, and jerked the 
 match overboard. " Ha' ye heard tell that Tom Saunders 
 is tae pu' out East for good?" he said. "What div ye 
 mak' o' that, now? " 
 
 " Cold feet, perhaps. Marriage, perhaps. But he'll 
 break his neck breaking horses some day before long." 
 
 " The wildest o' us slack oop when we mairry," re- 
 marked Mackay. " 'Cept Ducane. I hear things about 
 him. Things as you don't hear, ye ken. In the nature o' 
 life ye have to go around wi' your ridin'-lights up." 
 
 Tempest dropped his whip lightly across Gopher's 
 crest. 
 
 " Come in and have a smoke up this evening, Mackay," 
 lie said only. But Mackay winked long and slowly after 
 the cloud of dust. 
 
 " And do ye think Ducane will hold any course straight 
 enough for you or me to catch him on it, Sergeant ? " he 
 said. 
 
 In his office at the barracks Tempest opened his mail; 
 read a part, and then sat still for long, very long, until 
 the notices and memorandums, and the few photographs 
 on the opposite wall were a blur, and Poley, the old red- 
 headed cook, came in with the lamp. 
 
 Tempest roused himself, and his eyes were strange as 
 the eyes of a man who has been seeing what he did not 
 think to see again. 
 
 " Is Baxter in? " he said. " Send Mm to me, then." 
 
 There was dislocation and promotion of which to speak
 
 41 
 
 to Baxter. Then he leaned forward and grasped the man's 
 hand. 
 
 " I congratulate you Sergeant/' he said, and smiled. 
 " You should have had this step last year, for you've de- 
 served it long enough." He looked away. " Your march- 
 ing-orders come with it," he said. " But they've managed 
 a good leave for you first." 
 
 Baxter's rough hands shook a little where he knuckled 
 them down on the table-edge, and his rough voice was not 
 quite steady. He was Canadian born, even as his fathers 
 were, and he served his land simply and directly with all 
 his simple powers. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, and the weight of his soul seemed to 
 lighten with the breath. " I guess I can drive that horse, 
 Sergeant. An' I don't mind tellin' you now there's a 
 little girl she's waitin' six years I guess maybe if they 
 put me south she won't want to wait no longer ! " 
 
 Tempest gave no answer. Baxter looked at him sharply ; 
 lost colour; spoke with suddenly thickened voice. 
 
 "Where have they put me at? Where? Not Her- 
 schel?" 
 
 Then, before Tempest's face, his own sagged and grew 
 grey. 
 
 " God," he said in his throat, and sat down, and looked 
 out straight before him with still eyes. 
 
 Tempest moved his papers with quiet hands. He had 
 come sane and whole from the searching test of that last, 
 loneliest, most terrible post of all which the North- West 
 offers her children: Herschel Island on the rim of the Arc- 
 tic Ocean ; where the sun lies hid, and almost hid, a half 
 year through ; where the desolation and the silence take 
 hands and walk together over the untrod snow, and the 
 Northern Lights chase each other with curious shapes and 
 silky noises across the great black cup of the sky. Tem- 
 pest had taken his trick at that wheel, and had come from 
 it unharmed. But he was a younger man than Baxter, and 
 he had more education to teach him self-control. Besides, 
 there had been no little girl waiting for him. 
 
 " I can represent the case at head-quarters if you like," 
 he said. " But you know we're short of men. We always 
 are."
 
 42 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Baxter nodded; cleared his throat; cleared it again. 
 
 " Sixteen years I've been in the Force," he said. " And 
 never a word against me, Sergeant." 
 
 " I beg your pardon." 
 
 Tempest had answered tone rather than words, and 
 Baxter nodded again. 
 
 " Granted," he said. Then, " Over two years, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 " Officially two. Nearer three, allowing for travel and 
 change of seasons." 
 
 "I've got till ice goes out in spring," said Baxter, and 
 his eyes lit with longing. " I could marry her right now 
 an' leave her again. I couldn't take a woman up there? " 
 
 " No," said Tempest. " You couldn't take a woman up 
 there." 
 
 Baxter's knotty hands stirred and grew still again. He 
 looked out at the blur beyond the windows where an un- 
 seen child was laughing. Tempest's sympathy showed in 
 his silence, and Baxter stood up at last. 
 
 " Thank you, Sergeant," he said; halted, and added, 
 grim and slow: " I guess I can't marry her. Herschel 
 an' the North have done up better men than me." 
 
 " You're judged fit, or they wouldn't send you. There 
 have been no excesses in your life for you to fret over, 
 Baxter. You'll get along well. There are two more in 
 the detachment, you know, and it is seldom that some of 
 the whalers don't winter there." 
 
 Baxter looked at him. 
 
 "As man to man?" he said. "It gets hold of one? 
 That having dark at daylight, as you may say and see- 
 ing nothing half the time but those Esquimaux with their 
 long tails trailin' and letters once a year. And the 
 knowing, maybe for months at a time, that there's nothin' 
 between you and your God nothing white, but the two- 
 three men with you and the snow. It gets hold of one? 
 As man to man, Sergeant? " 
 
 " It does," said Tempest quietly. " And yet you can 
 stand it, Baxter." 
 
 "If you say so, Sergeant. You've got all your senses, 
 right enough. But I don't know. I don't know." 
 
 " You do know," said Tempest, and his voice rang sud-
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 48 
 
 denly. " There won't be more asked of you than a man 
 can stand. And you are a man." 
 
 " I should hope so. Well " he shook himself. " Let 
 her roll into it," he said. " When do I go out? " 
 
 '" On the York boats Barney's gang, to-morrow. The 
 new man is riding up now." 
 
 " Quick work. But, of course with the ice coming an' 
 all. Who's the new man, Sergeant? Been this way be- 
 fore? " 
 
 " He has been all over. But he comes from Macleod. 
 He has lately been promoted Corporal, and his name," 
 Tempest's voice altered slightly " his name is Heriot ; 
 R. L. Heriot." 
 
 " That'll be Dick Heriot, I guess. Can ride most 
 things that have two sides to 'em, folk say. I've heard o' 
 him." 
 
 Tempest had heard of him also, although it was not 
 necessary to say so. For two days he hid the trouble in 
 his eyes; but when he met Dick the shadow was lifted. 
 
 " What are we going to do ? " he said. " We have al- 
 ways run together before. Are you strong enough to obey 
 me, Dick ? " 
 
 " If you're strong enough to make me! " said Dick, and 
 laughed. 
 
 " By , I'll make you," said Tempest. " But it's a 
 
 poor look-out for the Force if I've got to make you, old 
 man." 
 
 Dick moved restlessly. The pull of this man was on 
 him again, and he knew that he would resist more than he 
 gave to it all the days of his life. For the good which he 
 could see and reverence was greater than the good which 
 he wanted to do. 
 
 " I guess you'll whittle me into my hole," he said. " But 
 I'm hard wood. I'll break your knives." 
 
 " I don't want to whittle you," said Tempest, staring 
 out with his head between his hands. " Aren't you man 
 enough to do it for yourself? " 
 
 Dick laughed and walked to the window. 
 
 " Lord, yes," he said. " I've whittled myself slab-sided. 
 I've whittled my soul out and put a whiskey-peg in its 
 place. I've loaned my youth where I didn't ought, and
 
 44 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 I've run up accounts which I don't mean to settle. But 
 you'll make me pay with usury, you old fox. I know you, 
 Tempest." 
 
 " I hope so/' said Tempest. Then his voice changed. 
 "'But I believe that you're a better man than you pretend 
 to be," he said. 
 
 " It's not his beliefs which trouble a man," said Dick. 
 " It is the making folk believe that he believes in his be- 
 liefs." He wheeled suddenly, and faced Tempest. " The 
 clinkers that we rake out of the engine-fire can't burn 
 again," he said. " I've wanted to be a clinker more times 
 than once. On my soul, Tempest, I don't imagine a thing 
 could ever get hold of you as it gets hold of me." 
 
 Tempest still stared at the blurr of window-pane 
 through which Baxter had looked on his future. 
 
 " God knows I don't want to judge any man," he said. 
 " But this would be a simpler world if each were respon- 
 sible for himself only." 
 
 Dick whistled softly between shut teeth. 
 
 " According to the tenets of common-sense we are," he 
 said. " But what a rotten thing is common-sense. A man 
 doesn't rule himself by it half his days. And when he 
 does he generally gets up to the neck. You leave me alone 
 all you can, Tempest. A man can shoulder the rest of the 
 world but he can't shoulder his friend. His heart gets 
 in the way there." 
 
 Tempest left the matter at that, and went over in the 
 next afternoon to see Jennifer. He had developed a habit 
 of going to see Jennifer when his work called him in that 
 direction, and this day he found Slicker on the table in 
 the little sitting-room eating the last half-dried saskatoons 
 from the hill out of a shining tin pan. Jennifer was in the 
 window-seat with that cheerful busyness of work about 
 her which reminded Tempest of long ago home-days. The 
 red of a late fall sunset was behind her, sharply distinct 
 on lake and sky, on hills and marshy foreground ; and the 
 red of it was in the rough ends of her cloudy hair which 
 glowed until they called a witticism from Slicker. 
 
 Jennifer was unabashed. She bit off an end of thead 
 with her sharp little teeth. 
 
 " I suppose you can't help being clever any more than
 
 WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 4$ 
 
 Mr. Tempest can help being good," she said. " It must 
 be an awful handicap to you both." 
 
 " It is," admitted Tempest gravely. " Especially when 
 you're the only one in the bunch." 
 
 Slicker chuckled with his mouth full. 
 
 " That's one on you, honey," he said. " But we can't 
 help it. Some are born with cold feet, some get cold feet, 
 and some have cold feet thrust u " 
 
 " Slicker, if you bring your vulgar jokes over here, I'll 
 lock you up. I know you're in a position to tell us why 
 both acquirements are a handicap, Mrs. Ducane, but " 
 
 " Tempest considers each of his good deeds as an asset 
 placed in heavenly securities to act as retainers when the 
 time comes to need an advocate," explained Slicker. " You 
 won't convince him, Jennifer." 
 
 " You see, Slicker has tried," said Jennifer. " That is 
 what makes him so contemptuous. We are never really 
 contemptuous of things till we find out that we can't do 
 them. Slicker tried for a month. That was down East, 
 when he thought of going to China for a missionary. He 
 was so affected. I spilt boiling water into both his shoes 
 one day with his feet in them, and he only said, ' Oh, 
 dear ! ' Now, he should have said ' damn,' shouldn't he ? 
 All white men say ' damn.' Kipling calls it ' the war- 
 drum of the English round the world.' " 
 
 " I I think he expressed it a little differently," sug- 
 gested Tempest. " But no doubt he meant much the same 
 thing." 
 
 " Of course," said Jennifer. 
 
 She drew a ragged sock over her hand ; held it up to the 
 light, and cocked her head at it. 
 
 " When Providence made me your cousin, Slicker," she 
 said, " it neglected to tell me what you were going to do 
 with your clothes. Otherwise I might have declined the 
 honour. This is the seventh pair of holes you have brought 
 me to darn socks on to in one week." 
 
 " But you look so sweet when you're doing it, honey." 
 Slicker tipped the tin for the last of the berries. " You 
 make a regular little home-bird twittering in your pretty 
 nest and I never reckoned there'd be anything but a bon- 
 fire made out of this old place in Ducane's time."
 
 46 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Jennifer laughed and flushed with the consciousness of 
 her young wifehood, and again Tempest's face was 
 troubled as he looked at her. As yet there was no flaw in 
 the warp and woof that Life was spinning her. But it 
 must come soon. It could not fail to come, and the snarl 
 might be such that no patient fingers and no brave eyes 
 that kept the tears back would unravel. It could not fail 
 to come. He knew Ducane too well for that, and he knew 
 Life too well. 
 
 The dread of grim tragedy broke before the indefinable 
 sensation of something tense in the air. He turned from 
 the window to see Slicker with a saskatoon between thumb 
 and finger, regarding Jennifer very much as he might have 
 regarded a chick which had just emerged from a duck's 
 egg. The light from without struck one side of Jennifer's 
 small face and the blurr of copper hair as she leant for- 
 ward, speaking with that soft, quick voice which was char- 
 acteristic of her. 
 
 " You don't know! How should a boy like you know 
 what it means to lie awake at night and feel that you have 
 got into the heart of things at last the real core right 
 back to the beginning where men stood with bare feet on 
 the bare earth, as it were " 
 
 Slicker removed his eyes to his sock. 
 
 " I've stood with bare feet ' he began. Then he 
 
 looked at Tempest. " Isn't she the most surprising thing 
 that ever happened? " he said. 
 
 Jennifer swung round. Her eyes and her hair glowed 
 in the light. 
 
 " Out here men do things," she cried. " It is the land 
 of romance and the real picturesque. Here one can be- 
 lieve and do. It's like coming out of a novel and getting 
 into history. It brings out all that is brave and good and 
 noble in men and women. Look at those women at the 
 English Mission, making Christians of the little half- 
 breed children! Look at the Mounted Police scouring the 
 land with their old khaki uniforms, year in and year out, 
 to enforce the law! Look at the half-breeds submitting 
 themselves to that awful labour of tracking, season by sea- 
 son. Look at men such as my Harry, battling for his home
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 47 
 
 in the wilderness, just so that he can make some woman 
 happy " 
 
 Slicker swallowed his berry with the air of one who 
 needed some support. 
 
 " Maybe a girl who can see her back-hair in a hand- 
 glass without getting lock-jaw isn't fitted by nature to look 
 at life straight," he said. " You get Miss Chubb down at 
 the Mission to tell you if she hasn't reason to consider 
 that she's done her possible by the race if she can teach 
 them to put their clothes on to the right parts of them- 
 selves and to blow their noses. And you ask Tempest 
 right now how long it would be before an M.P. got ac- 
 quainted with the inside of his coffin if he attempted to 
 scour the land with an old uniform or anything else with- 
 out letting up for meals. And the breeds wouldn't take 
 another job if you went on your knees to 'em. They like 
 it. And " 
 
 Tempest moved nervously. Would Slicker's tongue 
 carry him into dangerous latitudes? But Jennifer's rare 
 temper was waking. 
 
 " Boys think it so clever to make fun of everything/' she 
 said. " They haven't imagination enough to see the true, 
 wonderful beauty of life. I can see a little just a little. 
 And I'm going to tell the world. I'm going to write some 
 articles for a Toronto paper. I began last night." 
 
 " Do. I reckon it would be well to get all that stuff out 
 of your system right away. And then put 'em in the stove. 
 But be careful, for I guess there will be plenty hot air in 
 'em to burst the pipes." 
 
 Jennifer whipped round on him like a kitten about to 
 spring. 
 
 " You you you animal ! " she cried. " Come off my 
 table this instant ! Stop eating my berries. Don't sit 
 there with your hair all over your head, staring like that! 
 And don't you dare put your feet on my carpet. They're 
 mud up to the elbows ! " 
 
 " Sakes ! " said Slicker, bewildered into alarm for the 
 first time in his life. " I can't jump right out of here in 
 once." 
 
 For an instant more Jennifer's temper possessed her.
 
 48 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Then she dropped on the window-seat and laughed with 
 the two men until her eyes ran over. 
 
 " You're not fit to live, Slicker," she said. " Go away. 
 Go away and die. But don't do it on the door step. I 
 mean it. Indeed I do ! You haven't left me one berry for 
 supper, and you've made me lose my temper, and you're 
 in disgrace. Good-bye. You can come back for your 
 socks to-morrow. And shut the door." 
 
 They heard his serene whistle as he strolled down the 
 mud-track to the Lake. Then Jennifer glanced up at 
 Tempest. 
 
 " You'll stay to supper, won't you ? " she said. " Harry 
 will surely be in directly. 
 
 " Thanks," said Tempest absently. " I shall be very 
 pleased." 
 
 He watched her as she drew the wool through Slicker's 
 socks, and that skeleton behind Ducane's door seemed to 
 take shape and move about her. How long would this lit- 
 tle ardent girl believe in the " true wonderful beauty of 
 Life ? " Or was she perhaps filled with the great heart 
 and the inner wisdom which can hold to it and know it 
 through all pains? Jennifer glanced at him again. 
 
 " You don't believe what Slicker says, do you ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Why every sweeping statement is true and untrue. 
 Slicker has heard so much of what he calls hot air talked 
 about us and every other phase of western life that he 
 quite naturally goes to the other extreme. I imagine you're 
 just men and women out here, you know the same as in 
 most places. But we're fighting out these ordinary passions 
 and joys and agonies under unusually primeval conditions, 
 and and I want you to make allowances for that." He 
 hesitated, wondering if he dared give a warning plain 
 enough for her to take. " Men get rougher. They slough 
 off a lot of conventionalities, and there's quite a good 
 deal of the brute in human nature. They do ugly things, 
 maybe, because they haven't got the perspective to know 
 how ugly they are." 
 
 " I haven't seen any of the ugly things," said Jennifer 
 softly. 
 
 Tempest looked out on the placid lake where a couple
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 49 
 
 of late ducks cut sharply and black between sedge and 
 sky. 
 
 " You will," he said. " You were right when you said 
 that Life was not a novel. It is history, and it needs each 
 one of us to make this history of the West. You have got 
 to do your share. And you are not going to find it easy." 
 
 Jennifer's hands had fallen still and loosely in her lap. 
 She never fidgeted. 
 
 " You make me feel as if I was on the edge of some- 
 thing," she said. " Of something big and terrible that 
 you know about and I don't. Is that Life? I couldn't 
 do anything much, you know. I should certainly fail if I 
 tried." 
 
 " Why to fail is a bad thing," said Tempest slowly. 
 " But to be afraid to dare failure is much worse. I guess 
 you wouldn't be afraid to dare." 
 
 " But this is a man's life for men. I can't do any- 
 thing in it anything that makes a difference." 
 
 " Don't you know that at the moment when a star splits 
 apart each half instantly exerts its pull on every other 
 atom near enough to it? Instantly, and eternally. There 
 is no getting away from that. There is no burking it. We 
 all exert our pull through every moment of our lives. 
 You do. I do." 
 
 His voice rang strong and vital through the dusk, telling 
 her that he recognised the power of his own pull and was 
 glad of it. She shivered, looking out where the warm 
 lights of Grey Wolf began to blink across the Lake. 
 
 " I think you frighten me when you talk like that," she 
 said. " You make me want to be a little quiet soul, hidden 
 away in a corner behind a cloud, and not mattering to 
 anybody. I I don't think I care to have an influence. 
 Especially when I don't quite know what it is." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Tempest. He came over and 
 knelt a knee on the window-seat in penitence. " I likely 
 say what I feel too plainly at times. And that is dan- 
 gerous in a man who serves others. But I can tell you 
 just a little of what your influence may be. We haven't 
 seen dull silk portieres, and just those kind of pictures 
 and little bits of old statuary up this way before. Other 
 women keep their houses nice and clean. But this room 

 
 50 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 well, I imagine you are going to be a civilising influence, 
 Mrs. Ducane." 
 
 Jennifer laughed and pouted. 
 
 " You don't think me capable of the big heroics/' she 
 said. " Civilisation sounds so so paltry up here." 
 
 " God forbid ! It's the one rag we have to cover our 
 nakedness until we're fit to grow angel's feathers. Don't 
 ever strip it off. And don't let any man you come in con- 
 tact with strip it off in your presence. That is going to 
 be one of your great responsibilities." 
 
 " I I wonder if I want it," said Jennifer. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid of it," said Tempest gently. 
 " But the most ignorant of us daily take on ourselves re- 
 sponsibilities that the gods would jib at. We do it because 
 we are ignorant, of course. And that is naturally the very 
 last reason we give for our mistakes for it is the only 
 one that is going to save us." He laughed, and stood up. 
 " I have been uncivilised enough to give you advice," he 
 said. " But you've no time to get back on me now. There's 
 Ducane." 
 
 "Where? Where? I don't see " Then, as Tem- 
 pest flung up the window, the swift running beat of an 
 Indian cayuse came to her along the frozen track toward 
 the house. She flashed round at Tempest with sudden 
 crisp life in each inch of her. 
 
 " It is ; it is," she cried. " But I never heard oh, 
 Harry ! " 
 
 Ducane swung round the horse-corner; dropped from 
 the high-cantled saddle, and thrust his head through the 
 window. 
 
 " Hallo, Jenny," he said, and slid a careless arm round 
 her shoulders. "That you, Sergeant? Well, you're 
 wanted down at the Portage right away. Some white fool 
 Englishman named Lucas smashed his mate's head in. 
 Oh, he's got it, sure enough. Best pile after him, I guess. 
 Why what's to pay, Jenny? It was one of your sex was 
 responsible, I'll bet." 
 
 Jennifer shivered in the grasp of his big arm. 
 
 " You you say it as if it was nothing," she whispered. 
 
 " Lucas won't find it nothing once the Sergeant has him 
 by the neck, I promise you. Coming out this way, Tem- 
 pest? Well stand aside, Jenny."
 
 "WE ALL EXERT OUR PULL" 51 
 
 Tempest slid a leg out and followed it where the pony 
 stood four-square with drooped head and smoking flanks. 
 
 " It saves time/' he said. " Come down to the canoe 
 with me, Ducane.* I want some particulars of this." He 
 smiled, saluting Jennifer. " Don't think of it again," he 
 said. " I apologise for Lucas." 
 
 Jennifer watched the two swing down the narrow trail, 
 and she pressed her hands together over her breast. One 
 of the ugly things had come suddenly, bald and hideous. 
 And it was her husband who had brought it, uncaring. 
 She shut her little sharp teeth down on her lip in swift 
 anger and disgust. Then Tempests's voice came to her 
 memory. " I want you to make allowances there's a 
 good deal of the brute in human nature." 
 
 What was there in Ducane? She knew that she did not 
 know. He had come into her life like a wild, vivid storm ; 
 bearing her out with the force of him into a strange world 
 of hot kisses that half-frightened her and boisterous words 
 that blew away all her shy excuses, until there was a new 
 plain ring on her finger, and his thick, gripping arm 
 about her before she understood if this great thing which 
 had come on her was love in very truth. Her senses were 
 whirling still when he brought her home and kissed her on 
 the lips as he lifted her out of the rig. 
 
 " Our home, Jenny," he said. " And not fit for you, 
 
 little girl. But, by , I'll make it fit now I've got 
 
 reason." 
 
 His very oath had excited her, thrilled her. She had 
 not heard men speak so before, and it was surely part of 
 this great virile world out of which he had come to her 
 with his loud voice and his manner that rushed all before 
 it. Now, even as the canoe shot off from the bank and 
 Ducane shouted words after it, there swept over her, hor- 
 ribly, vividly, the contrast between her husband and Tem- 
 pest. Harry had coarse words and coarse thoughts that 
 he no longer troubled to hide from her. Harry was he 
 was one who might do ugly things ; one for whom she must 
 make allowances. Make allowances for him ! For Harry ! 
 "With a gasp of sudden blinding agony she turned and 
 fled through the dark house to the hithermost end of it, 
 hearing Ducane calling after her: 
 
 "Jenny! Hi, Jenny! I want you."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " I KNOW WHAT I'M AT " 
 
 " PAYATUK/' said Dick. " Go carefully. Tell him we 
 don't want to scare him, Phillipe." 
 
 " Him t'ink you mebbe in big hurry," interpreted the 
 breed. 
 
 " That is kind of him. Explain that I earn my dollar- 
 ten a day by waiting until he's ready to speak. But inti- 
 mate that though he's my totam he's got to yakwa what 
 he says, all the same." 
 
 Phillipe interpreted in low rapid gutturals. And in the 
 little barrack-room where Tempest held his courts Kick- 
 ing Horse, pure-bred Cree Indian, stood motionless and 
 hunched in his ill-fitting store clothes. But the eyes in 
 the copper-dark face overhung by the matted hair were 
 alive enough for a regiment of men. 
 
 In perspective beyond the glass door showed more In- 
 dians, huddled in their fur coats and caps. For winter 
 had descended suddenly upon Grey Wolf, thrusting the 
 thermometer below zero with decision, and pasting all the 
 land with a thick white layer that shone in the sun like a 
 wedding-cake baked for a god. 
 
 At the bar of inquiry within Kicking Horse moved sol- 
 emnly; bringing from under his coat the old fluttering 
 hands where the brown veins and muscles ran corded like 
 fibres on rotted leaves. He began to speak; using his 
 tongue little, but weaving his story on the picturesque 
 sign-language which Phillipe interpreted as one may in- 
 terpret a telegraph-ribbon unrolling. 
 
 " Him and Pasasun mates many suns since. Dey go 
 togedder all taime. Den Pasasun marry lif on Reserve 
 here. Kicking Horse him shoot an' fish go all over. Von 
 day him see Pasasun." 
 
 "When was that?" 
 
 52
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT' 3 53 
 
 Phillipe studied the swaying hand-movements. 
 
 " Two moons and six suns past. Pasasun ver' happy 
 dat day. Him haf much trink good trink make him 
 
 walk so " Phillipe's hands suggested the progress of 
 
 a snake-fence. " But it no mak' him seeck dat taime." 
 
 Seven hours before Dick had found Pasasun drunk in 
 Robison's shack. And, because to give drink to an Indian 
 is a punishable offence throughout all the North-West, 
 the interrogation of other Indians had naturally followed, 
 Pasasun himself being in a state of sublime uncertainty 
 regarding essentials. 
 
 "Why didn't it make him sick that time?" asked Dick. 
 
 " It was tres bon w'iskey dat w'ite man gif him " 
 
 Dick half-suppressed the exclamation. But it was too 
 late. Kicking Horse realised that he was presenting in- 
 formation of import to this man in the brown brass-but- 
 toned tunic who sat with unknown instruments of terror 
 about him in little black bottles and small pointed black 
 sticks. His conscience was clear, but he did not know 
 what those black things and that spear-eyed man might 
 make of it. And he did know that there was an empty 
 cell beside Pasasun's. His hands fluttered to cover again. 
 
 " Wah, wah," he said heavily, and stood silent. 
 
 Dick smothered a groan. His knowledge of men told 
 him that this stream had run dry for all time. But be- 
 cause the fragments of information gleaned here and there 
 required this link badly he drove on with his questions. 
 
 "What was the name of the white man? " 
 
 The answer came as he had expected. 
 
 " Kicking Horse him not know." 
 
 "Does he live in Grey Wolf?" 
 
 " Him not know, Corp'ral." 
 
 "Was it the same man give Pasasun drink last night? " 
 
 " Kicking Horse not know." 
 
 " Does he know anything more, Phillipe ? " 
 
 Phillipe questioned. 
 
 " Not von dam t'ing." He explored further into the 
 Indian's consciousness. " Him not know w'at him tell you 
 pefore, Corp'ral." 
 
 Dick pushed his chair back. 
 
 "He can go," he said. Then, watching Kicking Horse
 
 54 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 shuffle out, he added: " I would give much to be able to lie 
 with your serenity, my friend." 
 
 He pulled open a drawer in the table, took out a sheaf 
 of papers, and fell to work with his forehead knotted by 
 thought. Sudden suspicion had come to him that this 
 matter was an illumination on something which had been 
 distracting Grey Wolf lately, and he hunted what he 
 wanted through official pamphlets and reports with his 
 eyes growing more eager as he neared his goal. His nat- 
 ural suspicions of this kind helped him here, and also his 
 personal knowledge of sorts of dishonesty which would 
 never occur to Tempest. By way of his great intuition and 
 powers of deduction he wound a tortuous course through 
 the papers until his mind fastened at last with a leap on 
 the clue he sought for. He looked up with his eyes nar- 
 rowed and dark and rather puzzled. Then he shrugged 
 his shoulders with a slight laugh. 
 
 " Why, of course ; who is better fitted to deceive law 
 and justice than the man who holds the scales," he said 
 " But I fancy I really fancy that we have got it in for 
 you this time, Mr. Ducane." 
 
 He picked up the notes on Kicking Horse's evidence, 
 and the paper which had led to his conclusion; took them 
 into Tempest's office, and stood attentive while Tempest 
 read the little information vouchsafed by the Indian. Dick 
 watched him idly. Tempest had developed considerably 
 since the old days. He was a fine-looking fellow, with 
 that broad, untanned forehead where the bright hair lifted 
 vigorously, and those lit, introspective eyes of the dreamer, 
 and the firm jaw of the man who can do. It was the face 
 of one who was not likely to run to wreck on his passions 
 as Dick had done himself. 
 
 Tempest looked up at last, laying aside the official tone. 
 
 " I can't think who the white man is likely to be," he 
 said. 
 
 " Can't you ? " There was an edge of mockery in Dick's 
 tone. " It is Ducane." 
 
 "Ducane! What are you thinking of? He is District 
 J.P. He is a gentleman." 
 
 " Those two facts helped my deductions immenesly. It 
 is also Ducane who, with Robison's assistance, is doing
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT' 55 
 
 the dirty work for that bogus company which is selling 
 lots that exist on paper only and scrip-land which on ex- 
 amination turns out to be Indian Reserve." 
 
 That bogus company had been giving Grey Wolf much 
 trouble of late. Men and women had come up to take pos- 
 session of land that never was there, and of Indian Re- 
 serve which no one could sell. Some had given all they 
 had for the little bits of worthless paper which they had 
 brought to Ducane or Tempest with wrath or tears. Tem- 
 pest had had a woman in the office yesterday, and he did 
 not forget it. But this assertion staggered him. 
 
 " By what right do you make such an insinuation ? " he 
 said sharply. 
 
 " It is not an insinuation. Robison is related to half the 
 tribes in the North. Pasasun is a connection of his. Rob- 
 ison is very thick with Ducane. Morally I dare say he 
 is the better man. But they hardly move in the same so- 
 cial circles. Why are they friends? They are working 
 some underhand game together. I have heard of more 
 than one breed selling Robison scrip-land lately. Where 
 does Robison get the money? From Ducane. Where does 
 Ducane get it ; for all the world knows he hasn't a cent to 
 spend on his land? From the bogus company. Where do 
 they get it? From the innocents down in Virginia and 
 Kentucky, and away in England, who are hooked by the 
 prospectuses and pamphlets which Ducane and Robison 
 concoct and send out, for a consideration, to the bogus 
 company." 
 
 " This is only deduction, you know." 
 
 " Everything is deduction originally. Do you remem- 
 ber this official report showing that one or two breeds near 
 Chipwyan have taken scrip lately? I know that one sold 
 again at once. How does the Government Commissioner 
 know that they are breeds? If Robison can persuade a 
 light-coloured Indian to take oath that he is a breed 
 and we know that this is occasionally done, that Indian 
 will get his breed privileges, and his scrip-land from the 
 Government. Then he sells it to Robison, which means 
 Ducane, and Ducane pays for it with the commissions on 
 Lis work for the bogus company." 
 
 Tempest sat still with his chin in his hand.
 
 56 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " What has all this to do with Pasasun's drunkenness? " 
 he said. 
 
 " Possibly Robison was drunk too. But he is more ac- 
 customed to it. Ducane would necessarily need to treat 
 Robison and his relations sometimes privately, of 
 course." 
 
 " This is a very heavy charge, Dick. I can hardly think 
 that you are right. Besides, Ducane has very few per- 
 mits, and he only brought five gallons in with him. And he 
 can't get much from Grange, or Grange would speak of it. 
 He's honest." 
 
 " Oh, my dear chap, there have been plenty of permits 
 booked outside lately in the name of men who never or- 
 dered them, and received inside by Ogilvie and others who 
 are not supposed to have them. We know that much 
 unofficially, of course." 
 
 A permit is a two-gallon cask of whiskey allowed, for 
 certain money paid down, to be received at various times 
 by various men of substance and character. But, like all 
 things defined by law, it holds loopholes for evasion. Tem- 
 pest swung sharp in his chair. 
 
 " Do we know that much ? " he said. 
 
 " Do you think it necessary to play the innocent with 
 me?" 
 
 Tempest stiffened. His body took on hard outlines. 
 
 " I wonder what sort of man you really are now," he 
 said slowly. " How long have you known of this ? " 
 
 " Ever since I came. And I considered that you were 
 using your common-sense in shutting your eyes to it. 
 There's no use in drawing too tight a rein, and we'd 
 never get any information with every man's hand against 
 us." 
 
 He found himself being led into excuses, and he stopped 
 in anger. 
 
 " Do you remember your oath ? " asked Tempest. 
 
 "I believe you have turned out rather funnier than you 
 promised to be," observed Dick approvingly. 
 
 "Never mind that. Do you?" 
 
 " I remember subscribing my fervid appreciation to 
 several things which no man keeps or is expected to 
 keep."
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT" 57 
 
 " You'll keep them while you're under me, or I'll have 
 you discharged. I don't intend that there shall be any 
 scum in the Force if I can help it." 
 
 " You are over-valuing your powers, I think," said Dick ; 
 but his mockery was gone, even while Tempest looked at 
 him, remembering Molson's assertion that this man was 
 indifferent to punishment and wondering what lever can 
 move a will when shame is broken. 
 
 Then he saw the painful red flush up the brown skin, 
 and Dick turned his shoulder, walking through the room. 
 Tempest guessed then, with a swift gladness. This man 
 was not indifferent to the opinion of the man who had 
 been his friend. He spoke again, less sternly. And in 
 the end Dick submitted, rather from amused indifference 
 than conviction. But Tempest had learnt something from 
 that short contest. 
 
 " You know more about this business than I do," he 
 said. " I empower you to work it up." 
 
 Dick was pacing the room with head low. He stopped 
 suddenly. 
 
 " You old devil," he said ; and Tempest smiled. 
 
 " You've got the executive faculty more developed at 
 short range than anyone I know," he said. 
 
 Dick walked again. But his face was changing. His 
 eyes brightened slowly. Then he began to laugh with a 
 soft, purring note like a big cat, and his steps were soft as 
 those of a cat. 
 
 "You give me a free hand?" he said, and Tempest 
 laughed again. 
 
 " As free as compatible with your uniform. Go on, and 
 do your damndest." 
 
 And then, quite suddenly, he remembered Jennifer. 
 Dick's next words trod on his thought. 
 
 " Ducane has a wife, hasn't he?" 
 
 " That's so," said Tempest quietly. But Dick saw his 
 limbs twitch. 
 
 "Why haven't I seen her?" 
 
 " I suppose this first cold snap has kept her at home." 
 
 " Take me over to see her to-morrow." 
 
 " Give me your word you won't " 
 
 " Good Lord ! no, man. That's what I want her for.
 
 58 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 It's always easier to get at a man through his women- 
 folk." 
 
 Tempest looked at the face that was red with the light 
 of the lamp which Poley had just brought into the pass- 
 age. It was a dangerous face. It was recklessly alive 
 and alluring, and there was a spark of eagerness in it now 
 that turned Tempest sick. 
 
 "You're a brute, Dick," he said. 
 
 " Very possibly. But I'm going to shoot Ducane out 
 of here. He has jockeyed the District long enough, and 
 I guess that case is worth while. But I want your post- 
 mark on me with the wife. It will save a deal of time." 
 
 " What do you purpose doing with her ? " 
 
 "Making her talk, of course. What else?" 
 
 " You'll end by making her suffer when she knows 
 what she has talked for." 
 
 " Well " Dick put Jennifer aside with a gesture. 
 
 " Why should women get off cheaper than men ? " he said. 
 " They are one-half the human race, and they are account- 
 able for most of the mistakes it makes the dear crea- 
 tures ! " 
 
 " They don't get off cheaper." 
 
 " Mrs. Ducane isn't going to get ten years or may be 
 twenty for fraud. Ducane is, I hope. And she'll prob- 
 ably be very glad to get rid of him. Then, suddenly, " Is 
 your talk about your work meaning more to you than any- 
 thing all hot air ? " he demanded. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then don't put a spoke in my wheel with Mrs. Du- 
 cane. I know what I'm at!" 
 
 Tempest was leaning forward with his face in his hand. 
 Quite clearly he saw that inexorable law which is made 
 for all time. Canada was calling; the coming nation was 
 calling; the type which nature is eternally building anew 
 was calling. And the individual, the separate soul, must, 
 now as ever, be powdered to dust to feed it, if need be. 
 It was the law; and there big and dark, with the red light 
 on his face, was the kind of man whom Nature chooses to 
 enforce these kinds of laws for her. He spoke slowly. 
 
 " I'll take you if necessary." 
 
 Dick came near. His eyes were curious.
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT " 
 
 " I believe you'd offer up me yourself your own wife 
 if it were necessary," he said. 
 
 "If it were necessary I shouldn't have the choice," said 
 Tempest, unguessing the future. 
 
 But Dick walked out of the room whistling. 
 
 " We all have the choice, my son of a gun," he said. 
 " And that's why we are so precious sure that there is a 
 hell." 
 
 Tempest sat in the half-dark room for very long. This 
 matter had brought him to the edge of understanding 
 again, where he sought, painfully, blindly, as the human 
 must always seek, for the reason of it all. 
 
 What was the secret, the solution behind all this bru- 
 tality and unmeaningness? What was that Power which 
 weaves and unweaves, makes and unmakes, gives to life 
 and takes back to death? What does it mean by playing 
 cat and mouse with man through all the endless centuries? 
 What is that great resistless Power which draws us in 
 over the rollers of the present to tear us up in the ma- 
 chinery of the future? And why, since all of life goes to 
 feed the same mill, should there be such divers and nice 
 complexities in our being? Tempest turned his mind on 
 these men and women just under his hand. Dick, indif- 
 ferent concerning his sins and the sins of others, yet 
 whipped by a sudden trick of fancy into a merciless en- 
 forcer of the law. Ducane, the fine blustering shell of a 
 man, with the soul of a louse, and yet capable of that 
 strange redeeming love for his wife. Jennifer, herself 
 blind on the rim of all the mysteries, deaf te the clamour 
 of that sharp-toothed machine which is the future. Robi- 
 son, animal and man in one, born to suffer for the more 
 refined sins of others. What were they for? What was 
 the great secret which would fuse all this muddle of flesh 
 and spirit throughout the straining universe into that ma- 
 jestic all-conquering whole which alone could justify its 
 being? 
 
 Tempest never asked himself if there was a meaning. 
 He had come into that knowledge long since. But again 
 and again, as now, he shaped half-aloud the question 
 which belongs to the next step of the way. 
 
 " God or whatever Great Power you call Yourself
 
 60 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 what is it for? What are you doing it all for? What is 
 the secret? What is the meaning? And why can't we 
 know it to help us ? " 
 
 All that was good and pure and fine in him reached out 
 for the answer, stopping his breath. Far-off worlds 
 seemed to creak and groan as they swung their ordered 
 way. Far off that secret lay, brooding calm interpretation 
 over chaos. Tempest had come so far many times with 
 the knowledge that the secret was not for the dwellers on 
 the earth. Now, halting just one instant with the wind 
 and the flesh of those worlds in his face, he saw further 
 before he dropped back to earth. He straightened in his 
 chair, closing his hand slowly on the table. 
 
 " Before God it is for us," he said. " Because it is 
 formed by us and works through us. Without us the 
 meaning and the secret and the solution couldn't be. It 
 needs us as we need it. We belong to each other, and we 
 can't make the whole until we find it. And yet we eter- 
 nally lock it out from our understandings." 
 
 His eyes were wide, unseeing; the eyes of the dreamer 
 who dreams realities ; of the man who looks into his soul. 
 The intensity of that inner search whitened his face, draw- 
 ing it into lines. At last he stood up. The finite will 
 would hold him in those rarer heights no longer. But he 
 had taken one step further. By whatever mysterious ways 
 the secret of Life is hid from man; by whatever myste- 
 rious ways he may stumble to it at last, it is there to be 
 found. Because it is not God who has hidden it, but man 
 himself. 
 
 A moment longer he waited, as though to gird up his 
 loins. 
 
 " Great Power," he said, " we've got to find that secret; 
 to justify ourselves and You." 
 
 In the passage the yoke of routine fell on him again. 
 He took the lamp and went swiftly up the narrow stairs 
 to give Dick a forgotten order. The bunk-room was 
 empty, but he halted a moment, sweeping the light round 
 it. He had not been there since Dick came, and the man's 
 personality rose at him from every corner. On Dick's 
 bare bunk, with its neat sausage of rolled clothes at the 
 head, lay his fur coat and cap, his half-cleaned rifle, and
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT " 61 
 
 a torn shirt stained with oil. His black oilskin kit 
 sprawled on the floor, vomiting underwear and stockings, 
 and the well-known initials stared up from it in bold 
 white. Waist-belts, cartridge-belts, empty shells, leather 
 straps, an unrolled puttee, moccasins, and a spur with a 
 broken rowel strewed Kennedy's bed, conclusively prov- 
 ing that Kennedy was away. And Dick's clothes were 
 everywhere. Against the wall a half-dozen of his sketches 
 were crookedly pasted; but never a photograph or a pic- 
 ture to hint of past days. 
 
 Tempest walked across the room to look at the sketches. 
 Kennedy had regularly ripped them down until Dick 
 brought the paste-pot, and they showed signs of his dis- 
 approval. 
 
 " Sloushy kind o' thoughts," he called them ; but Tem- 
 pest looked at them with bitten lips. 
 
 A woman's moccasin, one; fine in the upper with bead- 
 work and porcupine-quills, but worn through and blood- 
 stained in the sole. A spider-web spun from star to star, 
 to catch a spinning world. A half-shut eye on the edge 
 of space, looking out with serene contemplation on noth- 
 ingness. Two heads ; the man's stooped to that of the 
 woman who lifted her lips but covered her eyes. 
 
 Tempest trod down again slowly. Was Dick also seek- 
 ing in his own wild way for that eternal secret? And, if 
 so, which man would find it, or would both go out into 
 the rimless future, seeking still? Very surely they sought 
 along different trails Dick with the bitter goad of a 
 wasted life to flail him on; Tempest with the pure heart 
 to which it is promised that it shall see God. Down in 
 the kitchen he heard Poley setting out the granite bowls 
 and cups in which Dick carried the food across the yard 
 to the cells. Then he heard Dick swear in sharp wrath 
 at the heat of the bowls. 
 
 " Don't you try those games with me, you old sinner," 
 he said. " Fetch me some plates to put 'em on." 
 
 " Don't you come your Judge-an'- whole-dam-constitu- 
 tion style over me," retorted Poley with spirit. " Fetch 
 yer bloomin' plates yer bloomin' self." 
 
 Tempest waited the next move with interest. Dick 
 spoke softly.
 
 62 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I promised to take my next sketch of you down to 
 Grange's. That new waitress seemed quite a good deal 
 struck on you, Poley." 
 
 In the dark Tempest grinned. He heard Poley shuffle 
 over the floor. 
 
 " There's yer plates," he said pacifically. " Off wi* yer. 
 I'll open the door." 
 
 An icy breath rushed in to prove it. Tempest turned 
 into his own room. Dick's knowledge of the forces which 
 moved humanity might not be high, but no man could 
 deny that they were occasionally diabolically convincing. 
 
 On the next morning when breakfast was done Tem- 
 pest gave his commands to Dick. 
 
 " You'll have to go out on the Moon-Dance trail right 
 away/' he said. " Word has just come in that O'Hara has 
 had his team go to blazes with him again. He always 
 does, but I'm afraid he's got it for good this time. De 
 Choiseaux is just off, and I want you along with him to 
 take O'Hara's depositions if necessary." 
 
 Dick had his own ideas for that day. 
 
 " We were going over to Ducane's," he objected. 
 
 " That -can wait. O'Hara probably won't. You'd best 
 take some grub, and you may have to stay all night, you 
 know." Then, ten minutes later, when the doctor's rig 
 swung up to the door, he added, " De Choiseaux has 
 mighty little English and O'Hara hasn't a word of French. 
 If you have to put him through just be a bit merciful 
 if he hasn't your contempt for such small things as eternity 
 and death." 
 
 Dick nodded sulkily at the whimsical face, and tucked 
 himself into the rig where the pony fidgeted with lowered 
 quarters and ears laid back. 
 
 " You'd best do those kind o'chores yourself," he mut- 
 tered. And then, as the pony went down the trail like a 
 loosed spring, he turned his collar up against the air that 
 was sharp and brittle-feeling as glass, and retired on his 
 inmost thought. 
 
 De Choiseaux drove with his knees up and a rein in each 
 great fur-mittened hand. He was doctor for some un- 
 counted hundreds of miles here and there, and as French 
 as a man can possibly be who has lived twelve strenuous
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT' 63 
 
 months in the North- West. Dick destested him; and de 
 Choiseaux, never guessing that Dick could have used to 
 him much better French than his own, accepted the dis- 
 abilities of " these so gauche English," and extended him a 
 gentle compassion mixed with encouragement. But Dick 
 proving blank against all things just now, de Choiseaux 
 cracked his whip at the solitudes and talked to his mad- 
 headed pony instead. 
 
 The pines were ebony columns upbearing a mighty 
 nave-roof of snow on frozen branches, and the little trees 
 stood among them like tufted candles at a shrine. The 
 whole forest was very still, with the thrumming note of the 
 sled runners sounding through it like the diapason of an 
 organ. Once Dick's trained eyes saw a single footprint 
 which showed where a trapper had left the trail. Once 
 a flurry of snow that told where a struggle had been. And 
 once again- a black stick explained that it had snapped and 
 shed its burden since the last snowfall. He noted these 
 things because it was his nature. But the whole of his 
 conscious mind was focussed on Ducane. 
 
 He had no special quarrel with Ducane, any more than 
 he had special interest in the people of Grey Wolf. When 
 Tempest spoke, vague desire stirred in him to look on his 
 work as a sacred thing. When alone he knew that he 
 looked on it as a mink looks on the trail which it follows. 
 To track a man into the very burrow where he lies hid; 
 to jump on him sudden and sharp, noting in what manner 
 he bears himself under the supreme moment these were 
 some of the very few things that did not grow stale to 
 Dick. The unexpectedness of the human; the impossibil- 
 ity of calculating exactly when he will double or run back- 
 wards or spring; these were the things that gave joy to 
 the chase and made it worth while. And all the good or 
 evil that neglect or fulfilment of his work might mean to 
 Canada were such a side issue that he always roused in 
 new surprise when Tempest spoke of it. And yet he had 
 a genius for his work which Tempest would never have, 
 although Tempest offered flesh and spirit to it daily. 
 
 The sled swayed out of the forest and a white ocean 
 heaved broad billows about them. Bush and hollow, 
 ridge and snake-fence were as levelly white as paper.
 
 64 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick wondered idly what kind of land O'Hara was like*lo 
 find where he was going. Would the vivid air bring the 
 blood leaping from a man's heart along his veins there? 
 Would there be a bullmoose like that one on horizon to 
 strike a wonderful note of virility over this senseless snow 
 that pushed itself against the pale blue of the sky? 
 Would a trail like this of the Moon-Dance, kept hard by 
 the passing of many Indians, lead O'Hara anywhere 
 anywhere at all? Dick yawned, and turned to torment de 
 Choiseaux. 
 
 " I think that pony is going lame on the near fore," 
 he said. 
 
 "Comment?" said de Choiseaux. Then he apologized 
 and endeavoured to struggle down to Dick's level. He was 
 struggling still when Dick sat upright with a sharp oath 
 which cut de Choiseaux's efforts in half. O'Hara's shack 
 lay on the snow like a boat in the trough of a wave; and, 
 down the slope where a snake-fence was broken and tangled, 
 an up-ended sled tilted athwart a dead horse. A trail 
 wound from the sled to the shack; a wide smudged trail, 
 dabbled here and there with blood; and, twisted through 
 and through it like a thread, ran the coyote-spore which 
 antedated the accident twenty hours back at least. 
 
 "But he brought himself in," said Dick. "Well a 
 man has to pay for his carelessness." 
 
 He followed his knock into the shack. But de Choi- 
 seaux shot past him, gripping his great black bag in both 
 hands. 
 
 " Ah, mon brave," he began. " Eh ! Get pauvre 
 petit " 
 
 O'Hara moved, and unquenchable humour gleamed in his 
 eye. 
 
 " Faith, Docthor, dear," he said. " 'Twas main thought- 
 ful ov ye tu bring me coffin wid ye." 
 
 Dick laughed, stooping over the bunk. 
 
 " You've got your wits, anyhow," he said. " How are 
 you, O'Hara?" 
 
 " That's for him to tell," said O'Hara slowly. " I 
 dunno." 
 
 Instinct told Dick that he did. And then de Choiseaux 
 went to work with the energy of a man chopping wood.
 
 I KNOW WHAT I'M AT" 65 
 
 Ejaculations flew like chips, spattering over the Irishman's 
 occasional groans, and Dick kept out of range until a 
 shout from O'Hara brought him over to see part of the 
 shining contents of that bag ranged along the floor. 
 
 " Kape him off with them saws," roared O'Hara. " Set 
 him cuttin' lumber tu build a house. Begorra, he has 
 machinery enough wid him. Och, Corp'ral, what did ye 
 let him intu here wid all that tu him for ? " 
 
 " C'est necessaire," shrilled de Choiseaux, and spilt the 
 odour of chloroform into the air. 
 
 Grey and sweating with pain O'Hara leaned over, se- 
 lected a wooden mallet from beside the bunk, and jerked 
 it with under-arm swing into the shining array. 
 
 " Maybe that'll tache him to putt a dacent men tu slape 
 so he can walk off wid his appendums an' things," he said. 
 " Just tell him that if I'm dyin' I'm dyin' in wan piece, 
 Corp'ral, dear." 
 
 " II est fol," said de Choiseaux, advancing with the 
 sponge. 
 
 Dick glanced from the brisk-stepping little man with 
 the erect shock of hair to the heavily-breathing giant on 
 the bunk, and the grim humour of these man-made limi- 
 tations which will not untangle even with Death as inter- 
 preter tickled him to something near laughter. Then he 
 assaulted the amazed de Choiseaux irt a pure French that 
 left him sputtering, and stooped again to O'Hara. 
 
 " Be easy, O'Hara," he said. " He is not going to 
 touch you." 
 
 There was silence. Then O'Hara said: 
 
 "What du that mane?" 
 
 " I fancy you know," said Dick, with dropped voice. 
 And the whole of him was alert if sudden action were 
 needed. 
 
 One shudder ran through O'Hara. Then he burst into 
 a blaze of wrath. 
 
 "What du that want wid cuttin' me up, thin? 
 
 What did he mane, the blood-suckin' little skunk? Howly 
 mother, lind me the loan ov him till I wring the little wry 
 neck ov him " 
 
 " Delirium," crowed de Choiseaux, bobbing into range. 
 " Parblieu ! I expected it."
 
 66 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick swung him clear of the giant's long arm. 
 
 " You'll likely get what you don't expect in a minute," 
 he said. " Steady, O'Hara. It's only professional in- 
 stinct. He had to try to do something." 
 
 " Let him go an' thry ut outside, thin." O'Hara dropped 
 back exhausted. " Arrah ! Get me rid ov him ! How 
 shud I be turnin* me sowl tu hivin wid him an' his knives 
 af ther me ? " 
 
 Dick made the matter clear and comprehensive. De 
 Choiseaux met it with heated reference to his diploma and 
 other matters. Then Dick took him by the elbows and 
 ran him out, for a certain look on O'Hara's face had 
 warned him that there was no time for civilities. He trod 
 back softly, laying his warm living hand over the clammy 
 one. 
 
 " All right," he said. " You can take your time about 
 it. Now have you any matters to fix up ? " 
 
 O'Hara spoke with long pauses between, and Dick fol- 
 lowed the lips with his pencil. O'Hara's dog howled once 
 with its nose up. Then it curled in the blankets at its 
 master's feet and slept. A clock on the wall ticked busily, 
 shortening down the minutes, one by one. At last O'Hara 
 raised himself, and his eyes grew dark. 
 
 " I wud be wantin' tu make me confession," he gasped. 
 
 Dick sat back on his heels in alarm. 
 
 " Holy Powers, don't make it to me, man," he said. 
 "I've sins enough of my own." 
 
 " Anny man can give anny man absolution " 
 
 " I couldn't. Don't speak of such a hideous farce. 
 Ask de Choiseaux." 
 
 " If the Sergeant had sint a praste why didn't he sind 
 a praste ? " 
 
 " You never go to chapel. I suppose he didn't know 
 you had any religion." 
 
 " A man foinds the nade ov ut when he comes tu 
 ft' > 
 
 "Does he?" Dick wondered a moment. "I can't see 
 what difference it makes," he said. " But go on, if it's 
 any amusement to you. I'm listening." 
 
 O'Hara spoke in whispers broken by the ebb and flow of 
 his life-tide. And then he twisted on his bed.
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT' 67 
 
 "Grange's Andree has come back tu Grey Wolf," he 
 said. " I was goin' in tu see her when this came." 
 
 Dick nodded. He was not concerned with Grange's An- 
 3ree. His mind was puzzling over some of the bald, stupid 
 things which were all O'Hara had been able to do in the 
 way of sin. O'Hara's hand shot out and grasped Dick's 
 sleeve. 
 
 " Corp'ral," he whispered. " For what ye may hear 
 about that girl du not lay ut up against her. Du not. 
 An' ye'll hear plenty. She's no more than the birrd in 
 the forest for understanding. It goes wid the natur ov 
 her tu have the bhoys afther her faith, they're all that 
 
 an* more. And she don't know she don't know " 
 
 His voice broke and caught up again. " Maybe she have 
 not a sowl or a heart I dunno. I dunno. But I 
 wudn't she had a hearrt in her tu make her sad. Betther 
 as she is, the darlin'. Betther as she is. An' if a man 
 says anything against her give him the lie from me. An' 
 who wud give ut if ut was not me " 
 
 Dick was interested now. 
 
 "Where has she been?" he said. 
 
 "Outside tu Calgary I was woild tu see her again, 
 an* I putt in the furrst horse that come well bhut give 
 me the worrd on the lips ov ye, Corp'ral. Say: ' If anny 
 man says annything against her O'Hara will come back tu 
 give the lie tu him/ Say ut." 
 
 Dick said it, not knowing that he himself was to qualify 
 for O'Hara's visit very fully in the days to come. 
 
 "Mary have mercy " muttered O'Hara; and fell 
 
 into stupor, and presently went on to present his prayer 
 in person. 
 
 When the necessary work was done by the two men mov- 
 ing softly in the dingy shack, de Choiseaux drove home 
 through the coming dark to one who needed him still, and 
 Dick turned to the labour that was his to do. 
 
 He overhauled O'Hara's freight-sled in the stable, pad- 
 ding it level with empty sacks and blankets. He went 
 with his knife to the snake-fence and cut and dragged 
 the harness clear of the dead horse, while the sun turned 
 all the waste of snow to pink and delicate umber that 
 steeled to cold blue, and the rigid air numbed his nose
 
 68 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 to the edge of frost-bite, and left his fingers stiff when 
 he had rubbed that danger away. He fed the living re- 
 mainder of O'Hara's team while the dog slunk at his heels, 
 explaining the fear that was in him. Then he lit up the 
 stove and fed himself, with O'Hara unobjecting in the 
 bunk against the wall; and later, he brought horse and 
 sled to the door, got O'Hara aboard with difficulty, and 
 started back with the dog at his feet for the eight-hour 
 drive into Grey Wolf. 
 
 Death meant less to him than to many men. The trage- 
 dies that belong to the loneliness meant less, because famili- 
 arity had worn away the edges that cut. He sat hunched in 
 his furs, with keen eyes only uncovered, and the sledge bur- 
 ring on the hard-stamped trail. Up in the pale night the 
 moon stared nakedly; the Lights blew up like white smoke 
 from the world's pipe of peace, then melted suddenly into 
 a spirit-dance of indecent glee, with the swishing of silken 
 flags and the crackle of far-off laughter. 
 
 The snow lay in wind-rows to all horizons, and every 
 wave of it was a swathe flung down to die. The dog at 
 Dick's feet raised himself to smell the air and howl, and 
 back at the snake-fence a coyote barked in answer. Then, 
 far across the waste, drifted their shadows, one by one; 
 slinking, silent, seeking blood. The single howl of a 
 wolf rang metallic out of the forest ahead, and Dick's 
 senses, always vividly alive, understood. The North- 
 West was abroad amongst her own ; indifferent to those 
 who served her and died by her hand; splendid in her 
 arrogance, calm with irresistible power, with careless 
 cruelty. All the wild things that she nurtured fought her, 
 tooth and claw, for their subsistence. All the soft-tread- 
 ing, keen-eyed men of the back-trail met her, breast to 
 breast and grip to iron grip. She played with them, kissed 
 them with her fragrant lips of summer, taught them to 
 love her, and then fastened on them swiftly with her sharp 
 white teeth and her breath that kills. 
 
 Dick looked at a couple of big stars that watched him 
 indolently over the flank of the range, and his mind slid 
 back to Grange's Andree the girl who had no soul for 
 the man who loved her. 
 
 The Lights rollicked in their game of hide-and-seek
 
 "I KNOW WHAT I'M AT" 69 
 
 over half a world. The moon slid low, indifferent still; 
 the black hard line of the forest neared and opened, let- 
 ting them into a world of dimness where the tall trees 
 stood like mutes with bowed heads cowled with white. 
 Very sound seemed frozen silent. The whispering creak 
 of the sledge grew finer, thinner. The moon dropped 
 down and the Lights went home to the waiting bergs, and 
 the life that moved in the forest was stealthy as they. 
 
 The world was dark yet when the pale line of the 
 frozen lake rose like a ghost by the trail-side. A pair 
 of prowling Indian dogs, hungry as their race has been 
 through immemorable ages, loped alongside with raised 
 bristles, . smelling the dog at Dick's feet. It swore de- 
 fiance back until Dick kicked it out to make its own ar- 
 rangements, and he drove down the one street of Grey 
 Wolf with a chorus waking the echoes about him. 
 
 In a side-window at Grange's a sudden match spurted 
 into light and stayed. Dick had an idle fancy as he drove 
 past. Did Grange's Andree know that O'Hara had come 
 into Grey Wolf to keep his tryst after all?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 " GRANGE'S ANDREE." 
 
 ON the next morning Dick went to church. It was not the 
 solemnity of his late contact with death, nor the knowl- 
 edge that O'Hara lay in the Roman Catholic chapel with 
 lights at his head and feet, that disturbed him. But 
 after he had slept and breakfasted and given in the writ- 
 ten matter concerning that day's work to Tempest, he 
 looked from the bunk-room window and heard the English 
 church-bell ring, and saw a girl go by with a long coat of 
 warm-coloured fur and copper-red hair that gleamed once 
 under her cap. And Dick rushed himself into his outer 
 clothes and followed her. For the flutter of a woman's 
 dress was always a flag that blew for him, and his mind 
 had not forgotten the dead man and the broken sled that 
 attested to his haste to see Grange's Andree. 
 
 The church was little and bare, with a few staring Sun- 
 day-school texts on the wall. The big black stove-fun- 
 nel ran its hot length down the aisle, and a handful of 
 derelicts had drifted in for warmth, as the vagrants do in 
 continental churches. The preacher was a young, shy 
 man from the English Mission on the other side of Grey 
 Wolf; Forbes, the English boy in Revillons, played the 
 harmonium; and, scattered here and there along the fun- 
 nel-line, were the half-score trader's wives and families 
 which were all that Grey Wolf could spare to God on 
 Sundays. 
 
 Dick felt rather than heard the little flutter caused by 
 his entrance. It amused him, for he had no belief that the 
 religion of the world went very deep. He chose a seat 
 behind the girl in the long fur coat, and bent his head 
 idly to the prayer which followed. But under his hand he 
 was noting the thick coils of hair and the lobe of the 
 small ear close-set to the head. The artistic tempera- 
 ment was strong in him, and if he had not twisted his life 
 
 70
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 71 
 
 awry he might have done good work there. Now that 
 power was partly derelict, like all else. But the emotions 
 roused by it were sharp yet, and the dainty poise of the 
 girl's head arrested him. 
 
 It was the end of that struggle begun more than a 
 month back which had brought Jennifer to church this 
 day. She had not come before because that sharp, pain- 
 ful awakening had shocked her out of all her normal be- 
 liefs, and for a while all things natural and true were 
 distorted for her as the vision of a nine-days' kitten is 
 distorted when it opens its eyes for the first time. Jen- 
 nifer's eyes opened for the first time when she fled in un- 
 reasoning terror from Ducane through the sounding house. 
 And when he had found her, and bullied her and kissed 
 her with all the primitive fierceness of his nature, she 
 had hated him until the tenseness broke and she hated 
 herself instead. 
 
 That mood held, standing her out in the full blaze of 
 realisation where the nerves and fibres of her being lay 
 unnaturally bare, quivering to each rough touch, and 
 each coarse word. And then one night swept her outside 
 all that for ever; one night when she heard Ducane's voice 
 raised in the prayer of abject fear, and ran in to find 
 the horror of it in his face and eyes, and Robison watch- 
 ing him in contemptuous speculation. 
 
 She had sent Robison away, and Ducane had sworn 
 at her. And then he had come after her on his knees, 
 hiding his face in her lap. Jennifer tasted the realities 
 that night; and all the woman in her, all the stricken, 
 dying love in her strove to make allowances, even as 
 Tempest had said. Ducane's broken words, said on his 
 knees, gave her back her values. They placed her hus- 
 band and they placed herself. Ducane was a whole aeon 
 nearer the brute than she was ; and because of that influ- 
 ence of hers of which .Tempest had spoken, he was be- 
 ginning dimly to know it. 
 
 "You're so far away, Jenny," he said, gripping her 
 waist with both his great hands. " I can hold you like 
 this, and you're right as far away. What's the matter, 
 
 Jenny? I love you. By you know I love you, don't 
 
 you?"
 
 7S THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 She knew it, even as she knew him for what he was in 
 the eyes of men. And he knew that his need was great; 
 his need for her love, for her strength, for herself. And 
 she bowed her head in the rough wood pew and offered 
 herself steadfastly, bravely, to him and for him in the 
 desire that Ducane might one day come to his full stature 
 and stand upright by his own clean power. 
 
 Young Forbes stumbled out a few bars on the grunting 
 harmonium, and Jennifer lifted her voice shakily in the 
 quaint old hymn beginning: 
 
 " We are but little children weak, 
 Nor born to any high estate. . ." 
 
 And then, on the third line, a new voice surged up be- 
 hind her bold, strong and true. It broke the thread of 
 Jennifer's thoughts, jerking her into acute knowledge of 
 it. A man's voice: young, by the nerve of it, and yet 
 trained. A gentleman's voice: but not Tempest's, and not 
 the husky tones of Ogilvie, the Oxford man who was 
 drinking himself to death on a remittance. It was not 
 Slicker. It could not be and then Jennifer's mind 
 sprang to the solution. It was that new man at the bar- 
 racks of whom Ducane had told her, half-whispering, that 
 he was afraid. The confession had burned her with shame 
 and disgust. Now, hearing the man made concrete by that 
 verile voice, her whole nature roused to defiance and to 
 an oversweeping desire to see him, face to face. 
 
 All through the hymn the impulse pulled at her ; and 
 with the " Amen " she turned, as though seeking a wrap 
 on the seat-back, and caught Dick's eyes full. There was 
 interest and bold amusement and cynical understanding 
 in them, and she swung back instantly, with the red leap- 
 ing up her face. Dick flipped open a stray Cree hymn- 
 book ; and, stooping decorously through the following 
 prayer, made the first sketch of that sweet-crooked mouth 
 and those wide eyes that he was to know by heart in later 
 days. 
 
 He ripped the page away and thrust it in his breast- 
 pocket when he followed her out. But Jennifer went 
 down the white ways swiftly, and Dick halted to walk
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 73 
 
 with the wife of the Hudson Bay factor. It was well 
 known in the Force that Dick had his reasons for all he 
 did; but Mrs. Leigh did not guess at the reason for this 
 civility, even when he put it into words on the steps of 
 her own verandah. 
 
 The factor's house led down by a clean-swept path to 
 the side-door of the Store, where two freighters, slow- 
 moving yet dominant with that quiet self-possession of the 
 men of the trail, concluded a bargain with Leigh. Their 
 rough dogs slunk round, snuffing Leigh's high moccasins 
 and woollen stockings, and Dick watched them as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " Seems to me I'm not keeping track of the people 
 around, Mrs. Leigh. Where was she from that girl in 
 church with the Cenci eyes and the Titian hair ? " 
 
 "Do you think she's as wonderful as all that?" said 
 Mrs. Leigh, and laughed. " And have you been here a 
 month and never seen her! Why she's Mrs. Ducane 
 from over the Lake." 
 
 " Mrs. "Dick stared with dropped jaw. He had 
 
 been so certain of the other name. So very certain that 
 not even those eyes had shaken his belief. 
 
 Mrs. Leigh interpreted his amazement through the me- 
 dium of her own two handsome daughters, now married 
 " outside." 
 
 " Not a good match for Ducane, many people think. 
 But they say she has a lovely mind. There she is going 
 out now, and Slicker with her. He is like a pair of 
 brothers to her, that boy is." 
 
 Slicker brought the sleigh round the corner of the 
 stables ; saw Dick and bellowed a greeting before Jennifer 
 could silence him. Dick came down with long strides, and 
 stood by the sleigh, and the change in the man startled 
 Jennifer. The bold interest was gone, and the contemp- 
 tuous understanding. In voice and manner Dick carried 
 now all the courteous charm of the elder days. And he 
 was good to look at; better than she had thought. 
 
 " Dick," said Slicker, with his vigorous thrust-back of 
 conventions. " My cousin's been under the weather 
 lately Well, honey, you've looked like it, sure enough. 
 And I guess it would be the decent thing for you and
 
 74 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest to come right along and cheer her up. Don't 
 you want to ask him, Jennifer? " 
 
 The understanding in Dick's grave smile pleased Jenni- 
 fer this time. 
 
 "Slicker's got tact, hasn't he, Mrs. Ducane?" he said. 
 " But Tempest talked of bringing me over some day. I'd 
 be glad to take him your message that you could see us 
 this afternoon." 
 
 The subtle flattery; the eager ring in the voice; Jenni- 
 fer's dread of a long afternoon of Slicker's questions 
 swayed her. She gave the invitation with more warmth 
 than she knew, and Dick looked after her as the sleigh 
 drew out of the yard. Slicker's round whistle piped up in 
 the pathetic old Indian song: 
 
 " The sun shines bright on pretty Red-wing ; " 
 
 and Dick, with the dazzle of Jennifer's hair yet in his 
 eyes, drew his lips in. For he knew the end of that song. 
 
 " I was right in calling those Cenci eyes," he said. 
 " She has a way of looking as though she had to look and 
 was afraid of what she might show." 
 
 Jennifer asked one question as the sleigh flew over 
 the level lake. 
 
 " What is he like that Mr. Heriot ? " she asked. 
 
 Slicker was young enough to believe that, being on the 
 verge of manhood, he knew all that there was to know 
 of men. 
 
 " Why, he's a real good sort," he said. " You'll like 
 him, honey." 
 
 That afternoon Tempest learned some more concerning 
 Dick, and it frightened him. For he read the cold-blooded 
 purpose behind that courteous gallantry which had been 
 Dick's heritage even at school. He saw Jennifer laugh 
 and flush and brighten as talk of pictures and music went 
 round, illumined by the light wit which Dick knew so 
 well how to use when he chose. Molson's words came 
 back to Tempest now with terrible meaning. Until this 
 hour he had not foreseen the chance that Ducane's young 
 wife might walk into a deeper trap than that laid for the 
 betrayal of Ducane. The betrayal of Ducane? It was
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 75 
 
 that, then? Tempest looked at Ducane sitting bluff and 
 heavily jovial against those delicate portiers. He looked 
 at Jennifer, down on her knees in the glow of the open 
 fire, laughing as she quarreled with Slicker over her toast- 
 making; and he looked at Dick, drawn a little apart, with 
 one foot over his knee and that shadow of absorbed con- 
 templation shut down on his lean brown face. Tempest 
 had known that look well, once. Dick's sleuth-hound mind 
 was on the trail again; here, in Ducane's own house; 
 here, where that little laughing wife was to betray the 
 husband. 
 
 He stood up with the pulses closing in his throat. It 
 had not seemed like that before; not until he had put it 
 outside his own control by giving it into Dick's. What 
 was it Molson had said of Dick? 
 
 " You can't whip him off a trail once he has sensed 
 it" 
 
 If Tempest had forgotten that from the old days he 
 knew it again with one look at that brooding face. But 
 he knew that when he got Dick alone he would try to do 
 it 
 
 The horror of the thing made his hand cold when it 
 closed on Jennifer's and his voice stammered. 
 
 " Well I had forgotten. I arranged to meet Randal 
 from the Portage before he went back. Why, yes; Dick 
 can stay if you'll keep him. I'll walk, and I imagine I'll 
 get there as soon, for the new snow has made the surface 
 bad for sleighing and it's only a couple of miles, any- 
 way." 
 
 His senses were buzzing when he got out the raw grey 
 day, and the bleak wind and the weight of snow on the 
 earth seemed to lie on his heart also. For the first time 
 in his life he felt utterly alone; stunned with beating his 
 head against that awful mystery of the Why; broken- 
 finger-nailed with struggling to pick the lock of it; blind 
 with the long strain of trying to see through it. 
 
 A priest went by, wrapped like a stone god on his 
 sleigh, with twinkling eyes only clear. He overtook a 
 half-breed woman and carried her load for her until she 
 turned up a side-trail to her shack. And then only the 
 wind crying in the forest and the patter of the blowing
 
 76 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 frozen snow along the trail filled up the infinite desolate 
 silence. Tempest felt tired to his very soul; lifeless, 
 devitalized, with his whole world lying flat before him. 
 There was no one in all the earth who could look into his 
 eyes and give him the sympathy of understanding. No 
 one to whom he could tell what it meant to him to see 
 the man he still loved degrading the law in the name of 
 the law. He stood alone in this infinitely lonely life of 
 his. Alone with his six- fold weekly reports; with the 
 breeds who complained when their pigs were strayed; 
 with the white men who complained when their yards were 
 strayed into. He stood alone all the days of his life, 
 with the regular patrols, the settlement of tittle sordid 
 matters, the suggestion of law and order which he carried 
 on his own body where he went. For him there was no 
 wife to make the whole world suddenly bright with her 
 presence; no rosy little son in the cot to which a man 
 tip-toes on unshod feet; no home-light other than Poley's 
 lamp to call to him. 
 
 These are some of the prices which men pay for the 
 furtherment of Empire, and until this hour Tempest had 
 been proud that he was paying them. Now he trod on 
 with depression bowing his shoulders, for this contemp- 
 lated sin of Dick's seemed to foul the whole work and 
 shame it. 
 
 Then he looked up idly, and far down the streak of 
 trail he saw her running running straight into his sight 
 and his life and his heart, unhesitating, unknowing. She 
 ran with the long easy Indian lope, and she was white 
 as the winter ermine and nearly as lithe in her long fur* 
 coat and her round fur cap with the ear-pieces. 
 
 A young moose slung beside her with long fiddle-head 
 and loose lips up, sniffing the taint of man. She came 
 like the strange wild breath that blows in the forest, 
 God only knew why and where and how, and within a 
 man's length of Tempest the moose propped stiffly, making 
 little complaining cries like a child. The girl flung an 
 arm over the rough crest, and the two looked at Tempest 
 with the wide wild soft eyes of the forest-born. The girl 
 was tall and straight. Black hair crisped in curls round 
 the olive oval face where Tempest did not notice the
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 77 
 
 faint, uneradicable stamp of the high cheek-bones. He 
 was watching the red curve of the lips, and the perfect 
 chin where the cap-tie went. 
 
 The moose backed, scrabbling its splay feet in the snow, 
 and Tempest spoke like a man suddenly waked. 
 
 " J I beg your pardon. You were in a hurry " 
 
 "No," said the girl. " I was just pretending to be the 
 wind." Her voice was grave. For though she was used 
 to have men look at her, Life had not taken her among 
 those who looked as Tempest looked now. 
 
 " For God's sake," he said and moved forward. " Who 
 are you ? " 
 
 " I am Grange's Andree," she said. 
 
 The name meant nothing to Tempest, for Dick had not 
 thought fit to speak of O'Hara's private feelings. The 
 girl whipped off her mitten; swept up a handful of snow, 
 and rubbed vigorously at Tempest's cheek with the colour 
 breaking on her face and her warm breath over him. 
 
 " Frost-bite," she exclaimed. And then Tempest took 
 her stiffened hand between his and brought life back to it 
 with an energy that set her to laughing such a rollicking 
 care-free laugh that Tempest laughed too, unknowing why 
 any more than he knew of the Indian taint in her or of 
 the wild drop that called to sky and wind and was never 
 content with the earth. 
 
 " Bo' soir, M'sieu," she cried suddenly ; pulled free, 
 whistled the moose in the high bell-note that would call 
 him later from his kind in the forest, and fled down the 
 track like the wind she had pretended to be. And 
 Tempest went home with that awakened look yet in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Andree corralled the moose in the hotel-lot; fed it with 
 green branches sliced down from spruce and cedar, and 
 flung herself on the hard-wood sofa in the corner of the 
 little back eating-room at Grange's. She thrust her cap 
 back, idly watching Grange's half-breed wife roll her fat 
 bulk to the kitchen and back with plates of smoking meat, 
 with hot biscuits and with babies of various ages and 
 sexes which she set about as indifferently as she set the 
 plates of meat. They lay or sat, according to their size, 
 staring on their small world of smoked log ceiling and
 
 78 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 rough walls; and suddenly Andree reached her long arms, 
 swung a child up by its clothes and held it close, crooning 
 over it. 
 
 " Mon bebe," she said. " Ah, mon bebe." 
 
 It took no interest in her kisses, and presently she tired 
 of it, letting it roll back on the floor where it lay scream- 
 ing until its mother stopped its mouth with a shred of 
 moosemeat. 
 
 " It's so sore peety you no mak' marree down in Calgary, 
 Andree," she expostulated. 
 
 Andree looked long at the fat, greasy, good-humoured 
 face; at the high cheek-bones and the twinkling beady 
 eyes, and the black coarse hair sleeked down behind the 
 ears. This woman was distant kin to her; but she felt 
 neither love nor disgust at the knowledge. 
 
 " Do you like to be married, Moosta ? " she said. 
 
 " It is goot to haf one man work for me," said Moosta 
 calmly. 
 
 "Bien! I like two boy better than one and three 
 boy better than two." Andree drew basin and spoon to 
 her and began her meal. " Mais one man all the time! '* 
 she said, and lifted her shoulders. 
 
 Moosta pulled the last baby into her capacious lap. 
 
 " Mebbe you no hear dey mak' burree O'Hara to-day," 
 she said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 The word was sharp as a box on the ears. It fluttered 
 the gentle Moosta. 
 
 " It was s'pose he dead," she explained apologetically. 
 
 Andree shivered away as though she had touched some- 
 thing clammy and very cold. 
 
 "Akaweya! Do not say it to me! Non! Non! I 
 did not make him dead. I will forget it. Astum, Eu- 
 stace. Come, petit napasis. We will sing. We will 
 dance." 
 
 She swept up a three-year-old who had inherited 
 Grange's eternal giggle, and whirled through the room 
 with him, chanting a song of the lumber-camps. 
 
 *' Derrier chez nous, ya-t-un etang, 
 En roulant ma boule.
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 79 
 
 Trois beaux canards s'en bout baignant, 
 
 En roulant ma boule. 
 Eouli, roulant, ma boule rou " 
 
 Here Grange came in, and she thrust an arm through 
 his; dancing the wild free step with flung-back head and 
 knees bent. 
 
 " Rouli, roulant ; ma boule roulant 
 
 En roulant ma boule roulant. 
 En . . . roulant ma boule." 
 
 She loosed Grange as suddenly as she had caught him;' 
 tossed Eustace into his astonished arms, and stood with 
 hands on hips, swaying and buzzing the air between laugh- 
 ing lips. 
 
 " My," said Grange, and let his son slide out of his arms. 
 " I guess you're feelin' good, Andree." 
 
 " Wah, wah," said Moosta, with her little eyes puzzled. 
 " I mak' say dey burree O'Hara " 
 
 Andree wheeled and her big eyes shot fire. 
 
 " Tais'-vous," she screamed. " Shut up ! There is not 
 O'Hara any more. He is gone. We forget him. Qa, ga. 
 We no speak of death. It is stupid. C'est abominable. 
 I hate you, Moosta." 
 
 " Sakes ; you've sure got your temper still," said Grange 
 with a strangled giggle. 
 
 " Bah ! That is not to be angry," said Andree indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
 She walked back to the table and went on with her 
 soup. Presently she glanced up with the wild-animal look 
 gone out of her eyes before demureness. 
 
 " Now I am come home I will wait at table in the din- 
 ing-room," she said in her best English. 
 
 Grange and his wife crossed troubled glances. Then 
 Moosta spoke. 
 
 " Tapwa. You no like s'pose 3ey go off rud.e wit you, 
 Andree." 
 
 " Sure." Grange caught the suggestion eagerly. " You 
 let that right alone, Andree. There's some raises per- 
 tickler Cain o* times. I tell you it's fierce."
 
 80 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " But I want to," and Andree softly, and the two were 
 silenced. They knew Andree. 
 
 Later, when Moosta had the last baby on her knees, 
 preparing it for the moss-bag in which generations of her 
 forefathers had grown their tall, shapely limbs, Andree 
 brought her glowing face to the baby's level; chuckling 
 and cooing with it as the fat vague hands tangled the 
 curls over her eyes and dabbed at the laughing lips. 
 Grange, smoking his pale acrid tobacco in his seat by 
 the stove, watched the two women in tolerant pride as 
 their broken words came to him. 
 
 " My petit daughter/' crowed Moosta. " Ah, netanis ; 
 ne waspasoo owasis." 
 
 " Mais elle n'est pas dans le moss-bag yet," struck in 
 Andree's vivid tones. " See her toes curl like the young 
 fern-shoots." 
 
 She stopped to kiss the soft brown, small things. And 
 then Robison followed his knock into the room, and looked 
 down on them. He was of Moosta's tribe, and he had 
 known Andree all her days. And into his eyes as he looked 
 came something that made him great and noble for the 
 moment. It passed, swift and sharp ; for though a man 
 needs love to make him human, he is often most inhuman 
 when he loves. 
 
 " You rustle around out o' that, Andree," he said. " I 
 guess you ain't forgot you was wantin' to play cards wi' 
 me an' Ogilvie." 
 
 " What'll Ogilvie do if I don't play with him?" asked 
 the girl, and pressed her lips again to the baby flesh. 
 
 " I reckon he'll feel injured," said Robison dryly. 
 
 " What will you do ? " 
 
 " You are wantin' to play wi' me," said Robison. 
 
 He spoke quietly, but again there was that suggestion 
 of primitive force. The primitive in her answered to it 
 at once. She pushed back her crisping hair and stood up. 
 
 " Call Ogilvie in," she said. " Got any cards in that 
 drawer, Charlie? " 
 
 " I suppose," said Grange, and tipped his chair back 
 and jerked the drawer open. " Two decks," he said. 
 " Good 'nough for a love-game, Andree." 
 
 Ogilvie heard from the door. He was yet enough of
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 81 
 
 the English gentleman to make his bemused laugh a 
 tragedy to those who could read it. 
 
 " Quite so," he said. " And what more would a man 
 play for with Andree as partner ? " 
 
 " By gar ; you soon find I play for the dollars/' said 
 Andree, and flung the cards on the table. " Pile in, boys. 
 Here, Charlie Oh, I'm playing with you, eh? Damn! " 
 
 She took the tone of those about her unconsciously and 
 faithfully as a mirror, and her soft face hardened like the 
 man-faces as the dirty bills showed on the table. But for 
 Ogilvie the game was not upon the table. Twice his arm 
 slid round Andree's waist and was repulsed. The third 
 time she looked at Robison. 
 
 " Pick him off," she said, as a child might say of an 
 insect. 
 
 Then Robison saw; and he came to his feet with shaggy 
 forehead and red eyes lowering like the buffalo of his own 
 land. Ogilvie took the hint and his departure, leaving 
 two dollars of his money on the table. Grange rolled it 
 up. 
 
 " Hands off, Andree," he said. " I guess he's gotter 
 have this back." He rubbed his nose, staring at her. 
 " You sure are a hornet," he said. " What you want to 
 go spoil our game f er, eh ? " 
 
 " I guess there are others," said Andree indifferently. 
 " Go look in the bar." 
 
 Grange went out, and Robison stooped to the girl. And 
 in the shadows beyond Moosta crooned a placid Cree 
 lullaby to her baby. 
 
 " You're carin' for me now ? " said Robison, and his 
 rough voice shook with feeling. " Andree, you're carin' 
 for' me now ? " 
 
 Her eyes dilated. She leaned forward to him. 
 
 " I not know what it means," she whispered. " I can- 
 not understand. I cannot know." 
 
 Again that look quivered over the coarse, earthy face. 
 
 " You ain't learnt what it means fer another man," he 
 said. " I reckon I kin wait so long's you don't do 
 that" 
 
 But all a woman's desire to touch beyond her reach was 
 in Andree.
 
 82 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 "Suppose I no can help doing that?" she asked, and 
 the breed's face blackened to sudden anger. 
 
 " By , you'll sure have to help it," he said violently. 
 
 But Andree gave no answer. Her eyes were taking on 
 the wide-wild-animal fear again. For she was thinking 
 of Tempest who had looked at her as no man had looked 
 at her before. She did not know the look for reverence; 
 but Tempest did. Sitting in his office through the silent 
 hours he knew that he thought of Andree as a man thinks 
 of the woman whom he desires to make his wife. Under 
 the knowledge of this his face was changing. It wore 
 more the serenity of a man who sees home before him than 
 the strenuousness that follows the gleam of a star up the 
 heights. 
 
 From a practical point of view there was every reason 
 why Tempest should marry. He was thirty-seven, and 
 love had filtered very sparsely through his years. He be- 
 lieved that his Inspectorship was sure in the near future. 
 He was lonely and every man needs human love to round 
 and ripen his life. 
 
 " Besides," he said, and looked on the inchoate well- 
 smudge that was maps and memoranda only, " I think it 
 is taken out of my hands, somehow." 
 
 He got up, treading the room with his light virile step. 
 But the dreamer-light in his eyes was not the same. He 
 had given his love to an intangible thing; to the great 
 West that was and would be. An hour had made it con- 
 crete in the shape of a woman ; but he did not think how 
 much would be lost or won through it. And he had for- 
 gotten the word of a great one of the earth, " No man 
 can serve two masters." 
 
 Dick's step passed in the passage, and Tempest opened 
 the door with his mind closed like a steel trap on the pres- 
 ent moment of duty. 
 
 " Come in here a minute/' he said. Then, facing the 
 other in the lamplight, he added, " Don't you think you 
 can get through by fighting a man in the open ? " 
 
 Dick looked at him curiously. 
 
 " Does she mean more to you than another woman ? " 
 he said. 
 
 Tempest stared. And, suddenly and very vividly, it
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 83 
 
 burst on him how far, how marvellously far, he had tra- 
 velled since he last saw Jennifer. He laughed, exultantly, 
 as becomes a man who had just discovered for himself 
 something that is very new and hidden, and very sweet. 
 
 "No" he said. "But don't you understand, you owl? 
 I can't eat a man's bread and betray him." 
 
 " Oh ! " The short laugh held contempt. " Well, I 
 can; especially when the man is Ducane." He sat down, 
 crossing his arms on the chair-back. " In an album of 
 Mrs. Ducane's I found two photographs of our wonderful 
 West which I had seen before in one of those pros- 
 pectuses that old man from Tennessee showed us last 
 week," he said. 
 
 " You don't mean that ! " 
 
 " I mean it very certainly. Ducane is the man at this 
 end of the string." 
 
 Tempest walked through the room in agitation. 
 
 " Even so, I hate to have you do it this way," he 
 said. 
 
 "My dear fellow, with a good object in view it is al- 
 lowable to stretch a point occasionally. I don't pretend 
 to be very moral or very nice in my methods, or very 
 honest, you know. But I have never shirked settling day 
 yet, and if this matter puts me in a corner I hope I won't 
 shirk it then. But I intend that it shall put Ducane in 
 the corner instead. He won't be very pretty when he gets 
 here, either. 1 have a notion that he'll cry." 
 
 " Dick, I can't allow this. It is degrading our work to 
 do it this way." 
 
 " It is only when we cease to recognise degradation that 
 it becomes complete. You may recognise it all you like, 
 Tempest, but you will leave me alone here. You gave me a 
 free hand, and I am going to take it. This case is big 
 enough to make me if I pull it off." 
 
 " And you'll sell your honour for that ? " 
 
 " I could not sell my honour at all for obvious reasons. 
 You know that I have the blackest sheet in the Force and 
 perhaps the best record for the kind of work that some 
 men don't care about touching. What those widows and 1 
 maiden ladies and doddering old men are doing about this 
 company which has corralled them, I can't say. But I
 
 84 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 know what I am going to do. And you will leave me to 
 do it. You are not my master in this." 
 
 His voice was still quiet and rather slow. But the 
 amused indifference had gone out of it. Tempest recog- 
 nised the truth. Dick's mind was on the trail and he 
 would not be whipped off it. 
 
 " You have changed more than I ever thought you 
 would," he said. 
 
 " Possibly." Dick stood up, stretching his long limbs. 
 " It was one of that sex which you are being so extremely 
 fastidious about who was responsible in the first place, 
 as you may remember. Oh, I don't owe her any grudge. 
 I have had my fun, as I said. And I am going to take 
 this thing through also as I said." 
 
 He lay awake long that night, assorting such facts as 
 he knew. They were not many, but the very difficulty of 
 the whole complicated matter delighted him. Jennifer 
 knew nothing of it. That was sure. And Slicker knew 
 nothing. Their innocence would help him infinitely. Al- 
 ready he understood Ducane. The man was false and dis- 
 honourable right through, but he was also a coward. Robi- 
 son he knew very little of. The man kept clear of the 
 barracks and the policeman, and any overtures had been 
 met with dislike and suspicion. Now Dick decided to try 
 another way. Rage would show the breed's elemental na- 
 ture more completely than anything else. It would be 
 easy to touch him there, and Dick was never afraid of 
 consequences. He went to sleep on that with the twitch- 
 ing smile on his lips which Grey Wolf had already come 
 to regard with suspicion. 
 
 A week later he put his decision into force on a night 
 of wild storm and eddying snow. The timber-lined mess- 
 room at the barracks was warm that night, and bright 
 with the coal-oil lamps and the red glow from the stove 
 where Kennedy swung the door open. Men going by saw 
 the gleam over the picket- fence, and drifted in, one by one; 
 leaving puddles of melting snow as calling-cards for Poley 
 over the kitchen-floor, and disturbing Dick and Kennedy 
 where they strove to make up a half-year's arrears with 
 needle and thread on more or less wrecked garments. 
 
 The varied degrees of men among which Dick's life was
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 85 
 
 thrown interested him always. But to-night he welcomed 
 them with special graciousness. One of them would serve 
 his need before the night was out. He glanced over them, 
 wondering where his choice would fall. There was Og- 
 ilvie, pinched and shakily conscious that he was an old 
 man in his youth. There was Lampard, the cheerful 
 commonplace Canadian in the Hudson Bay Store. There 
 was Slicker; Parrett, the new Dissenting minister; Hein- 
 mann, a German boy travelling through to Peace River; 
 and Falconer from Lac La Biche. They drowsed and 
 talked and smoked in their steaming clothes, with the 
 smell of cast furs in the corner growing stronger as the 
 heat increased. 
 
 Dick, pulling a thread as long as his arm, broke sud- 
 denly into song, with the elements riding their Valkyrie 
 gallop outside. 
 
 " King Charles, and who'll do him right now ? 
 King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
 Give a rouse: here's in Hell's despite now. 
 King Charles ! " 
 
 The outer door burst open, and a blast of icy wind 
 licked past Robison as he stood on the sill with his shoul- 
 ders peppered with snow. 
 
 " Sergeant home yet? " he asked, and slammed the door 
 in obedience to a tenfold command. 
 
 " No," said Dick. " Do you want anything? " 
 
 Robison intimated that he did; and Dick went through 
 with him to the little court-room, gave the special bit of 
 information required, ripped some memo-forms off the 
 block, and noted on his way back that Robison stumbled 
 on Ogilvie's out-thrust feet and shot him a perfectly un- 
 explainable look of fury in reply to Ogilvie's apology. 
 
 " There is something the matter here," said his unflag- 
 ging-brain. But he continued his song untroubled as he 
 shut Robison out in the night. 
 
 " Who helped me to gold I spent since ? 
 Who found me in wine you drank once ? "
 
 86 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " And that we never did/' said Lampard. " Though 
 you appear to be bearing up under it." 
 
 " Just as well as the H. B. C. is bearing up under the 
 knowledge that it has lost its significance," agreed Dick. 
 
 " What's that ? " demanded Lampard, instantly afire for 
 the honour of his world-known firm. 
 
 " Why " Dick laid a piece of leather over a rubbed 
 
 place in the leg of his riding-breeches with care. " The 
 Hudson Bay Company spread everywhere before the mis- 
 sionary, and thereby earned the right to call themselves 
 ' Here before Christ.' Now a missionary has got into some 
 place near Herschel ahead of them, and consequently the 
 Company is doomed." 
 
 Lampard was aroused to an exhortation on the staying 
 powers of the Company, and Dick finished his work and 
 turned to make a drawing on the backs of those memoran- 
 dum forms which carry the full title of the Police on the 
 front of them. 
 
 " I saw a wood-buffalo on the Twin Hill trail to-day 
 just after you passed, Parrett," he said. " You saw the 
 tracks of it, of course ? " 
 
 Parrett was the youthful Dissenting minister fresh from 
 Winnipeg, and he knew that his first duty towards these 
 outcasts was to convince them of his ultimate knowledge. 
 He was the only man there who was ignorant of the fact 
 that wood-buffalo fed neither so far west or south by 
 some hundreds of miles, and he fell into the trap in- 
 stantly. 
 
 " Why, certainly," he said. " I saw the tracks. Plenty 
 of them." 
 
 " Ah. I saw the buffalo itself. How big would you 
 take it to be by the spore?" asked Dick, bringing out 
 bold sweeps on the paper. 
 
 " Why sure ; they were I guess I didn't measure them." 
 
 " Do you think they would fit an animal of about this 
 size?" 
 
 Dick flicked his sketch into the group round the stove, 
 and sat unmoved under the comments. Ogilvie sucked his 
 lips in. 
 
 " I fancy Mr. Robison will want to kill you if ever he 
 sees this," he said.
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 87 
 
 " You can show him if you feel like it," said Dick 
 placidly. 
 
 The buffalo in the black sharp lines of the sketch wore 
 Robison's little red eyes and shaggy mane of thick hair. 
 It had Robison's slight deformity, magnified into an or- 
 dinary buffalo hump, and it waded up to its hocks in mud. 
 Ogilvie folded it with remembrance of that night with 
 Andree in Grange's back-parlour stirring in him. 
 
 " We'll see how Robison likes it," he said. 
 
 Slicker snatched at it and missed it. 
 
 " Oh, you make me tired, Ogilvie," he said. " Tear it 
 up. What did you give it to him for, Dick? You know 
 what Robison is." 
 
 This was precisely what Dick did not know. But if 
 that sketch went where he intended he expected to find 
 out. Robison was useless at present, but he might make 
 a valuable enemy. 
 
 "Slicker hardly does justice to an artist's natural con- 
 ceit," he said. " I want to know if Robison recognises it. 
 Be sure you show him, Ogilvie." 
 
 " Certainly. But so sure as God made little apples 
 I think he'll try to kill you for it," said Ogilvie ; and pres- 
 ently he got up and went his way into the storm. 
 
 Dick drew another sheet towards him and went on 
 sketching idly. And this time his song had the old stately, 
 deep-sea tread: 
 
 " Good-night to you, Spanish ladies. 
 Good-night to you, ladies of Spain," 
 
 and the face which he drew in the shadow of his curved 
 hand was the face of Ducane's wife. 
 
 Parret's high nasal voice cut sharply into the song. 
 
 Dick glanced up at the German boy who puffed his 
 little cigarette at the ceiling, unmoved by Parrett's wrath. 
 
 " That last epithet is at once your excuse and your 
 condemnation," he said. " What have you been doing, 
 Heinmann ? " 
 
 " I say all clever men are immoral," explained the Ger- 
 man boy. He contemplated Dick. "Are you moral?" 
 he asked. " I think you do not look it."
 
 88 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick accepted the compliment modestly. 
 
 " Some day you will speak of your kind with more re- 
 spect," he suggested. 
 
 " But I hope not," said Heinmann. " For respect does 
 not mean love in your language, and I hope to love all 
 ladies always." 
 
 An appreciative laugh sprang into Dick's eyes. Then 
 he .glanced at the girl-face in the shadow of his hand. 
 And then he jerked the stove door open; crumpled the 
 sheet, and thrust it in. 
 
 " Respect may not mean love in your language, Hein- 
 mann," he said dryly. " But love means respect, and I'll 
 trouble you to remember that." 
 
 And yet, when they were gone, and when Kennedy had 
 toiled with his armful of derelicts up to bed, Dick sat with 
 his arms on the table, and laughed a low laugh with no 
 mirth in it. 
 
 " How very easy it is to humbug others," he said. 
 " What a pity it is not so easy to humbug oneself." 
 
 The ring of alert feet came down the passage, and Tem- 
 pest thrust open the door. 
 
 "Ah! You've got it warmer in here," he said. "I'm 
 frozen stiff as boards." 
 
 He jerked off his gloves and rubbed his hands before 
 the stove, laughing cheerfully. He brought a changed at- 
 mosphere into the room which Dick's thoughts had made 
 sordid; an atmosphere pure almost to austerity, yet gay 
 and quick and eager, and a deep light shone in his eyes 
 which was strange to Dick in its content. For Tempest 
 had been over to the English Mission, and there he had 
 seen Andree for five minutes that it tingled his blood to 
 remember. 
 
 " How's Blake ? " he asked. " Did you get him to do 
 any work to-day ? " 
 
 "Well, I did," Dick smiled blandly. "He intimated 
 that he was too crippled with rheumatism. So I stretched 
 him and rubbed him until I fancy he understands me a 
 little better. He chopped half-a-cord of wood after that, 
 and was willing to do more if I'd ordered it." 
 
 Tempest looked at him with puckered brows. 
 
 " There are ways of doing things " he suggested.
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 89 
 
 " I know. And I know Blake. When you have to do 
 sentry-go over a skunk you must treat him like a skunk. 
 It's an insult to his powers to do anything else. He'll 
 sleep well to-night and so will I." 
 
 He yawned, lying back in his chair. The day of both 
 men had been hard ; filled to the brim with the numberless 
 common little things which knit up the great whole. For 
 it is on the anvil of the common things that human nature 
 is ordained to be hammered out and toughened for the 
 tests of life. 
 
 Tempest went on to his office; but a little later he put 
 his head out, and called Dick up the passage. Dick came, 
 yawning still. 
 
 " Did you take any papers out of the court-room just 
 now ? " asked Tempest. 
 
 " No. Lost anything? " 
 
 " I could gamble I left it here," said Tempest, sifting a 
 handful on the desk. " Didn't light your pipe with any of 
 this, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I tell you why I took a couple of memo-forms. 
 But they were blank." 
 
 " The top side of the under one had my writing on it. 
 What did you do with them ? " 
 
 " Burnt one. Sketched Robison on the other, and 
 Ogilvie took it out to show him about two hours 
 ago." 
 
 The deep lines came round Tempest's jaw. He stood 
 still. 
 
 " Well ? " said Dick, and his eyes narrowed. " Hit out. 
 Don't be shy." 
 
 " Paul was in this morning about some freighting. He 
 happened to remark that a breed on the Peace who took 
 land about six months ago had sold to Robison. He said 
 that Robison had been buying in several places lately. 
 Evidently people are commenting on it. I took down the 
 heads of what he told me in pencil on the memo-book. It 
 wasn't much, but it would explain to those two that they 
 are being watched " 
 
 Dick lifted his shoulders. 
 
 " My luck," he said. Then he turned ; went up the 
 stairs two at a time, and came back in his outer clothes.
 
 90 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I'm after Ogilvie," he shouted, and was gone with the 
 slam of the door. 
 
 Wrath at the thought that he might be foiled in this 
 special work of his hurried him out where the wind caught 
 him with its full blast across the hills, stinging his face 
 with hard snow. He drove against it with his head low; 
 cut across a side-trail to the shack in the cotton-woods 
 which Ogilvie shared with Hotchkiss; found it empty, and 
 battled back to Grange's, where Jimmy was settling the 
 bar for the night. 
 
 "Seen Ogilvie?" he gasped, and reeled in the sudden 
 calm that loosed his sinews after the buffeting. 
 
 " Gee ! " said Jimmy, and suspended his operations. 
 "What's doing? Murder or suicide?" 
 
 " Be easy. You're not accused yet." The temper in 
 Dick woke at the clink of the bottles. " Give me a 
 whiskey straight," he ordered. " Seen Ogilvie? " 
 
 " Sure. He was around right after supper " 
 
 " He was at the barracks since then. Where now? Hit 
 her up." 
 
 " My," said Jimmy admiringly. " You sure are a hust- 
 ler." He leaned on the counter and reflected. " He's 
 likely in the back parlour with Andree," he said. " He's 
 crazy for her. Eh? Well-1-1; I guess! Or maybe he's 
 met the doctor some place an* is standin* under shelter 
 tryin' ter git enough English out of him to know if what 
 he's got the matter wi' him is a stomach-ache or heart- 
 disease. But I guess he's jes' sleepin' it off some place. 
 Oh, I tell you; he's sure over to the English Mission. 
 He's been along there three times since doc. told him he 
 was a-dyin' man. But I imagine he ain't wuth findin*. 
 He is the biggest toad in the puddle, anyway." 
 
 Having quartered Ogilvie to his satisfaction he fell to 
 work again. Dick glanced into the back-parlour. Then 
 he went on, with the wind screaming in the tortured 
 branches that whipped the bare poles, and the whiskey 
 and the hot blood rising in him to fight the bitter 
 cold. 
 
 In the lonely forest-trail near the Mission he saw some- 
 thing dark swerve aside from the snow-line and crouch 
 in the trees. He sprang at it as the tuft-eared lynx
 
 " GRANGE'S ANDREE" 91 
 
 springs; jerked it up by the arm, ahd bit off the oath 
 on his lips. 
 
 "What are you doing here, Andree? " he demanded. 
 
 He had first seen Grange's Andree when she was los- 
 ing money to some men in Grange's back-parlour. Be- 
 sides, respect for his kind was not natural growth with him, 
 and what he had had was long since gone. He shook her. 
 
 " Stop laughing, you imp," he said. " What are you 
 doing out here ? " 
 
 She swayed in his grip; tall and vivid and vigorous, 
 with the black curls flying out round her head and her 
 long coat wrapped close by the wind. 
 
 " Vous venez trop tard," she cried exultantly. " Eh ! 
 Vous venez trop tard ! " 
 
 "Too late for what?" He felt her flinch in his grip, 
 and he tightened it. " I think you had better find that 
 I've not come too late, my pretty one," he said softly. 
 
 She laughed again, flinging her arms up. 
 
 " Hear the wind," she cried. " Hear the wind ! Dieu ! 
 C'est to ride the wind when it comes so. Ah! Vous ter- 
 rible ! Vous si cruelle ! Ecoutez moi ! " she cried to it, 
 breaking into the deep belling whistle of the moose-call. 
 Dick's eyes changed. For she struck his own wild fibres 
 to a chord of restless passion. 
 
 " Speak you little devil," he said, and shook her again. 
 "Who's been here? Ogilvie?" 
 
 " Ogilvie ! Ogilvie 1'ivrogne ! Ah ! Tant pis pour il 
 if he had." 
 
 " I don't doubt it. I fancy it's the worse for anyone 
 who has much to do with you. Who, then? Robison? " 
 
 She stood suddenly still. 
 
 " Nom de chien," she said pettishly. " How you tease ! 
 Oui. Ogilvie did come to the Mission for me, and I sent 
 him home. And Robison did come and I sent him home. 
 And you did come too late." 
 
 " Oh. That's where I was too late, is it ? Keep that 
 modest opinion of yourself, Andree. One sees it too sel- 
 dom these days. And now I'm sending you home. See? 
 Allez. You've no right out at this hour." 
 
 She laughed, swaying against the blast; provocative; 
 lawlessly daring.
 
 9 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " You no my keeper, Corp'ral Heriot/' she cried. 
 
 The drink in Dick flushed in his brain. He followed 
 her two steps. Then he turned. 
 
 " Get on home with you, Andree," he said, and faced the 
 knives of the wind again. For it was necessary to dis- 
 cover at the Mission the exact time when the two men 
 had been there. 
 
 It was two hours before he came back to Tempest. 
 
 " Ogilvie doesn't appear to be on earth," he said. " But 
 I guess he hasn't had time to get under it. We'll make 
 some inquiries of Mr. Robison in the morning, though I 
 don't know if we'll get much out of him. There was an 
 hour between their calls at the Mission." 
 
 " Robison might have waited for him," suggested Tem- 
 pest, and Dick laughed. 
 
 " More likely to have waited for Grange's Andree," he 
 said. " I met her coming home alone." 
 
 "Andree!" 
 
 Tempest reddened. He hated to think of Andree in 
 connection with those men, and in his heart the time was 
 already ripening when he should take her from all such 
 things as could rub the bloom off her young girlhood. 
 
 " U-m-m," grunted Dick, rubbing the frozen snow out 
 of his hair. " Wild little devil she is, too. May as well 
 question her again, anyway." 
 
 And then Tempest turned on him in a swift blaze of 
 anger. 
 
 " I suppose it is hardly likely that you should keep 
 your respect for women when you have lost it for your- 
 self," he said. 
 
 Dick stared. Then he laughed, low and softly. He 
 put no personal application into this. He was not fastid- 
 ious, but he would not have troubled about Grange's An- 
 dree, and the idea that Tempest might do so would have 
 been absolutely impossible of conception. But he believed 
 that he saw in this Tempest's old impossible ideals of 
 human nature. 
 
 " Don't fret," he said. " You have probably annexed 
 all the superfluous amount in the universe. Anyway, I 
 think I'm going to ask some questions to-morrow." 
 
 But although Grey Wolf to its last man searched the
 
 "GRANGE'S ANDREE" 93 
 
 woods in the blinding snow next day; although Robison 
 underwent a severe cross-examination in the barrack-office ; 
 although Dick questioned Andree privately until she 
 stooped and bit his hand and fled, leaving him cursing, 
 no one found Ogilvie. He was gone: gone like the dead 
 leaves of fall that lay under the snow to decay ; and neither 
 art or chance nor anything else gave him back to Grey 
 Wolf to tell what he had done with a certain memorandum 
 of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " WE GENERALLY DON*T " 
 
 " I GUESS that'll take him goin' some to figure it out/' 
 said Poley in a pious content. 
 
 Kennedy straightened from pulling up the last sled- 
 strap; breathed heavily on his hands to make them bend 
 sufficiently to go back into the fur gloves; beat them 
 together, and said: 
 
 " Well, / guess Dick'll be handin* out trouble to you in 
 a minit, all right, all right." 
 
 Poley peered sulkily over the collar of his mangy bear- 
 skin coat at the snarling knot of giddes in the traces. 
 
 " Teach him ter make picters o' me," he said. " Wait 
 till he starts bossin' that hound a bit. That'll larn him." 
 
 The dog-teams at Grey Wolf were drawn from " any 
 kind o' dog as'll work," and the barrack-teams were Poley 's 
 the full summer through, descending to Tempest and Dick 
 when work began. Poley knew them intimately; myste- 
 riously. He communicated his opinion on the universe and 
 his fellows to them, and last night he had told them so 
 far as words would go exactly what he thought of Dick 
 for a certain sketch of himself which was just now circu- 
 lating Grey Wolf. This morning he had improved the 
 lesson by harnessing one team in wrong order when Dick 
 left the work half-done to go in at Tempest's call; and 
 now he stood with Kennedy, who was over-young for skilled 
 labour, and waited results. Dick came out briskly, pulling 
 on his gloves. He glanced from the tangle of yelping 
 dogs to Poley, and his smile was soft. 
 
 "Who treated you at Grange's last night, Poley?" he 
 asked. " For I'll swear you never got as bad as this out 
 of your own pocket." 
 
 Because Poley was known to be over-careful of his pri- 
 vate purse Kennedy choked with laughter as Dick sprang 
 in among the dogs ; cuffing and kicking in a good-humourecl 
 
 94
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T 95 
 
 savagery such as they loved. The huge short-haired Mac- 
 kenzie hound was buckled into his rightful place in the 
 lead, where he proclaimed his content with head up. 
 Sharkey, the one husky of the team, backed his vigorously- 
 curled tail against the sled, and along the traces between 
 Dick strung the mongrels, quick and certainly. They 
 stood motionless as Tempest brought the second team 
 round the corner at a run. And then Dick slipped his 
 feet into the snow-shoe thongs. 
 
 " Get busy," he said to Kennedy. " Mush, boys. Mush 
 along." 
 
 He cracked the long whip once, and at the yard gate 
 he wheeled to send Poley a parting word of cheer. 
 
 " I gave Alice another sketch of you last night, Poley," 
 he shouted. 
 
 On the lip of the forest Dick sprang ahead to break 
 trail; swinging his weight on alternate feet and jerking 
 up the heel of the long shoe with the kick born of much 
 practice. The new-fallen snow packed in the shoe-lacings 
 and before the runners, and all Dick's endurance and great 
 muscle-power were sternly taxed before he halted, taking 
 heavy breaths through his nostrils, and reached his coat 
 from the sled. 
 
 " Get down to it," he said. 
 
 Kennedy hesitated. This was his first winter trail, and 
 he was soft. 
 
 " Suppose I get cramp, or the snow-shoe heel ? " he 
 suggested. 
 
 " Suppose you don't," said Dick with meaning, and 
 dropped into place beside the sleds. 
 
 This trip promised all the elements that were good for 
 Dick. There was danger, there was unusualness, there 
 was likely to be sufficient bodily discomfort to flog quiet in 
 him the restless passions that grew during stagnation. 
 Early in the fall a handful of men and women had come 
 from the States and up the water-ways, calling themselves 
 a lost tribe of Israel, and thrusting through the wilderness 
 in the certain expectation of finding the land of Canaan 
 at the North Pole. Remembering a recent march of the 
 Doukhobors in " the altogether," when the Mounted Police 
 chased them with underclothing and much tact, Tempest
 
 96 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 had picked apart this tribe more than once. But always 
 they had drawn together again as an eddy draws straws, 
 drifting north all the while. Yesterday word had come 
 through by the Indian telegraph which flashes from mouth 
 to mouth with curious speed that Abraham, the patriarch 
 of the tribe, was sharpening knives and preparing to offer 
 up some Isaacs to the God who walked the sky in the 
 coloured Northern Lights which were to lead them into 
 Canaan. 
 
 It was for Dick to discourage Abraham, and, what 
 would probably be much more difficult, the tribe, and to 
 bring back such members as he thought fit. Privately he 
 sorrowed that the process could not be left to work itself 
 to a legitimate conclusion by means of Abraham's knives; 
 publicly he agreed with Tempest that there might be a 
 big force to contend with; for the wild, hairy father of 
 Israel had that quality which brought men to obey and 
 follow him, and a khaki tunic and a few shiny buttons 
 were not likely to prove of much weight there. But to 
 Kennedy when he asked questions Dick said one thing 
 only. 
 
 " When you've lived as long as I have you won't try 
 to jump your fence till you come up right to it and if 
 you don't limber your ankles you'll get that stiff tendon 
 before you know it." 
 
 Kennedy knew it that night when he hobbled in sharp 
 agony through the hour of stern, breathless work, done in 
 the eye and the teeth of the inclosing frost. Both men 
 were red with hot young blood and sweating with labour; 
 both wrenched from the dying day and the living cold 
 every ounce they could get. But dark had shut down and 
 the keen-toothed frost was on them before the tent had 
 been pitched in the clearing shovelled out by the snow- 
 shoes, and the big fire lit, and the rawhide lacings, now 
 rigid as iron, beaten and bent from the sledge-covers, and 
 the outfit brought in, and the frozen whitefish, threaded 
 six on a stick, hung in the heat to thaw out for the dogs. 
 Dick took kettle and frying-pan and got supper, whis- 
 tling softly, with his shadow treading about him like a 
 giant with its head against the wall of black beyond the 
 fire-circle. On the snowy rim of the circle sat the dogs,
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T' 97 
 
 slavering, motionless, with savage eyes drawn to pin-points 
 that never left their master. Dick reached for the white- 
 fish, and in a flash the welter of dogs was about him, 
 hunger-mad. Kennedy saw the gleam of white teeth and 
 the red of many eyes against the tall man's shoulder, and 
 he sat still, with a sudden thrill in him that he did not 
 care to name. But Dick beat and kicked and swore un- 
 emotionally; doling out the fish to each, and hammering 
 the brutes apart that they might slink aside, each with 
 his own, to bolt it with growling throat and back-looking, 
 suspicious eyes. Then he cast away the whip, and poured 
 the tea. 
 
 " That boar-hound is a sure enough devil," he said. 
 " What does Poley call him ? " 
 
 " Okimow," said Kennedy, continuing to rub liniment 
 into his tendon Achilles. 
 
 " Um-m," said Dick. ' ' Chief/ is he ? " He looked at 
 the hound where it snuffed round the edge of things with 
 long ears flapping. " My lad," he told it, " there isn't 
 going to be but one chief in this outfit, and I guess that 
 is yours truly." And then he looked at Kennedy. " I've 
 shown you how to wrap your feet before," he said. " But 
 I'll swear you've got your instep chafed right now. Let 
 up and have supper. I'll fix you after." 
 
 He did, with scrupulous exactness and plain words. For 
 a man's feet on the long trail are of infinitely more value 
 to him than his soul or anything else. Besides, in Ken- 
 nedy's case, they did not belong to him at all, but to that 
 great organisation of which he was such a very minor part, 
 and all this Dick made clear to him without pity or eva- 
 sion. Then the fire was rebuilt, huge and glowing, with 
 the night rounding it like a black basin full of blood; and 
 the dogs slunk from dark to light and from light to dark 
 again, restless as a weaver's shuttle, and unsatisfied still. 
 The men hung their outer clothes around the fire. Then, 
 in their dry rough furs they lay down and slept, forgetful 
 of the frost that was at its stealthy work about them; 
 splitting sappy trees where their trail would pass ; making 
 brittle the steel knives at their belts; stiffening the cover- 
 lacings and the harness, and creeping near to snatch with 
 icy grip at the fire itself.
 
 98 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Twice in the night Dick rose to fling on more wood 
 and to see the Northern Lights chasing across the sky 
 like merry children at play. The long months at Grey 
 Wolf had been bad for Dick. They had cramped him back 
 into the old desires which had been too strong for him all 
 his life. Among men he fell on men's sins instantly, and 
 desired nothing else. But here, with the great call of 
 the unsubdued North-West, whose colours he wore vibrat- 
 ing through all his senses, he paused a moment on the 
 threshold while the stars went by, and the black pines 
 peaked their tops to point where their feet could not follow. 
 
 Dick had no desire to follow. He had no wish to be 
 good. But he knew, with a wide-awake, grim amusement, 
 that the delight of bringing a certain man to justice was 
 shortly going to be weighed against the pain of hurting a 
 certain woman. 
 
 The North Star that the sailors love swung high in the 
 glittering night. Dick had never kept but one star true 
 all his days, and that was the star of his own wild will. 
 He dropped his eyes and crept back to his skins with their 
 rough, coarse hair and their animal smell. But they were 
 good to Dick, for they were Nature's own way of pulling 
 him back to the verities past all the subtle creeds of yea 
 and nay. 
 
 On the fourth night Dick bought more whitefish at a 
 clump of tepees on the rim of a snow-spread lake that 
 ran to the forest lip. He gave in exchange a memorandum- 
 form where, above his scrawled name, he had set this re- 
 quest: "To the Hudson Bay Company. Please pay to 
 Kewasis Eusta the sum of two dollars, and charge to 
 general acct." 
 
 That paper would hold good all over the North-West 
 and the old chief knew it, folding it with stiff fingers that 
 yet had not lost cunning at trap and trigger. 
 
 " Perhaps I go to Peace River Landing," he said. " And 
 perhaps to St. John. Ne totam goes west ? " 
 
 Dick's knowledge of Cree would not string a sentence. 
 But his hand-language presently brought him out an inter- 
 preter; a middle-aged half-breed with tangled hair lank 
 on his shoulders and mangy skins close to his throat. 
 The whole camp smelt badly ; it was poor and desolate, and
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T' 99 
 
 at Dick's feet a couple of children gnawed together on a 
 last-year's moose-bone dug out of the snow. The breed 
 looked down on them with pride. 
 
 " Mine/' he said, in the French of the half-breed West. 
 " I have a brother who is un homme blanc." 
 
 He explained further that his brother lived in a white- 
 man house " outside " and drank and swore after the 
 manner that white-men use. He clung to that piece of 
 civilisation as Randel clung to his battery-key and Jen- 
 nifer to her silk portieres, and Dick nodded. 
 
 " You're belly-pinched, my friend/' he said. " And 
 you're old before your time. But you are a happier man 
 than your brother. Your social problems don't keep you 
 awake o' nights, I imagine. Now, tell me what you know 
 of that lost tribe of Israel which has gone up into the 
 Clear Hills to find a picturesque place to sacrifice Isaac 
 in." 
 
 What the breed told, Dick afterwards translated to 
 Kennedy in the tent. 
 
 " They're camped some place where they expect to 
 make out for the winter. But they can't be hunters, for 
 they have already traded most of their clothing here for 
 food. I'm taking dried moosemeat along, and we can give 
 'em some skins if they'll wear them. But I'd like to know 
 why nakedness and certain phases of religion go together, 
 and I'd like to know what we're to do with that nursery 
 when we find it." 
 
 Kennedy was rubbing his knotted calves where the last 
 hour's cramp had caught him. But three days with Dick 
 had taught him to endure his pains without comment, 
 and the agonising snow-shoe ache was eased since he 
 had learned to grease the instep and properly lace the 
 thongs. 
 
 " Will we have to bring all the beggars in ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "The Lord forbid," said Dick, and laughed. "There 
 should be four men and eleven women and six chil- 
 dren. But we'll leave that puzzle till we come to it, I 
 think." 
 
 On the second afternoon they came to the puzzle, where 
 a crazy knot of branch-made shacks, helped out by slabs
 
 100 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 of snow, crouched under the flank of a cliff where the 
 spruces brooded with their wide-winged branches, snow- 
 spread, for a roof above all. 
 
 " If they last the winter out the first Chinook will 
 drown them," said Dick. Then he called Kennedy for- 
 ward as the first dog in the camp gave tongue. 
 
 "'I'm out for Abraham," he said. "But you're to look 
 after his wives, Kennedy as many of them as you can 
 manage. Leave me the men." 
 
 " B-but what can I do with 'em?" said Kennedy in 
 his nervous youth. 
 
 " Anything. Kiss 'em. But keep them off me. Abra- 
 ham will likely show fight, and I can't be mussed up 
 with other things." 
 
 The dogs drew into the camp and dropped panting, each 
 where he stood. But Okimow the hound watched Dick 
 with his red-rimmed, sagging eyes. One night those two 
 had met for victory, even as Poley had predicted, and the 
 dog now gave the man that proud obedience which one 
 lord may yield another. Dick rubbed the wet nose as he 
 passed Okimow. 
 
 " Good boy," he said, and strode up to a shapeless 
 muddle of sticks and snow sealed by a wooden door that 
 had once been the floor of a wagon. His knock on the 
 door woke the silent camp as a bee-hive wakes at a kick. 
 Unseen children screamed; a woman ran out of a near-by 
 shack and dived back. More dogs barked, and sound went 
 calling through all the crazy structures where no man ap- 
 peared to stand against these two who carried their errand 
 in their very tread. 
 
 " Saints send that Abraham has offered up himself," 
 said Dick, and burst the door down with his shoulder 
 and went in. 
 
 A damp air breathed at him; fetid, and chill and hor- 
 rible. He struck a match and held it up, looking round. 
 Then his blood suddenly ran slow. The smoke-blackened 
 place was empty, swept naked of all that made it human 
 habitation. And yet human habitation was there, stretched 
 on a piece of sacking at his feet; a still body, small and 
 young, and but partly covered. Dick dropped on his knee 
 with his heart thumping. He struck another match, and
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T' 3 101 
 
 sought with swift eyes and fingers. There was no blood; 
 no mark of the knife anywhere at all. And yet the boy 
 lay there very truly as a sacrifice; offered up to the mad- 
 ness of man's beliefs as surely as though he had died by 
 the steel on the wind-swept hill. 
 
 Dick stepped out again with his lips close and eyes 
 dangerous. Any little mercy that might have been in him 
 was dead, and he kicked in the brush-and-snow shelters 
 with slight ceremony, unearthing the remaining children 
 and all the women. The women cried, clamouring to Ken- 
 nedy in an unknown tongue. They were drawn by his 
 fresh cheeks and his young eyes, and Dick laughed, watch- 
 ing. 
 
 " Keep your head and keep your temper," he said. " I 
 suppose Abraham and the other bucks have gone hunting. 
 We'll wait for them." 
 
 Kennedy never forgot that hour when Dick inspected 
 everything in the camp that would bear inspection and 
 much that would not. The children followed him; dark- 
 eyed little shaggy creatures, hopping from one foot to the 
 other to warm their half-clad misery. The women stood 
 apart with sullen mutterings, and their eyes were suspi- 
 cious under the close-drawn shawls. Dick pushed his 
 investigations through to the bitter end, unembarrassed. 
 Then he came to Kennedy. 
 
 " They live like beasts," he said. " But they likely can 
 make out. They have food and warmth. I guess I'll have 
 to pluck the patriarch, though. His doings savour mildly 
 of insanity." He flung up his head, with the listening look 
 in his eyes. " Here they come," he said. " And Lord, 
 they've got a battle-chant like the South Sea Islanders." 
 
 Down the narrow trail that gave to the naked woods 
 four men swung into the clearing with the white spray 
 breaking from their snow-shoes. Moose-meat hung from 
 their shoulders in great lumps; grey coarse stuff, dark 
 with its blood. Two were weedy weaklings who shambled, 
 looking sideways. The third walked like a hunter, with a 
 Winchester crooked in his arm, and his keen eyes glancing. 
 Abraham led, chanting what was probablv an Old Testa- 
 ment war-song. His grey beard, stiffened by frost, blew 
 into points over each shoulder; the moose-pelt girded about
 
 102 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 him, trailed, congealing in bloody lumps of fat. His eyes 
 were wild, the toss of his great arms was wild, and Dick 
 slid the revolver round in his belt, speaking curtly to 
 Kennedy. 
 
 " Keep your head and your temper. And don't shoot 
 till you know there's no other way." 
 
 The Mounted Policeman who brings his prisoner in 
 dead has to suffer for it. Kennedy remembered, with the 
 apple swelling in his throat, as the men neared. His mind 
 was under fire for the first time, and he began to realise 
 that it is possible for a man to do less than make good. 
 He sat down on the sled nervously; stood up again, and 
 heard the hound growl where it lay with muzzle on 
 stretched paws. 
 
 Dick walked three steps and saluted ; made another step, 
 and the barrel of a second Winchester shone among the 
 folds of the moose-pelt. Kennedy began to feel sick, for 
 he knew that that ten-shot automatic rifle, and he saw 
 Dick walk straight up to it with unflinching feet. But 
 then he could not see, as Dick saw, the wavering in those 
 red eyes of insanity. Abraham quivered; swerved; made 
 a break for the woods, and Dick swung like a flash and 
 leapt after him. 
 
 " Hold the others," he shouted. And the raw, sappy 
 youth jerked forward his revolver and covered the three 
 with shaking hand and heart that quailed as sound died 
 out in the forest. 
 
 It was the first searing in the boy's soul of the claims 
 made on manhood, and he stood alone in the sudden dumb 
 silence, striving to make his face look bold. The two 
 weaklings dropped in the snow. The third stood, holding 
 him eye to eye, and the rifle was flung forward along his 
 wrist. The women whimpered, afraid to scream; but the 
 children crawled up to the hunters, dragging at the raw 
 meat. And out of the forest where the grey of dusk 
 drifted there came no sound . 
 
 Kennedy's breath caught in great gulps. An insane matt 
 occasionally has the strength of ten, and if that maniac 
 came back alone something at the back of his head said 
 eternally: " I won't run. Bv , I won't run." 
 
 Then he looked down at the hound, straining in the
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T J: 103 
 
 harness. With a gasp of understanding he loosed him, 
 holding the steel menace still, and Okimow shot across the 
 clearing like a brown log launched into space. The grip 
 of numb dread lessened in Kennedy, and he realised that 
 the cold was eating into his bones, and that, in the frosty 
 metallic light, the held-up men looked grey. 
 
 By signs he got them moving, and the four took the 
 treadmill trail over the narrow clearing, round after round; 
 the white boy with the blue scared eyes driving the swarthy, 
 shaggy men of alien tongue and breed. 
 
 Shivering and complaining the women made fires, and 
 presently the smell of roast moose-flesh stirred Kennedy's 
 vitals until he shut his nostrils against it. And the tension 
 of fear and hunger and weariness grew. It had grown 
 to the edge of hysteria when Dick came back, walking 
 heavily. He was half-stripped in the bitter cold, and he 
 staggered as he swung up his fur artiki from the sled and 
 bisected Kennedy's march. 
 
 " Okimow's watching Abraham," he said. " I left him 
 most of my dunnage. Get those men over to the fires and 
 feed. Sharp! We've got to go after him." 
 
 Kennedy asked one question as his teeth met in the 
 smoking meat. 
 
 "Did Okimow help any?" he said. And Dick an- 
 swered, sitting with Abraham's rifle across his knees: 
 
 " Just about saved my life, I guess." 
 
 That was all that Kennedy ever knew in words of the 
 struggle in the forest; but imagination told him a little 
 more when they lifted the bound man on to the sled in 
 the dark, and Dick's clipped tones of exhaustion bade him 
 stand clear of the snapping jaws and the writhing, taloned 
 hands. All that had been man in Abraham had given way, 
 and he foamed like an animal in a trap ; raving in an 
 ainknown tongue, and glaring with starting eyes. 
 
 Dick showed neither pity nor horror. He engineered the 
 burdened sled into a shack ; covered it warm for the night, 
 and left it. Then he and Kennedy took sentry-go in turns 
 until the dawn broke. And at dawn they buried the Isaac 
 of a later history ; baring the ground of snow and building 
 the body in against wolf and coyote with rocks brought
 
 104 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 with great labour. For the earth rang like iron, denying 
 entrance to the earth that lay placid above it. Then Dick 
 straightened, wiping the sweat from his face. 
 
 " Time we pulled out/' he said. " They've got one man, 
 and he's a hunter. They'll do till we can get 'em out in 
 spring." 
 
 But Kennedy halted shamefaced by the grave. 
 
 " Perhaps you wouldn't want ter say something" he 
 mumbled. 
 
 "What?" Dick stared. Then humorous contempt 
 twitched his lips. 
 
 " Say anything you feel like, son," he said. " And take 
 your time. I imagine it would come better from you than 
 me." 
 
 He went back to the shack where the big hound watched 
 Abraham and the remainder of the lost tribe of Israel 
 watched the hound and listened to the whirling words of 
 the pinioned man. And an hour later began that long 
 nightmare that walked with them through the eight days 
 into Grey Wolf; days that two men remembered long after 
 the third had gone to find his senses again in another world. 
 
 There were hours when the man on the sled turned livid 
 from cold, and Dick had to let him up to keep life in him, 
 locking the handcuffs to his own belt for safety. There 
 were hours when Abraham lay rigid, with clenched teeth 
 through which they struggled to force food in vain. There 
 were hours too when the blizzard caught them; so that 
 men and dogs bowed to its might, and crouched under the 
 half-pitched tent with the raving man at their ears until 
 the storm was spent and they rose again, recounting their 
 lessening food-kit. 
 
 But to Kennedy the edge of all horror was reached in 
 the times when Dick set the maniac- on his feet, and ran 
 beside him, or struggled against him, or whirled with him 
 in a drunken, hideous dance, according to Abraham's whim, 
 in order that life might be kept in this huge creature whom 
 earth did not want and dared not lose. Dick's own life 
 was often in danger from the sheer brute strength of the 
 man. He was worn from sleeplessness and exhaustion and 
 cold, and, in later days, from hunger. A spot on his chin
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T" 105 
 
 had been bitten black in an hour when he had no time to 
 give thought to it. Abraham's teeth had met once in the 
 fleshy part of his hand, and the incoming frost threatened 
 a long, painful healing. His nerves were strong as a man's 
 need be, but the tension was unslackening ; food ran short, 
 and bad weather made trail-breaking needful for three 
 ghastly days on end. Kennedy worked well and uncom- 
 plainingly ; but his mental and physical fibres were not yet 
 set, and the burden of all fell on Dick. 
 
 And then came the last night out from Grey Wolf, in 
 an empty freighter's shack by the river. For fifty hours 
 Abraham had refused food. He lay weak as a child by 
 the fire, moaning until Dick loosed the rawhide that had 
 wound him about through his last fit of violence, and left 
 him at ease with the handcuffs only. He fell asleep then, 
 and Dick looked with sunken eyes on Kennedy. 
 
 " I must sleep right now, if we all die for it," he said. 
 " You can have Okimow help you ; but I believe he's fagged 
 out. Give me two hours, and then call me." 
 
 Within two hours another than Kennedy very nearly 
 called Dick, when a gasping smother of human hair pressed 
 down on him, and somewhere in the dark he heard the 
 mad jaws clashing. He was full awake and alert with all 
 the instinct of self-preservation ; and, like reality piercing 
 through a nightmare, the click of Kennedy's revolver- 
 hammer came to him. 
 
 " Don't shoot," he shouted, and fumbled for the throat- 
 grip with his maimed hand as Kennedy flung himself on 
 the two. 
 
 Dick said nothing when Abraham was laid at last like 
 a moss-baby on the earth, and the fire was made up, and 
 Okimow's bristles quieted. But when Kennedy floundered 
 into self-accusation he swore impatiently. 
 
 " Sit up and make out the report of this capture," he 
 said. " That'll keep you awake." 
 
 " I don't guess I know how " 
 
 " You've seen a Blue Book, haven't you? Get busy and 
 shut up." 
 
 The shack fell silent. Outside, the world was infinitely 
 quiet and far in its sweeping wastes of snow. The wood
 
 106 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 wheewed and crackled, spitting suddenly when a lump of 
 snow in a broken fork caught the heat. Abraham lay still, 
 breathing thickly. Kenney, with his heavily-stockinged 
 feet thrust out to the fire, wrote laboriously and lengthily, 
 and Dick watched the flames and remembered this game 
 which he was playing with Ducane as goal. He spoke at 
 last abruptly. 
 
 " Give me that paper, Kennedy. I'll put it in my 
 pocketbook." 
 
 "I'm not through yet " 
 
 " Holy smoke! What are you writing? A book? How 
 much have you got?" 
 
 " Only four pages and a bit." 
 
 " It'll go into four lines. Tear that stuff out and chuck 
 it on the fire. Now, write as I tell you. ' Sir, I have 
 the honour to report that the maniac Abraham surname 
 unknown who headed the company of fanatics calling 
 themselves a lost tribe of Israel, was lately captured by 
 Constable Kennedy and myself at their settlement in the 
 Clear Hills. Constable Kennedy, who has recently joined, 
 behaved with commendable coolness under rather trying 
 circumstances. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient 
 servant * " 
 
 " Lord ! " said Kennedy sharply. " You don't want to 
 rub it in like that." 
 
 " You'll make a man all right when you grow up," said 
 Dick. " And then you will understand that a man only 
 talks about the things he doesn't do. What were you going 
 to make out of this little game home in Grey Wolf ? " 
 
 Under the quizzical eyes Kennedy burned with the red 
 of shame. 
 
 " All right," said Dick, and laughed. " But I guess I 
 wouldn't. We generally don't, you know." 
 
 But this moral lesson did not prevent him from leaving 
 Kennedy at the barracks when Abraham was disposed of, 
 and straightway seeking at Grange's that brandy for which 
 his soul craved. And so it was that Jennifer, coming later 
 into the little back-room at Grange's, whither Dick had 
 retired with his glass, found him asleep there. He lay 
 back in the big chair, with one leg outstretched to the heat
 
 lor 
 
 of the stove, and melted snow dripping from the black 
 stockings rolled up to the knee, and the white ones rolled 
 down over the moccasins. His fur coat and his cap were 
 flung on the floor, and his unshaven chin was sunk in his 
 tunic-collar. One hand, knotted in a rough bandage, hung 
 over the chair-arm, and the whole of him told out that 
 slackness of fibre which is born of bitter, unresting 
 strain. 
 
 Jennifer knew just a little concerning that strain, for 
 Kennedy's youth would not be denied some heroics. And 
 yet the reserve of his new-come manhood had set his tongue 
 rather to such things as the searing of Dick's wound by a 
 red-hot bolt and the pulling of the teams in a blizzard than 
 to his own glory. And of the things which were the real 
 essentials he had neither the wit nor the understanding to 
 speak. But Jennifer was learning to interpret knowledge 
 by that which is not said. She moved a little from the 
 slow-breathing man with his dark hair damp with sweat 
 and the deep lines round his mouth, and she looked from 
 the dulling window on the lives whereto such men came. 
 
 There had been a policeman of the West who bore his 
 man south from Chipewyan against the full blast of the 
 winter; a maniac prisoner and a hard-bitten officer who 
 paid for those days of strain by the loss of his own 
 senses. There was one at whom a " Cowboy Jack pointed 
 a gun against section 105 of the Criminal Code," and who 
 " unfortunately destroyed one chair " in the struggle of 
 capture. There was the rider of the prairie-patrol who 
 brought the wife and children of a settler from the sting- 
 ing smoke and the flames that ringed them as surely as 
 ever fires ringed in Brunhild. There was the other who 
 walked in the serenity which is given of God or devils 
 through the Indian camp squatted in vivid objection across 
 the projected line of a railroad, and dispersed the thunder 
 and gathering lightning by the simple methodical direct- 
 ness with which he kicked down the tepees, one by one, in 
 an unbroken silence. And there were a thousand more 
 whose life-work lay, bald and unvarnished, in the blue- 
 backed Annual Reports which the world never reads. 
 
 There was something of the old Norse grim humour in
 
 108 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 these naked stories. To him who encountered Cowboy 
 Jack the breaking of the chair was the vital point. Jen- 
 nifer laughed softly. These men did not know what they 
 were doing for their land, for their nation. They did 
 not know. 
 
 She looked again at Dick. Already slackness had gone 
 out of him. One knee was bent, one hand gripped up as 
 though his nature watched for the sudden call. Jennifer 
 could understand that. It was the birth-mark of more than 
 the roving men, for all the children of a new land carry 
 it; carry the force and the charged tenseness and the untir- 
 ing alertness which makes for conquest, for the wresting 
 of something from nothing, for the building of nations in 
 the land they hold by birth and purchase and hard-won 
 exchange. And yet, in such as these was surely some 
 throw-back to the men who came in with Prince Rupert; 
 some blood of the lawless, of unauthorised passions and 
 whim, of the temper that will not get into line, of the 
 daring that swings a man to the front rank where the big 
 guns roar. 
 
 Dick stirred a little, opening his eyes. They were heavy 
 with a great sleep as they lifted to Jennifer where she stood 
 against the grey window. 
 
 " You there still," he said. " But why did they call you 
 Jennifer? That is Cornish for Guinevere and she left 
 Arthur." 
 
 His voice told that he groped yet on the hazy edge of 
 dreams. Jennifer moved nervously; and then he sprang 
 up, locked suddenly into his senses again. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said. " I was sleeping. And 
 I'm disgracefully dirty. I have just come in." 
 
 " I know. Oh, you have had a terrible, terrible time." 
 
 " Kennedy is very young," apologised Dick. " You must 
 excuse him." 
 
 "But didn't you?" 
 
 " Not at all, thank you. It was an extremely ordinary 
 patrol. But I can't forgive myself for coming before you 
 in these clothes." 
 
 " Oh, how could you think I'd mind that? I'm glad 
 always " 
 
 Dick skilfully effaced the sentence before she realised
 
 WE GENERALLY DON'T 53 109 
 
 it. His eyes smiled as he paraphrased Tempest's accusa- 
 tion of a few weeks back. 
 
 " Men say hard things of me, Mrs. Ducane," he said. 
 " But won't you concede me still the possession of a little 
 respect for women and for myself ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Jennifer, and reddened. " Don't. It it 
 hurts to to think a man would need to speak in that 
 way ever." 
 
 " I'm sorry," he said instantly. "A man who has been 
 much in rough places forgets sometimes what a delicate 
 instrument a woman is." 
 
 He stretched his hands out, dirty bandage and all. 
 
 " Look at those," he said. " Fit for a drum or a barrel- 
 organ, perhaps. But for the lute or the harp ! No ! " 
 
 The easy courtesy of his manner belied his words, and 
 he shook his head, smiling. To Jennifer it was the daring 
 of life, the ring of the bold heart and merry that had 
 ever called out her own heart to meet it. She had thought 
 that she answered that call in Ducane, and the knowledge 
 that it never was there was a live pain that would not 
 cease. But this unshaven man, with the smell of wet wool 
 in his stockings and clothes, and of drying mooseskin on 
 his feet, brought her near it again until she felt the hot 
 breath of the world in her face, and the reckless laugh 
 of the world in her eyes. 
 
 Dick struck in her a spark that Tempest could not, nor 
 Ducane. For he did not shield her womanhood as Tem- 
 pest was wont to do, nor offend it as Ducane often did. 
 And he took her out at last to Ducane with the passion 
 of life welling up in her for the things that were done 
 and to do. Ducane looked at her as they swept over the 
 frozen lake where a sunset laid golden bars. 
 
 " What was that buck saying to you? " he demanded. 
 
 " Nothing in particular," said Jennifer, and reddened 
 at words and tone. 
 
 " I won't have you see too much of those fellows," said 
 Ducane, and pulled her close in his arm. "Do you hear 
 me, Jenny ? " 
 
 " What do you mean? " said Jennifer, and her voice was 
 concentrated. 
 
 " Oh, you know well enough," Ducane laughed. " Play
 
 110 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 with them all you like," he said. " But don't you play 
 with me. See? I won't have it." 
 
 The knowledge that these last months v had given her 
 controlled Jennifer. She reached her mittened hand to 
 stroke his cheek. 
 
 " Harry, dear, don't you sometimes forget that I'm your 
 wife? " she said. 
 
 Ducane's rough bear hug brought her close to his rough 
 bear's heart. 
 
 " No, Jenny. No, my girl. I guess I never forget that. 
 But I'm worried, Jenny. I'm worried. And I want you 
 all the time. If you went back on me, by " 
 
 She silenced his lips with her soft fingers. 
 
 " I will never go back on you, my husband," she said, 
 and they drove on, unspeaking. 
 
 Ducane had her hand under the rug, clinging as a cow- 
 ard or a child might do. Jennifer looked straight out to 
 where the white hill and the scattered forest grew plain 
 to meet them. But she saw only a lean, tired, firm face, 
 white under the wind-burn, and a brown hand that clenched 
 strongly even in sleep. 
 
 When Dick returned to the bar he saw Grange's Andree 
 feeding the young moose in the hotel yard. Her laugh 
 called Dick's eyes to her. And then he stopped and stared. 
 For it was Tempest who held the armful of branches from 
 which Andree plucked her handfuls. 
 
 " What the devil " he said. Then he laughed and 
 
 went in. " For if Tempest sets out to make a saint out 
 of that young sinner he'll have to take off his coat to it," 
 he said. 
 
 Tempest was not trying to make a saint of Andree, 
 because he did not guess at the need of it. Through the 
 white light of his own nature he saw her; discovering in 
 her beauties that were never there; gold that was only 
 dross; strong-burning fires that other men knew for will- 
 o'-the-wisp. But, because a man fashions his own heaven 
 and hell, and his own beliefs from the texture of his own 
 heart, Tempest was not like to find this out. For a man 
 is never blinder than when he is quite sure that he sees. 
 After Ogilvie had gone, no man knew where, leaving his 
 corner of Hotchkiss' shack empty, Hotchkiss had married
 
 Ill 
 
 one of the town-bred girls from Grange's and Andree had 
 taken her place. This arrangement appeared satisfactory 
 to all concerned until Tempest came in from a three days' 
 trip to Lower Landing and found Andree bearing the little 
 oval dishes with their ill-cooked food over the big bare 
 room to a noisy tableful of freighters. 
 
 Andree had not forgotten how he halted inside the door, 
 straight and tall in his uniform, and looked at her with 
 eyes as straight and more stern than she cared to see. 
 For Tempest was just now the North Star in her universe, 
 and her compass swung to him as naturally as it would by 
 and by swing to another. She flinched from his glance as 
 though it had been a whip. Then her tread grew stately 
 and her eyes cold, and she moved among the burring talk 
 and the rough laughter and the clatter of plates and knives 
 like the handmaid of the gods which Tempest would have 
 her be. He spoke low when she brought the food to his 
 table where he sat alone. 
 
 " What do they mean by letting you do this ? " he asked. 
 
 " Gertrude got married yesterday," she said. " And I 
 do not mind." 
 
 " But I mind," he said. And because it was the first 
 time he had taken that tone with her she went away, 
 half-flattered, half-afraid. 
 
 He was saying the same thing now, as he shed the last 
 spruce-branches on the snow and thrust past the long 
 poking fiddle-head to come near her. 
 
 " And I won't have it," he ended sternly. " I had to 
 turn a man out last night. If he had spoken to you " 
 
 Andree looked away. She knew dimly that it would not 
 please Tempest to hear how well she could take care of 
 herself when she chose. 
 
 " But it is so often that they are good boys," she said. 
 
 " I know. They're usually all right. But I hate to have 
 you wait on them. And I hate to have you wait on me." 
 He came nearer yet. " I wonder if you guess how I feel 
 when I have to sit still and let you wait on me," he said. 
 
 She heard the note in his voice. But she could not read 
 it. She saw his eyes. But she did not know what they 
 said. 
 
 " I don't understand," she told him.
 
 112 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 The red and purple sunset was gone, leaving greyness. 
 A thick mist swept up the lake and into the yard, and 
 beside them the moose was coughing. She herself seemed 
 growing vague, indistinct. And then he caught her hands, 
 bringing a sharp virile note into the haze. 
 
 " Andree," he said. "Will you marry me?" 
 
 She jumped, with a cry of anger and fear. 
 
 " Non, non," she gasped. " Nemoweya. I do not want 
 to go maree. I do not want." 
 
 The breaking of her careful English warned him. He 
 stood back on the instant. 
 
 " Why, don't be frightened, dear," he said. " You don't 
 imagine I'd do a thing to frighten you? But I need you 
 to think about this, Andree. I have thought of it ever 
 since I first saw you in the trail." 
 
 " So? " she said, with a long indrawn breath. 
 
 She stared at him, with her brain working slowly behind 
 the soft eyes. She had no desire for marriage. Always 
 with Andree, " two boys were better than one, and three 
 boys were better than two." But Robison had been trouble- 
 some of late, and it might be well to let Tempest step 
 between to take the brunt. It did not run so in her mind. 
 That held no more than the animal instinct of getting be- 
 hind something that would shield it from danger. She 
 stood very still in the mist that rimed her curls and her 
 close-drawn hood and pushed long warning fingers between 
 her and the man. The very silence that she used with 
 Tempest waked his reverence. To him it showed a girl- 
 heart finely tuned, and to be as finely touched. He did not 
 guess that she had just enough wit to know it for her only 
 weapon with him. The moose stamped impatiently in the 
 snow. Then it flung restlessly round the yard, with neck 
 laid back so that the budding horns made a line with the 
 shoulders, and its big splay feet swinging noiselessly. It 
 looked huge and threatening as it loomed in the mist, 
 passed and came again. And Tempest had no knowledge 
 of how the wild heart in that still girl called to it. 
 
 " I want you, dear," he said, gently. " And I think you 
 likely want me. Everything needs its opposite which is 
 its complement. You won't understand that. But every- 
 thing is made dual, Andree. Light needs darkness, sweet
 
 "WE GENERALLY DON'T" 113 
 
 needs bitter, strength needs weakness, man needs woman. 
 It is only the contrast the nearness of the other which 
 can make the one grow to its highest. I love my work, 
 God knows. But it has not been enough for me since I 
 found you. I think it can never be enough for me again." 
 
 His hands were ungloved where they came over her 
 gloved ones. Andree looked down on them. Those brown, 
 sinewy, nervous pieces of flesh and blood could strike her 
 out of life by the sudden contraction and swing of their 
 steel muscles and tendons. He was the strong animal ; 
 stronger perhaps than Robison, and infinitely less alarming. 
 She lifted his hands suddenly and kissed them. It was her 
 tribute to the man-strength of him, and that was all that 
 she cared for or understood. But to Tempest it was a glo- 
 rious act that brought the blood to his forehead. He bowed 
 it down on the joined hands. 
 
 " God bless you," he said unsteadily. " God bless you, 
 Andree." 
 
 Dick, half-asleep over the mess-room fire, was startled 
 by the light which still shone in Tempest's face when he 
 came in to smoke a pipe much later. But no power short 
 of actual proof could have made him connect it with 
 Grange's Andree. He blinked up, half-derisive, half- 
 envious. 
 
 " Have you been on the mountain-tops again, you old 
 beggar ? " he said. Then, underbreath, he mumbled part 
 of a verse that drifted to him out of the nowhere 
 
 "A veil 'twixt us and Thee, dread God. 
 
 A veil 'twixt us and Thee; 
 Lest we should hear too clear, too clear, 
 And unto madness see."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE YOUNG GOD FREY 
 
 Ducane dashed his cup down in the saucer with a force 
 chat spattered the tea across the tablecloth. 
 
 "What in the name of all things d'you let that old fool 
 into the house for? " he demanded. 
 
 Jennifer laughed the little soft laugh that soothed him 
 always. 
 
 " It's just a thanksgiving for his breakfast, dear. I told 
 Louisa to bring him in. It must have been below zero in 
 his shack this morning." 
 
 " Pshaw ! You can't freeze a Cree Indian. Good Lord, 
 Jenny! Stop him! And that devil's tom-tom of his, too. 
 Tell him - -" 
 
 Jennifer went out quickly. Ducane's nerves had been a 
 ragged edge of late, and she could not draw from him the 
 reason why. But she shielded and eased and softened him 
 wherever her wit could do it; and if the strain showed in 
 her face it was not Ducane who would notice it, nor yet 
 the two in the rough draughty kitchen behind the house. 
 
 Jennifer stood a moment in the door. At the broad 
 blackened bench running along one side of the place the 
 slow, clumsy half-breed girl was splashing greasy water 
 as she scraped a pot. She was a living thorn in Jennifer's 
 flesh; a primitive thing that could not be taught, and that 
 never lost its temper. Up in the dark rough rafters were 
 thrust broken snow-shoes, a special hand-sled of Ducane's, 
 a couple of bear-skins of his own curing, and many other 
 things which belonged to the days before Jennifer came 
 and which she had not had the courage to touch. Before 
 the glowing stove sat the old Cree, astride of a box. His 
 store-clothes hung loosely on his gaunt, long body. His 
 black hair, like frayed-out carpet, fell back from the blind, 
 seamed old face as he pointed his nose to the roof and
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY s! 115 
 
 bayed like a wolf in the night, keeping time with the 
 tom-tom beat. 
 
 " Hah-yah-ah-ah ! Hah " 
 
 Jennifer touched the bowed shoulder. 
 Meewahsin, Son-of-Lightning/' she said. " Very 
 
 Son-of-Lightning's bony knuckles dropped from the 
 tuneless little drum. He twisted to meet the voice. 
 
 " Meewahsin ? " he said, and showed all his tobacco- 
 blacked teeth in the grin which he gave no one but 
 Jennifer. "Aha, Tapwa?" 
 
 " Certainly," said Jennifer. " It is truly very good." 
 She looked at Louisa. " Tell him it is time to go out 
 and cut kindling," she said. 
 
 Louisa interpreted in the swift guttural mutters that 
 seem to have no terminals. The old man raised himself 
 by sections, and Jennifer pulled her coat from the passage- 
 peg, stepping out with him into the crisp brilliance of the 
 spring morning. 
 
 All the world was vividly, crystally new. Under the 
 breath of the Chinook which came eager and warm from 
 the Rockies the trees had sloughed their winter covering, 
 standing in delicate grey tracery against the dazzling sky. 
 In this atmosphere the houses over at Grey Wolf stood 
 distinct, each one, with smoke feathering straightly from 
 the chimneys. Jennifer could see the glint of beaded moc- 
 casins on a man by the hotel door. She could catch the 
 crack of a quirt as Kennedy went up the street on the pie- 
 bald barrack pony. Snowbirds were calling gladly down 
 the lake where the ice was thinning; and against the clear- 
 ing fences and the heaps of melting snow sunshine was 
 splintering its lances gaily. All about the feet of Spring 
 moved; growing nearer, warmer. The air was full of 
 promise; of life, of things to be and do, and Jennifer's 
 blood ran riot with the joy of it as she thrust open the 
 door of Son-of-Lightning's shack. 
 
 If the world outside was resurrection that shack most 
 surely was the grave. But its desolation of sacking-bunk, 
 ragged blankets, old lumber, and almost audible smell 
 troubled her less this morning. The day was too boister- 
 ously glad. Besides, Son-of-Lightning loved it. He trod
 
 116 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 past her with the unerring feet of the blind who know their 
 path; squatted on the floor like some furry animal; reached 
 his knife from a tie in the wall and a dried stick from 
 the floor, and began slicing slivers for firewood. He 
 paused once to try the blade on his thumb, and Jennifer 
 went away, shutting the door on the sharp, keen air. Day 
 or dark were alike to Son-of-Lightning, and he was smoke- 
 dried beyond all hurt from the smells. 
 
 Round the house the snow was pounded into holes and 
 kicked to ridges by the passing of men and horses. Where 
 the crisp surface spumed into spray about their bodies a 
 big husky-dog was fighting two of Ducane's sled-dogs. 
 They were bred too close to the wolf for Jennifer to care 
 for or to heed the issue. Everything belonging to Ducane 
 was savage and rough and unlovely as himself; everything 
 except Jennifer. She watched them a moment with her 
 dark brows drawn together. That husky dog was Robi- 
 son's, and always his coming left Ducane inflamed with 
 excitement or irritable with a hidden fear. 
 
 She went into the house, hearing Ducane call her from 
 the passage. 
 
 " Jenny ! Bring another cup and some more bacon. 
 Robison's here." 
 
 This was not the first time Ducane had bade her wait 
 on the breed, and her temper began to stir. She gave two 
 orders to Louisa, and met Ducane in the narrow side- 
 passage hung with his guns and fishing-gear. 
 
 " Louisa will bring them," she said quietly. " You don't 
 want to make me wait on Robison, do you ? " 
 
 Ducane was irritable already. 
 
 " By George," he exploded. " I guess you'll leave your 
 Toronto airs behind you up here, my girl. If Robison is 
 good enough for me " 
 
 " He is good enough for me. Is that what you mean? " 
 
 Under her eyes Ducane fidgeted. 
 
 " What's the matter with him ? " he said sulkily. 
 
 " Nothing, perhaps in his proper place. But his place 
 is not in my sitting-room, and you have brought him there 
 more than once. Nor is it in the dining-room when I am 
 there. You would not dare attempt to make him my equal 
 if he had not a greater hold over you than he should have."
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY" 117 
 
 Ducane went purple. All his bullying, blustering na- 
 ture flared up. 
 
 " By - , you'll do as I tell you," he said. 
 
 " I will not," said Jennifer, and he saw the steel in her 
 eyes. 
 
 For a moment he gasped. Then he swore again, low 
 and in admiration. 
 
 " You've got sand, you little spitfire," he said. " You've 
 got sand." He stared at her still. " I reckon you could 
 jolly the lot of 'em if you were put to it, eh? They 
 wouldn't cut any ice off you." 
 
 She shivered under the eager speculation in his eyes. 
 
 " Harry dear " she said, and reached her hand up 
 
 to touch his cheek. 
 
 He caught it, crushing his lips to the palm. 
 
 " You'd do anything for me, Jenny ? " he whispered. 
 " Anything, if I needed it? You know I love you, Jenny. 
 I love you." 
 
 Neither the man nor the woman knew yet if he" loved 
 himself better. Jennifer drew her hand gently away. 
 
 " Anything I could," she said. " You know that. Now, 
 go back to Robison. Louisa has taken in the bacon." 
 
 Ducane went, and there was the lift of eagerness in his 
 feet. For he had a whole new formula to work on; one 
 close at hand; one which he had never thought of before. 
 Robison looked at him with curiosity. He did not under- 
 stand this man who had gone into a game for men to play 
 and who was now afraid of it. For long they talked very 
 low over the table-corner. Then Ducane pushed dishes 
 and silver aside, and brought some papers from a locked 
 drawer in a wall-cabinet. 
 
 " When the first boat goes down to Chipewyan we go 
 too," he said. " I want some information and some photo- 
 graphs about that country." 
 
 " Oh," Robison rubbed his broad flat nose. " Told yer 
 Grey Wolf was only a nibble at the beginning." 
 
 " I could have told you that. Last week I heard from 
 a fellow in England who'd been reading some of our liter- 
 ature. It came under cover to Winnipeg, of course. I'm 
 replying direct to him. He's going to have that bit of land 
 on the Peace that you bought from Ras Taylor."
 
 118 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Ras Taylor was the breed whose scrip-land Robison had 
 bought. Incidentally Ras Taylor had also been very drunk 
 at intervals for some months. But it was known that 
 Robison had been very good to him and had paid him in 
 advance for part of his next year's trapping, Ras being 
 too deeply in debt to the Hudson Bay Company to receive 
 grace from them. 
 
 Robison nodded. This thing had been done before, al- 
 though the Winnipeg Company which supplied the litera- 
 ture would not have warmly approved. But neither Du- 
 cane nor Robison had thought of seeking encouragement 
 from them. 
 
 " Hand over the feller's letter, an' yer answer," said 
 Robison. He took pains to know that Ducane reserved all 
 his treachery for the other members of the Company, and 
 he read the letters with deliberation. 
 
 " Looks all right," he said, and tossed them back. " Du- 
 cane, what's that Dick Heriot doing across here so often? " 
 
 " How should I know ? I can't stop him or he'd sus- 
 pect something." 
 
 " Do you think he ain't suspectin' everybody in Grey 
 Wolf ever since he first got wind o' this? I heard all 
 about him long before he come here. But you've got to 
 watch out that he doesn't do more than suspect. See? " 
 
 Ducane's fat, ruddy face sagged and paled. 
 
 " He can't suspect. How should he ? We never 
 have " 
 
 " Well, take care as we never do, that's all. I'm lookin' 
 for a chance ter git even with him, but it's long a-comin'." 
 He pulled a flat sheet of paper from his mooseskin wallet. 
 "See that?" he said. "That's what he done to me, 
 the " 
 
 Ducane picked up Dick's sketch of the wood-buffalo, 
 which was Robison. It was a little blurred by damp and 
 rubbing, but it was unmistakable, and cruelly clever. Du- 
 cane laughed, holding it up against the light. 
 
 " By Jove, he's got his own idea of a joke," he said. 
 "How long have you had this?" 
 
 " Never you mind." Robison leaned forward suddenly. 
 " There's writin' on that other side. Faint pencil, an' I 
 never saw it before. Hand it here."
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY ' 119 
 
 He half-snatched it and read the notes in Tempest's 
 clear writing below the " Memorandum. Royal North- 
 West Mounted Police Force. Form No. ." 
 
 " I never saw this before," he said weakly. " I never 
 saw this before." 
 
 "What is it?" Ducane took it and read it. Then he 
 sprang up with a gasp. Deadly fear had caught him, 
 making him cringe at the far-off threat. 
 
 " They're after us," he cried. " Lord ! They're after 
 us. They know what we're at." 
 
 There was sweat on his face. He brought a bottle and 
 glasses to the table, poured himself a stiff nip, and dropped 
 back in his chair, holding his glass with a shaking hand. 
 Robison was watching in the impenetrable gravity of an 
 elephant. Fear was a thing outside his understanding. 
 
 " Everyone knows Ras Taylor took scrip last year an' 
 sold to me this," he said. " Don't make such a row." 
 
 " They wouldn't have noted it unless they were going 
 
 to do something, would they? By , perhaps they've 
 
 got the whole thing already. I shall clear out. I can't 
 stand this. They'll get me, the brutes. They'll get 
 me." 
 
 Robison's elemental brain felt dimly that he was rather 
 more ignored than courtesy demanded. 
 
 " And where do I come in ? " he demanded. " I reckon 
 I'm as near caught as you, any day. But I reckon I can 
 lie my way out of it so far. An' so must you." 
 
 His little red eyes were sharp on Ducane. It did not 
 occur to him that any man could baulk over the telling of 
 lies, for he did not know that this is one of the limitations 
 which usually goes with the honour of being born a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 " It won't come to that. If this damned Heriot was 
 spiked " 
 
 Ducane halted suddenly, thinking of Jennifer. His face 
 lightened a little, and he sat still. Robison heaved him- 
 self up, standing with great arms hanging, more like an 
 ape than ever. 
 
 " We'll go on as we've gone," he said. " I'm not goin' 
 out of this game till I have to run for it. There's money 
 in it, all right."
 
 120 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I won't do any more," Ducane looked up defiantly. 
 " I won't go up to Chipewyan. I " 
 
 " Yes, you will, too." Robison thrust his hairy face 
 close. " You don't go back on me if I know it," he said. 
 
 " I won't go to Chipewyan," cried Ducane. " I'm going 
 to clear out of Grey Wolf right away. I'm not fool 
 enough to be caught " 
 
 " You'll go to Chipewyan," said Robison. " An' you'll 
 stay on here till we're through with our little corner. See? 
 I'm goin' to make enough out o' my pickin's to set me up. 
 You've scooped more than your share so far. But you'll 
 give me fair dues now, an' you won't pull out till I'm 
 ready." 
 
 His rough voice was lowered and he scarcely moved. 
 But Ducane recognised the enormous brute force which 
 will fight for what it wants, regardless of consequences. 
 If he played false with Robison the man would kill him. 
 He had known that for some time, but he shivered and 
 cowered under the knowledge again. 
 
 " Heriot is a dog after cunning work," he said. " He'll 
 get me " 
 
 " We'll light out before that. He doesn't know much or 
 he'd have been on to us before now. This picture is near 
 five months old. Never you mind how I know that. And 
 you keep your mouth shut. You don't tell your wife 
 things? You swore you didn't." 
 
 " I don't. No. But " 
 
 " You'll do as I say," said Robison quietly, " or I guess 
 you'll likely get hurt, Mr. Ducane." 
 
 Ducane fingered the sketch aimlessly, and Jennifer, pass- 
 ing the window with the gladness of the spring day in 
 her eyes and her feet, wondered at the sullen fear on his 
 face. But she pushed thought of him and of Robison from 
 her as she climbed the hill where an old Indian woman 
 was beating the frost from some fish-nets as she laid them 
 in the sun. By the Indian burying-ground the spirit-offer- 
 ings of old hardware were beginning to take shape again 
 below the ridge-pole coverings, and all the grey tender 
 branches of the birchwood along the hillside were blushing 
 with new life. Jennifer knocked the snow from a brown 
 saskatoon branch and laughed at it.
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY* 
 
 " Very soon you will be young again," she told it, and 
 looked down into the coulee beyond, where two shacks lay 
 like black thumb-marks on white paper. Jennifer caught 
 her breath. One of those shacks held the ghost of the 
 woman who was a weetigo. The other shack was Flores- 
 tine's. Jennifer had seen Florestine in Grey Wolf; a tall, 
 handsome breed with a very small baby in a moss-bag. 
 Now the baby was dead, killed yesterday by Florestine's 
 own hand, and in some horrible way this was connected 
 with the weetigo. Jennifer turned sick, remembering how 
 Ducane had been buttering his toast as he spoke of it 
 that morning. 
 
 " The police will get hold of it to-day," he said. " Man- 
 slaughter, at the very least, of course. Maybe the girl was 
 justified. She had to work for the kid." 
 
 "Where is her husband?" asked Jennifer, nr >d Ducane 
 laughed uproariously. 
 
 " Who knows," he said, and Jennifer's heart had surged 
 up in a great wave of pity for Florestine. 
 
 She felt a reflex of that pity now in this silent world 
 where tragedy had a way of lying so nakedly to the eye. 
 Then, along the line of trail that snaked round to Grey 
 Wolf, she saw something black that swung near, and very 
 fast. A flash of light struck on brass harness; the stout 
 lines of the barrack-sleigh shaped familiarly; and sharply, 
 almost without her knowledge, Jennifer plunged down the 
 snow-slope to reach the shack which was Florestine's before 
 the chain of that unbreakable patrol should loop round it 
 and pull it in. 
 
 On the level the way was rough with little snow-graves 
 that buried hay-heaps, battered tins, broken harness, and 
 loose lumber. But she stumbled over them with her heart 
 in her throat ; reached the crazy door first, and turned with 
 her arm flung out as though to bar it against Tempest 
 where he came up the trail behind her. 
 
 " You you can't go in there," she said desperately. 
 
 Tempest's lips twitched in a brief smile. There was no 
 door in all the North-West dared deny him entrance when 
 he wished it. But his eyes were grave, for it was errands 
 like this that bled the heart-blood out of him. 
 
 " What made you come ? " he said gently.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " She is sorry." Jennifer's voice dropped to whispered 
 pleading. " She never meant it. She did it just in a 
 moment because she was so tired, and it cried so. She 
 never meant to do it." 
 
 " Please " said Tempest, and his eyes contracted. 
 
 The matter was painful enough without this. 
 
 " She doesn't know any better," said Jennifer. " She 
 only knows about the things that frighten her about the 
 woman who was a weetigo and who came in the night and 
 wanted the baby and the winds that make noises and 
 the husband who was unkind to her. They couldn't have 
 her at the Mission because you know they are so short 
 of money and she was all alone and the weetigo woman 
 told her to do it and she is so sorry." 
 
 It was the one woman's heart interpreting through this 
 girl the mother-love of all women. Tempest recognised it. 
 But he laid his hand on the latch. 
 
 "Do you think I have no pity for her?" he said. 
 " But I must go in. I am as much under the law as 
 she is." 
 
 " The law ! " cried Jennifer, and bit her teeth together. 
 " Oh ! I think I hate the law." 
 
 " You are thinking of man's law," said Tempest, and 
 smiled a little. " I wasn't meaning only that." 
 
 He pulled up the latch and stepped over the threshold 
 with that quiet manner of his which seemed to carry the 
 hush of finality with it. Jennifer heard the half-choked 
 cry as Florestine saw him, and it drove home the truth of 
 his words. In order that the world may go on sin must 
 be punished, rooted out, crushed into death. Nature de- 
 mands it, and opposite the neglect of this law she sets the 
 extinction and the degradation of the race. Jennifer stood 
 for a little in the great white day with bowed head. Then 
 she followed Tempest into the shack. 
 
 It was very cold in the shack, for Florestine had made 
 no fire since the baby died. It smelt of moose-skin and 
 coal-oil and all airless greasiness and wood-smoke. Near 
 the burnt-out lamp on the rough table lay a pair of half- 
 finished moccasins with the strips of white doe-skin and 
 the litter of beads and gay silks. Florestine had been 
 working on them for an order when the peevish crying of
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY ' 123 
 
 the baby had started her up from the box overturned on 
 the earth floor. There were pans and dirty pots about; a 
 pair of snow-shoes flung off in a corner ; the black shawl 
 Florestine wore over her head when she went to Grey 
 Wolf, and, where the light of the day swamped the dark- 
 ness, Florestine on a stool, holding her baby, and Tem- 
 pest kneeled on one knee beside her. 
 
 Jennifer halted, half-ashamed. For Florestine needed 
 no rescue from the mercilessnrss of the law-bringer. Tem- 
 pest was stroking the brown scrap of flesh that made the 
 infinitely cold baby cheek with a gentle forefinger, and his 
 tone as he spoke in his broken Cree-French was tender- 
 ness made wise. 
 
 He had drawn from her with such skill that she did not 
 know it the few necessary words he wanted, and now he 
 was trying to draw from her the dead child. For her long 
 bitter journey to Fort Saskatchewan must begin in the 
 morning. The girl was numb with the cold and dazed 
 with hunger and terror. The ghost of the woman who was 
 a weetigo had shrieked at her hourly, demanding the soft 
 body as well as the life already given. She clutched it, 
 staring at Tempest with eyes that were softening. 
 
 " Astum," said Tempest, and slid his firm hands about 
 it. "Ah, le petit napasis. I take him, Florestine. 
 
 Q ** 
 
 A moment Florestine rebelled. Then she let go. Jen- 
 nifer held her breath. There was no denying that quiet 
 power. Tempest stood up with his light burden, and 
 Florestine spoke. 
 
 " I want him not cry and now I want him cry," she 
 said in the mixed language that Tempest only understood. 
 And he had no answer for it, because it was the unexplain- 
 able tragedy of impatient human life in a sentence. 
 
 The grunt of runners packing in the snow came from 
 without sharpened by the snap of a whip as Kennedy 
 pulled the pie-bald barrack pony back on its haunches. 
 Dick ploughed through the snow to the door where Tem- 
 pest met him, and Florestine's eyes followed in the dumb 
 submission of a dog. Tempest spoke low and quickly. 
 Both men looked at Jennifer, and then Tempest came to 
 her.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I am taking Florestine back with me," he said. " And 
 you'd best go home at once, Mrs. Ducane. There's a storm 
 corning, I fancy. Those look like snow-clouds." 
 
 Jennifer realised suddenly that the sun was gone and 
 that a cold restless wind was plucking at the shack-cor- 
 ners. But she did not heed. 
 
 "Who is taking her down to Fort Saskatchewan?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Kennedy. To-morrow morning." 
 
 Jennifer glanced at the ruddy youth. 
 
 " Oh, will he know enough ? " she said. " Will he be 
 kind to her? " 
 
 " Why, he'll do his best," Tempest smiled. " He's a 
 good lad. But I'll speak to him if you like." 
 
 He beckoned Kennedy. 
 
 " Mrs. Ducane is very anxious that this poor girl should 
 be well looked after," he said. " I told her you'd do your 
 best. Isn't that so? " 
 
 " Aha," said Kennedy, scarlet with shyness. " All right, 
 Sergeant. Cert'nly." 
 
 Tempest's glance passed to the motionless Florestine. 
 
 " I think you would be wise to go, Mrs. Ducane," he 
 said. " We may get bad snow out of this. You know 
 what the spring storms are." 
 
 Jennifer went obediently, with a curious sense of im- 
 potence. These men whose ways lay so much among 
 rough men and rough work needed no teaching from her 
 in the matters of gentleness and forethought. She could 
 not have handled Florestine as Tempest had done, and 
 she believed that Tempest had made more of the storm so 
 that she should not have the pain of seeing them take Flor- 
 estine away. 
 
 Then she realised that the storm was very much more 
 than a thing of Tempest's imagination, and along the flank 
 of the hill she hurried with all her strength, feeling the 
 chill bite of the wind on her face. A flake of wet snow, 
 chill as the forerunner of a blizzard, struck her, and she 
 lowered her head, pushing against it with her long swift 
 snow-shoe swing. Already the distances were shortening 
 down with the mist that brought the snow. The wind in 
 her skirts held her back and tired her, and the cold began
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY >! 125 
 
 to strike home to her thinly-clad body. It had been so 
 warm this morning, she told herself. No one would have 
 expected this. And there were four miles of bare saddle- 
 backs before her yet. Four miles where she would catch 
 the storm full. But she dared not go back to the shacks. 
 There would be no one there now but the ghost of the 
 woman who was a weetigo. All about her the trees were 
 moaning; bending uneasily in the wind-puffs, and slough- 
 ing the snow where they could, as though in preparation 
 for what was coming. Then the snow began in earnest. 
 Sleety masses with the wetness of spring in them, but cold 
 enough for mid-winter. The wind buffeted and blinded 
 her and took her breath. 
 
 " I must go on," she gasped. " I must. But it's so 
 cold. It's so cold." She was sobbing in her throat; stum- 
 bling, numb, worn-out with her struggle and the grasp of 
 the cold on her. Her skirts grew wet and dragged her 
 down. She dropped at last; too exhausted to care, though 
 it meant death. That wind was beating the breath out of 
 her. And the snow was cold. So cold. 
 
 Then strong arms came round her, and someone swung 
 her up, holding her close, and a human voice came to her 
 out of somewhere. 
 
 " There's a shack down here. We'll get under shelter. 
 All right. It's all right now." 
 
 Jennifer was past words. She clung to Dick weakly as 
 to something warm and alive. And then the tearing noisy 
 storm was shut out with the banging of the shack door and 
 she slid down on a pile of musty blue-joint grass. Dick 
 was pulling his gloves off and rubbing her cheeks between 
 his strong warm hands. 
 
 " You've half-frozen," he said. " You poor child. Why 
 did we let you go? Why did we let you go! Is that bet- 
 ter? I can see the blood coming back. Now your hands. 
 And how about your feet? I'll get a fire directly. You 
 poor child." 
 
 " I would have died," she sobbed. " I would have died 
 if you hadn't come." 
 
 " Not you. These storms don't last long enough. But 
 you might have got badly chilled. Wait a minute and I'll 
 make a fire."
 
 126 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 He brought branches with the snow knocked off them; 
 fed a small flame in the chimney-place with the grass, and 
 presently the fire leapt up, warm and ruddy. Jennifer was 
 shivering and trembling, and her skirt dripped as she 
 stood up. 
 
 " Put on my slicker," said Dick, and flung off the long 
 yellow waterproof he wore. " And get out of those skirts 
 at once, while I bring some more wood." 
 
 " Oh, thank you. Thank you. How good you are to 
 me. And you came after me through that storm " 
 
 " I'd go through more than that." He broke the sen- 
 tence. " Take those wet things off," he said, and went out 
 hurriedly. 
 
 Outside he stood still with his back to the storm, and a 
 curious light in his eyes. Those moments when he held 
 Jennifer in his arms had shaken him much. He seemed to 
 feel the softness and the lightness of her there yet. Some 
 months ago he had been startled when he first realised 
 that Jennifer was becoming a factor in his life. Then he 
 had been amused. He had played with the idea, letting it 
 grow, interested to find that the sound of her step and of 
 her voice could give him so much pleasure. He believed 
 that the power to love ; the power to be excited ; the power 
 to feel very warmly about anything on earth had gone out 
 from him. He rejoiced in the thought that it had come 
 back. It seemed to lift the chill that was deadening his 
 life. 
 
 " I can care still," he told himself. " Tempest I am 
 sure I care for Tempest. And now this little girl." 
 
 The thought delighted him. It seemed to put colour into 
 existence once more. He was in love with love. He felt 
 like a man who walks again after a long illness. And then 
 gradually the amusement and the pleasure faded off the 
 sensation, leaving him face to face with the naked fact. 
 This love was not any longer a thing to be played with and 
 petted. It was flaming into a strength that he had not be- 
 lieved was left in him. And it flamed the fiercer because 
 he saw how little she guessed at it, and saw, too, where she 
 stood just now, unguarded, undefended, with her love for 
 Ducane crumbling round her. 
 
 Jennifer was laughing over the fire when he came back.
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY * 127 
 
 " I couldn't help being such a baby," she said. " I really 
 did feel as if I'd got to the end of all things." 
 
 " Doesn't it feel like a horrible slump back to earth 
 now? " 
 
 " It hardly seemed like earth when you picked me up 
 and ran with me." 
 
 Dick turned quickly. But her eyes were frank as Slick- 
 er's own. 
 
 " We are going to be late for dinner," she said. " And 
 I'm hungry already. You haven't got anything edible 
 about you, have you ? " 
 
 " Only tobacco, I'm sorry to say. But the worst of it 
 is over. Did you wring your skirts out? Let me do it." 
 
 He did it with a serene self-possession which made her 
 laugh again. 
 
 " How many varied chores do you police have to do 
 through your time of service ? " she asked. 
 
 " Why I think it is as well they are not tabulated for 
 us beforehand. It would take a brave man to face them 
 in the bulk. It is a queer life, and we get inside some 
 funny family histories. Are you warm now?" He took 
 her hand. " I feel that this is partly my fault, you know," 
 he said. 
 
 " Oh, no ; " she smiled at him. " But it was so good of 
 you to come." 
 
 She looked such a little thing with the wet crisping on 
 her bright hair above the collar of his slicker and the glow 
 of the cold on her cheeks. The touch and the look of her 
 moved him powerfully. Then he stooped to the fire again. 
 For the moment he could not trust himself to speak. 
 
 But Jennifer chattered gaily. The adventurous spirit 
 in her delighted in even such a small thing as this, and she 
 talked until presently her tongue strayed on Ducane's 
 name. 
 
 " I hope he won't be anxious. He was with Robison, 
 and he didn't see me go." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " Dick looked round suddenly. 
 
 " Why, certainly. I called in to him through the dining- 
 room window, but he didn't hear. He was looking over 
 one of your sketches, I think. An animal it looked like 
 a buffalo. And Robison was scowling so."
 
 128 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 
 
 Dick's face was accustomed to hide what his brain 
 felt 
 
 "That sounds to be rather a left-handed compliment/' 
 he said. " People are usually good enough to say they 
 don't have to guess twice at my efforts." 
 
 " Well, if you ask them they couldn't do less." 
 
 " You could, I think," said Dick, smiling. 
 
 " That is left-handedstraight from the shoulder. It 
 did really look like a buffalo, but if you'll tell me you 
 meant it for a pig I'll agree to that, too. I can't discour- 
 age you when you've been so nice to me." 
 
 " You discourage me every time I see you." 
 
 "I do? How?" 
 
 Before those clear, astonished eyes his own fell. 
 
 " Because I can never make out the real colours in your 
 hair and eyes, and I'm supposed to be more or less of an 
 artist," he said. 
 
 Jennifer laughed, and over the fire the talk slid down 
 more intimate channels than it had touched yet. It had 
 set them on a new but undefined basis when the storm was 
 passed and Dick took her home under a sullen sky, leaving 
 her on the threshold with an excuse when she would have 
 made him come in. He preferred to take the long walk 
 straight back to the barracks, for the last few hours had 
 shaken him out of his usual cynical indifference more than 
 he believed possible. The poise of Jennifer's head; her 
 quick movements; her merry laugh and ways, and that 
 alluring allusive tragedy in her eyes had fired the very 
 depths of him. He would not think of her now. He would 
 not think of what it was going to mean when she knew 
 what he was doing for Ducane ; when she knew what he 
 was making her do. Resolutely he turned his mind from 
 her on to Ogilvie and Robison. For that sketch was with- 
 out doubt the missing sketch of Robison, and therefore, 
 equally without doubt, one or both of those two men had 
 seen Ogilvie after he was supposed to have disappeared 
 from mortal knowledge. The eager light came back to his 
 eyes, and he walked fast, with that hound-mind of his 
 snuffing swiftly along this new bend in the trail. 
 
 Ducane met Jennifer in the passage. He had missed 
 her, and had gone to the whiskey-bottle for comfort, as
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY* 129 
 
 he had done too often of late. He caught her arm, speak- 
 ing high and thickly. 
 
 " Where have you been? Where have you been, Jenny? 
 I wanted you. Was that Heriot with you? Jenny, he's 
 going to get me cornered, that fellow. He's going to get 
 me if you can't switch him off. He's going " 
 
 " Hush ! " She drew him into the sitting-room and shut 
 the door. "What is it? Why are you afraid of Mr. 
 Heriot? " 
 
 Ducane dropped his red face in his hands and whim- 
 pered. 
 
 " I can't tell you," he said. " I can't, Jenny, girl. 
 There are too many in it besides me. And I promised. 
 I I don't know what to do. We might fool Tempest. 
 He knows something, likely. But the other fellow's the 
 devil. You could never bounce him and you could never 
 square him. A man hasn't the ghost of a chance with him. 
 But a woman could handle him. I've heard what he's like. 
 You could keep him off me " 
 
 " Stop ! " said Jennifer. She struck her shut hands 
 down by her sides, and her teeth snapped together. 
 " Oh, you coward ! " she cried. " You coward ! You 
 coward ! " 
 
 Rage and fear whipped Ducane up on his feet. 
 
 " Don't you take that tone with me," he blustered. " I'm 
 doing my share, and why shouldn't you do yours? Damn 
 it, is it all to fall on me? If I can manage to stand it out 
 a couple more months we'll skip, and then they can take 
 Robison if they like." 
 
 " Oh ! Robison is what they call a fence for you, is 
 he?" 
 
 " Don't I tell you there are more than me Jenny, don't 
 look at me that way, my girl. I love you. I I can't get 
 
 along without you, Jenny. By , I love you too much 
 
 for that. Don't be mad with me, little girl." 
 
 He came to her unsteadily with his hands out. Jenni- 
 fer stood very still. In some strange way Ducane's mis- 
 ery seemed to pass her by, leaving her cold. She found 
 herself wondering how Dick would behave if any man 
 tried to corner him. Or what was it Harry had said? 
 He couldn't be bounced or squared, but a woman could
 
 ISO THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 handle him. Was that true? She laid her hand on Du- 
 cane's arm. 
 
 " Sit down and tell me all you can about it, Harry," she 
 said gently. 
 
 To Tempest, driving Florestine back to the barracks, 
 came a sudden glimpse of that tragedy which is often 
 wound up with the simplest of lives. In the woods where 
 the mist drove now on the snowy wind, his pony shied 
 from a trapper who had dragged his hand-sled off the trail, 
 standing to watch them pass. At Tempest's side Flores- 
 tine gave a little cry and pulled her shawl over her face. 
 Then the pony sprang past, snorting and fighting the bit, 
 and Tempest looked down at the girl. 
 
 " Who was it? " he asked. " Not your husband, Flores- 
 tine?" 
 
 " Tommy Joseph," breathed Florestine through her 
 shawl. But the name being unfamiliar to Tempest, he 
 thought no more of it until Kennedy ushered Tommy Jo- 
 seph into the office where he made up his reports a half 
 hour later. 
 
 Tempest pushed aside his papers and looked up, remem- 
 bering the man vaguely as one of the many sturdy trap- 
 pers who came in each spring for the Hudson Bay tracking. 
 
 "You wanted to see me?" he asked. 
 
 Tommy Joseph nodded. He had spent three days at 
 Grey Wolf at the New Year. Then he had gone again 
 for the spring hunt, and now he had come back, hauling 
 his loaded sled of furs a hundred miles and over for the 
 prospect of regular meals and regular work when he and 
 the men of last season would sail the big scows north be- 
 hind the outgoing ice to bring again the furs of fall. He 
 was thin with starvation and hard work in the woods, 
 and all the cheer was out of his gaunt, dark face. His 
 clothes were ragged utterly, and he gripped his fur cap in 
 both hands as he spoke with a struggle to find his English. 
 
 "You say to me where est 1'homme de Florestine?" he 
 began, and Tempest saw the muscles working in his strong 
 throat. 
 
 " I do not Know," said Tempest. " He went trapping 
 last fall. She has not heard of him since." 
 
 "Urrrh!" said Tommy Joseph. Then he shifted on
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY " 131 
 
 the tired feet that had carried him thirty miles that day. 
 " Him bad," he said. " S'pose vous know dat? Flores- 
 tine no laike heem. I want her come wit me to de trap- 
 ping by'm bye apres de Nouvelle Year. She mak' cry ; 
 mais she no come." 
 
 He looked straight at Tempest with the bright keen 
 eyes of his kind. 
 
 " She goot girl/' he said. 
 
 And Tempest, not forgetting that which had been in the 
 shack, said, " I believe you." 
 
 Tommy Joseph twisted his cap rapidly, as though try- 
 ing to engender some new force to aid him. 
 
 " S'pose vous let go? " he burst out at last. " She goot 
 girl." 
 
 Tempest leant over the desk. 
 
 "You know better than to ask that, don't you?" he 
 said, compassionately. 
 
 Tommy Joseph twirled his cap again. 
 
 "Mebbe si moi was in dat shack moi mak' keel dat 
 bebe," he suggested. 
 
 " Maybe," agreed Tempest. " But you were not. She 
 will have to go down to Fort Saskatchewan, Tommy. But 
 I am glad you told me this. I will certainly put it in the 
 report." 
 
 " I mak' weesh to been in dat shack, moi," said Tommy 
 Joseph. Then, underbreath, " Mak' take, no can let go. 
 Fonny, dat." He backed to the door with head bent. 
 " Merci much," he said, and went out in silence. 
 
 Tempest drew out the report carefully. But this naked 
 little tragedy could not hold him for long. Because he 
 had been a lonely reserved man for so many years the 
 thought and sense of Andree filled his world up now, and 
 her with drawals and desperate shynesses fitted the deli- 
 cacy of his dream too well. He never saw her as other 
 men saw her, and he never spoke with her as other men 
 spoke, so that Dick, busy with his own troubles, knew 
 nothing of this thing until Slicker pulled the scales from 
 his eyes one day at the English Mission School. 
 
 In the bale-room the deaconess was selling to a succes- 
 sion of Reserve Indians the mixed contents of the bales 
 which came up yearly from the Eastward side, and Slicker
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 was driving her to the verge of hysterics under the loudly- 
 expressed belief that he was " helping." Dick laughed, 
 and knelt on one knee to tie a slant-eyed solid girl into a 
 white silk baby bonnet. 
 
 " Now, now," he said ; " when we're doing the parents 
 yeoman service, too ! This girl has never had her points 
 properly shown up before. How much for the bonnet, 
 Meyo? One dollar? Don't you think it? Two, Meyo, 
 when you hev' such a very attractive piece of live goods to 
 hang it on." 
 
 The faded, black-shawled mother and the brawny hus- 
 band grinned doubtfully, and Miss Chubb snatched the 
 bonnet away. 
 
 " You've a right to be ashamed of yourself, Corporal," 
 she cried. " Why, I was just beginning to take an interest 
 in that girl," complained Dick. " Sell her that blue ki- 
 mono thing, too, and she'll get a husband to-morrow. 
 You've spoiled a promising career, Miss Chubb. Hallo, 
 kiddy!" 
 
 Slicker presented a two-year-old buttoned into trousers 
 that swept the floor. 
 
 " I imagine that'll about do the trick," he said. " Keep 
 him warm right alone till he's grown up, eh? Hallo, 
 sonny. Don't walk all over yourself." 
 
 " Sakes," gasped Miss Chubb. " Oh, this is fierce. 
 Slicker, it's a girl." 
 
 She collapsed weakly on a bale of quilts and laughed, 
 mopping her eyes. " What in the nation am I to do with 
 you two ? " she said. 
 
 " Take us into partnership," suggested Dick unabashed. 
 " We'd get through more trade in a day than you would in 
 three weeks. Hustle around that fellow over there, Slicker. 
 He's tried on every mortal garment that we have, and his 
 pockets are bulging with bills yet." 
 
 Miss Chubb looked round the bale-room where the rows 
 of shelves dripped the unfolded ends of every kind of gar- 
 ment. For over two hours brown fingers had pulled and 
 brown critical eyes stared at them and brown flat noses 
 smelt them. She was needed in the school-yard where the 
 children were quarrelling shrilly; she was needed in the 
 kitchen where her young helper struggled to make up a
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY" 133 
 
 meal for ten hungry mouths on limited resources; she was 
 needed in the sewing-room where piles of kneeless knick- 
 erbockers and toeless stockings gaped for her. And she 
 was needed here so long as the swarthy breeds and silent 
 Indians chose to circle those walls and buy the worth of 
 a dollar. 
 
 " Oh, it's fierce," she said again. " And here are some 
 more coming." 
 
 Slicker looked from the window. Then he hugged him- 
 self. 
 
 " Tell me all the things you want to get rid of," he said. 
 "Quick! I'll make Mrs. Taemana buy them. She can't 
 ever say no." 
 
 " Happy Taemana," murmured Dick. " Was it a kiss 
 you asked for, Slicker ? " 
 
 " No. This was at the Hudson Bay Indian kick-up at 
 New Year. I stroked her for an hour and she never let 
 up to take breath. I I well, frankly, I did think she'd 
 burst. ' Aha,' she said to everything I brought. ' Aha.' " 
 
 " Sorry I can't assure you that your persuasive manner 
 was to blame," said Dick lazily. " My dear Slicker, don't 
 you know that it is vulgar for an Indian to refuse food? 
 Mrs. Taemana, being a specimen of high-bred society, 
 couldn't refuse if she died for it. By the bye, I did hear 
 that de Choiseaux was called in afterwards. Not that that 
 has any connection, of course." 
 
 " She's a dear old soul," said Miss Chubb. " I'm very 
 fond of her, Mr. Heriot." 
 
 " It is constant balm to a man to find how fond women 
 are of their sex," said Dick. " Now, practically the only 
 bond between men is the struggle for existence. We grant 
 a man the right to live off us, if he's clever enough ; but 
 we don't take much personal interest in the matter. It is 
 the ladies who provide the encouragement and the need 
 for it." 
 
 Miss Chubb did not care to look at his eyes. She had 
 never cared to look at them since she caught them watch- 
 ing her one day when Tempest passed. 
 
 " I'll give you plenty of encouragement to remove 
 Slicker right now," she said. " He keeps me too busy to 
 do anything."
 
 134 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick departed with his fingers down Slicker's collar; 
 but outside the yard where the school-children played at 
 the swings, noisy with the fret of spring that would soon 
 call them to the woods again, Slicker freed himself. 
 
 " I have been wanting to catch you alone for a week, 
 Dick," he said. " Of course you know what people are 
 saying about Tempest and Grange's Andree?" 
 
 Dick shrugged his shoulders. The idle talk had galled 
 him extremely; but he had never considered it his mission 
 to interfere in the affairs of other men. 
 
 " Your perspicacity does you credit," he said dryly. 
 
 Slicker flushed. His eyes had not lost the look of 
 youth's dreams; but he was growing more conscious of his 
 manhood every day. 
 
 " You must stop it," he cried. " I hate to have anything 
 said against Tempest." 
 
 " Do you? Well, so do I, Slicker. But don't you un- 
 derstand that no silly talk can touch him? He fathers and 
 mothers the whole of Grey Wolf, and if Andree gets more 
 than her share well, she is uncommonly pretty, you 
 know. As men of the world, Slicker, we must allow Tem- 
 pest a few human failings. His virtues insist that they 
 shall be very few, poor devil." 
 
 " But he loves her." 
 
 " That remark," said Dick, lighting his pipe, " is un- 
 worthy of your intellect." 
 
 " But it's true ! I saw him kissing her hands only yes- 
 terday." 
 
 " You what? " 
 
 Slicker repeated his assertion, and Dick dropped the 
 match and put his foot on it. He would have put it on 
 Andree with as little compunction just then. Tempest and 
 Jennifer were the only beautiful things in his world, and 
 the mere suggestion of this sickened him. He looked at the 
 boy narrowly. 
 
 " Of course he was only taking out a sliver," he said. 
 " But even so it is hardly worth talking about, is it? And 
 the kind of scandal Grey Wolf amuses itself with is hardly 
 worth dabbling in, either." 
 
 He went on, leaving Slicker abashed and unconvinced, 
 and totally unaware of the shock which he had given the
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY' 135 
 
 elder man. And it was a severe shock. Dick, walking fast 
 through the forest-trail, acknowledged it. His punish- 
 ment for the many wrong-doings of his life was the pun- 
 ishment of the young god Frey who sat in Odin's seat and 
 saw too far and too clear for his comfort. Dick had 
 rli-ctfd to sit in Odin's seat of wisdom, and he saw to the 
 heart of this thing, swift and sure. Looking on Tempest 
 as plain man it was quite likely true, for all things are 
 possible to a plain man. Looking on him as Dick had 
 learned to look the thing was unthinkable a blasphemy. 
 With a queer quirk of the mind he remembered Miss 
 Chubb's favourite expletive. 
 
 " It's fierce," he heard her saying. Then laughed. 
 
 " By all means let us believe in the gods until we see 
 their graves," he said. 
 
 Through the white silence about him came the clang of 
 the wild geese flying north, ever north to those long rivers 
 he knew so well. Their " honk-honk " dropped down from 
 sheer overhead as they passed; a wedge driven fast and 
 far through the crystal air, with eager necks and high-beat- 
 ing hearts. Down in the trail the man who had learnt too 
 much felt his heart leap up to them with longing. They 
 took their straight-way ; unknowing ; unafraid. No wrong- 
 doing bore their white wings down ; no shame slacked their 
 impulses. They forswore no good and learnt the grief 
 thereof. They passed by no God and learnt the fear. 
 These things were reserved for mankind; for Dick; for 
 Tempest; for Jennifer. Because to them had been given 
 the inestimable privilege of a soul. 
 
 Down in the narrow trail among the dark pines Dick 
 smothered a sigh that was half a curse, and went on with 
 the softening snow slipping under his feet. 
 
 On the outskirts of Grey Wolf he met a freighter suf- 
 fering from over-indulgence in toilet vinegar and vanilla- 
 essence. 
 
 " It gives a chap the good feel," he explained, as Dick 
 helped him into the barracks and applied drastic remedies. 
 " A man must drink something." 
 
 " My friend," said Dick. " There you speak a great 
 truth. But usually the last thing that man drinks is re- 
 pentance. Now, I should advise you to get into the absti-
 
 136 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 nence business right away or you'll be all tied up again 
 before you know it. Good-night to you." 
 
 And then he went down to Grange's bar and stayed 
 there long. For the knowledge of the young god Frey 
 was heavy on him. 
 
 His lagging feet halted him at the mess-room door be- 
 fore he went upstairs that night. Tempest was there; 
 smoking, and dreaming over a ragged little book of Norse 
 verse. Dick watched him through the door, and his heart 
 lightened. Tempest was sure; sure as the moon and the 
 stars, and as high above earth. 
 
 He looked up at Dick's tread, waving his pipe. 
 
 " Come on, come on," he said. " I've got an idea here." 
 
 It was the impetuous manner of the days when they had 
 loved without doubt or pain. The other man felt the call 
 of it to his heart again, and his eyes were sombre as he 
 dropped into a chair and stretched his legs. Life had 
 broken him, but he felt a shudder of deadly fear at the 
 thought that it might break Tempest. 
 
 "You remember your Edda geography, Dick?" Tem- 
 pest was glowing with his idea. " Niflheim, the land of 
 snow eternal in the north, and Muspelheim, the land of 
 quenchless fire in the south " 
 
 " And Ginungagap, the bottomless abyss separating 
 them," yawned Dick. 
 
 " Yes. But don't you see why? That's the germ of it, 
 and it never struck me before. It was there so they 
 couldn't meet in an earthly way. You remember how 
 those two great forces did meet? In mid-air, with all of 
 coarseness sloughed off them. The cold clear spray of 
 Niflheim and the transparent pure heat of Muspelheim. 
 Refined and purified they met in mid-air and made life. 
 And that life made the world and was the world. Under- 
 stand ? There's no way to the higher life along the earthly 
 plane that chucks us into the abyss. But the soul-es- 
 sence the thing distilled away from the heat of the blood 
 and the barren ice of selfishness My God! That is the 
 thing! That is life!" 
 
 He walked the room now with his light nervous steps. 
 His head was flung back and his eyes shone. Dick thought 
 suddenly of a Browning-sick girl who used to call Tempest
 
 "THE YOUNG GOD FREY ' 137 
 
 " Sun-treader," and the smile on his lips had lost its cynic- 
 ism, although his words had not. 
 
 " Very pretty," he said. " Unfortunately the bulk of us 
 go into Ginungagap. Partly for the sake of company, and 
 partly because we are still gross enough to prefer the heat 
 of the blood unrefined. And partly because the habit of 
 wanting to get to the bottom of things seems more in- 
 eradicable than the habit of wanting to get to the top." 
 " It is not. That's just where we mistake. When we 
 
 can lose that idea we will be " 
 
 " God's," suggested Dick suavely. 
 
 " No, you irreligious owl. But we will be able to see 
 
 Life and Love is " 
 
 " Not human love. You couldn't put that into such a 
 universe, old man." 
 
 Tempest stopped to laugh. There were many days 
 when he felt the great barrier between himself and this 
 man. But there were a few when he felt the ancient bond. 
 He felt it to-night, with the flush of his excitement on him, 
 and he talked eagerly for an hour, urged on by Dick's idly- 1 
 dropped comments. He went away at last, glad-eyed and 
 buoyant still. But Dick sat on with his pipe burnt out and 
 stared at the opposite wall. 
 
 He did not usually care to analyse emotions in himself. 
 But he knew that he was shaken just now. This man, 
 three years older than himself, was a century younger in 
 heart. He had kept his ideals, and those ideals were go- 
 ing to slay him now unless someone interfered. All un- 
 guessing Tt.npest had shown his heart to the man who 
 knew too much. One of earth's chosen men was failing in 
 his trust for very sake of those grossness which he repudi- 
 ated. One of those men to whom knighthood was more 
 than a name was carrying into the lists a favour for which 
 he must not fight. Dick had not studied men and women 
 all his life without having seen by now where Tempest's 
 real call lay. Tempest belonged to Canada. He loved it 
 with that ardent love which some few men can give their 
 land. He was one of those born to serve her need. He 
 was fit to serve in those places where the server's work is 
 so infinitely higher than the master's. He was fit to give 
 heart-blood and body-sweat to her making. He was fit to
 
 138 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 travail and suffer that order might be wrought from choas, 
 plenty from poverty. He was fit to be made himself into 
 one of those mighty men whose name will ring along the 
 land long after their feet cease to echo on it. 
 
 Dick bit softly on his pipe-stem, and there was a curi- 
 ous half-cruel, half-tender look in his eyes. Tempest 
 could be saved for all this if anyone took the trouble 
 to save him. He could be set to bear his banner and his 
 high heart through to a lonely Calvary. He could be set 
 to do the things that other men shirked by anyone who 
 had wit enough to nail him flat on the cross of other men's 
 sins and shortcomings. It was just that Tempest should 
 hang there, because he was worthy, and the great punish- 
 ments of earth have always fallen upon her noblest. For 
 the little people of little soul do their eating and their 
 sleeping and their dying, and let the world go by. 
 
 There was humour in this to Dick, and temptation. He 
 had the skill to block Tempest if he chose. He had the 
 skill to make Tempest the thing which he himself could 
 not Be. He laughed softly, with the cruelty deepening 
 in his eyes. Then suddenly, with a sigh that was half a 
 sob, he dropped his face in his hands, and so sat silent 
 for very long.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " THE RETURN OP OGILVIE " 
 
 " SUCH things should not be allowed," said Slicker hotly. 
 
 " Unfortunately," said Dick, and his voice was propor- 
 tionately cool, " we have learnt to conduct society on the 
 assumption that each human thing is a separate individual. 
 And therefore, logic requires that we allow to each at least 
 the outward rights of personal independence." 
 
 " But they have no right to use those rights against an- 
 other." 
 
 " You know Mrs. Hotchkiss says that bruise was where 
 she fell against a tree, Slicker ? " reproved young Forbes. 
 
 " But she knows it isn't. And so do we." 
 
 Along Leigh's warm, shady verandah the older men 
 glanced at each other in amusement. Dick looked down 
 on the two boys spread luxuriously on the sunny grass. 
 
 " Whose rights are you encroaching on now, Slicker ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Oh, it's all rot! " Slicker sat up with a jerk. "Love 
 and marriage just upset the preconceived plan of the whole 
 cosmos." 
 
 " Especially marriage," murmured Dick ; while the other 
 men laughed, stinging Slicker into defence. 
 
 " We ought to have been all men or all women," he cried. 
 " All men wouldn't bother to bully each other, and all 
 women wouldn't bother to nag each other. There wouldn't 
 be much love, and so there wouldn't be much sorrow. 
 We'd just jig along each on our own." 
 
 " Sounds enticing," said Bond, the young factor of Re- 
 villons. "But there seem to be some fundamental objec- 
 tions to that plan. Slicker. The world has to go on, you 
 know. Or, at least, we are under that impression. We 
 may be over-estimating our value." 
 
 139
 
 140 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Heaven help us if we are," said Dick. He looked at 
 Slicker. " Who gave you leave to take Kant and Hegel 
 and some other books out of my room? " he asked. 
 
 Slicker went scarlet. Several conditions in Grey Wolf 
 had upset him lately; and he was seeking explanation 
 for them, and, incidentally, for his own existence and that 
 of everyone else. 
 
 " I found them," he muttered. 
 
 "I have just said so." Dick's smile was malicious. 
 " Well, you've found your punishment pretty quick, too." 
 
 " But can't you do something with Hotchkiss ? " said 
 Bond. " I'm afraid he gives that poor little woman a bad 
 time." 
 
 " Not unless she complains or Leigh. Speak to Leigh. 
 He's Hotchkiss' boss." 
 
 Dick yawned, and retired from the following discus- 
 sion, lying back in his chair with his half-shut eyes on 
 Slicker. And presently the boy rose, with a swing of de- 
 fiance; walked down to the gate, and turned along the 
 road. 
 
 Dick was half-smiling, for he understood the reason for 
 this explosion so clearly. In these weeks Slicker had been 
 watching the breaking-up of a home across the Lake. 
 Where he could he battled for Jennifer against Ducane's 
 growing drunkenness and demands ; where he could not 
 he went away, and, quite naturally, cursed the universe. 
 Dick saw no reason to curse the universe. He had be- 
 come to Jennifer that always-kindly, always-tactful friend 
 whose vigorous interest and vitality cheered and strength- 
 ened her as nothing else could do. And she had become 
 to him much more than he yet allowed himself to be- 
 lieve, although his nature was daily warning him. Jenni- 
 fer, brave-eyed and unshaken in her wifehood, meant more 
 to him than any woman had meant before, even as Tempest 
 meant more than any other man had meant. 
 
 But he knew that he would probably let Tempest go to 
 ruin without a finger lifted to save him, and he forsaw that 
 he would more than probably pluck Jennifer out of her 
 blind innocence into a knowledge which could not fail to 
 hurt her. The man who desired a thing and yet dared 
 not take it aroused Dick's amused contempt and curiosity
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE'' 141 
 
 all his days. For he looked at the race through the in- 
 dividual, unguessing that the glory of mankind is to look 
 at the individaul through the race. 
 
 Presently Leigh's words drew him into the talk again. 
 
 " Dick, did you see that old fellow who came up with 
 one of those bogus prospectuses last week? A baby-faced 
 old buffer with a downy beard and not enough snap to 
 curse with when he found he'd been done." 
 
 " Yes, I saw him. Ducane sent him on to me." 
 
 "Well? What are you going to do about it?" de- 
 manded Leigh. 
 
 " What do you expect us to do. Grey Wolf is not the 
 first place to be boomed in this way, and it won't be the 
 last. I once bought shares in a gold-mine that was three 
 miles out at sea myself. Such things must happen, you 
 know. We invite it when we will buy on paper." 
 
 " You call it a boom," said Bond. " It will kill the 
 place." 
 
 " Not it. A German came up lately with scrip that 
 showed a fine river- frontage but unfortunately he found 
 that he had to go into the river to get it. But he liked 
 the land, and he bought that genuine frontage of Robison's 
 near Pitcher Portage." He smiled gently. " Robison is 
 advertising us quite a little bit, I think," he added. 
 
 He said it again to himself as he rode over to Ducane's 
 for supper a little later. But this time he added Ducane's 
 name, and under the wide dark tent of trees where sweet 
 scents moved the birds answered him in cheerful, rollick- 
 ing song. By the trail the yellow catkins of the pussy- 
 willow were swaying, and Dick came with their pollen on 
 him to the dining-room, where Ducane was working at a 
 roll-top desk. Ducane swept the papers into a drawer 
 and locked it instantly, and Dick followed the disappear- 
 ance of the bunch of keys into his pocket with the eyes 
 of desire. The handling of that bunch for such a little 
 while might mean so much. 
 
 Throughout the meal Ducane was moody and irritable. 
 He smoked a cigar between his mouthfuls, scattering the 
 ash on the tablecloth. Jennifer's eyes caught Dick's, and 
 she smiled bravely. 
 " Isn't he dreadful ? " she said. " It is always a cigar
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 or cigarettes. The kitten eats what she can, and my 
 chipmunk thinks them invaluable for his next winter's 
 store. But I still find the ends about everywhere." 
 
 " You always exaggerate so infernally/' growled Du- 
 cane. 
 
 " If you came out of that cloud of smoke you'd call it by 
 another name," said Dick. " Where is the chipmunk, Mrs. 
 Ducane? I haven't seen him since he bit my finger, and 
 I've been afraid to ask for fear he'd died of it. Do you 
 remember Cowper's ' Mad Dog ' ? There the man recov- 
 ered from the bite. But it killed the dog." 
 
 He continued to talk; lightly, casually, though he missed 
 little of what Ducane did or said. This smoking at meal- 
 times proved that Ducane's nerves were rapidly getting 
 beyond self-control. And the furtive look in his eyes 
 proved the same. The man was on the verge of a big 
 coup or an utter breakdown. Either was equally likely to 
 affect him in this way. But whichever it was Dick hoped 
 that the matter would not be taken out of his own hands. 
 The instinct of the chase was too strong in him. He knew 
 that he could not let go now. Then he looked at Jennifer 
 in the lamplight with all the daintiness of the carefully-ar- 
 ranged table about her, and the cynicism in his blood 
 brought the faint smile to his eyes. Life did this kind 
 of thing to him always. It never gave him the sweet with- 
 out the bitter. But Jennifer was a woman only; neither 
 stronger nor wiser than other women. And she was an 
 unhappy one also. 
 
 In the sitting-room later Ducane was smoking cigarettes. 
 
 He smoked them rapidly, flinging them into the fire 
 half-burnt out. And he walked through the room in rest- 
 less irritation, tossing a word into the conversation now 
 and again, and contradicting Dick rudely. Dick was well 
 accustomed to this. Jennifer never asked anyone else to 
 her home now, but she had ceased to mind Dick. Indeed, 
 without understanding why, she found comfort in his 
 presence. 
 
 In a tall, grey jar on the floor big branches of pussy- 
 willow showed palely, scenting the room with spring. Du- 
 cane brushed once against them as he walked, and he 
 turned, with a curse, kicking the jar over,
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 143 
 
 " That'll teach you to put your deuced rubbish about all 
 over the shop," he said savagely. " Pick it up and take it 
 away." 
 
 Jennifer stood up, flushing. This was worse than any- 
 thing he had hitherto shown before Dick. She silenced 
 Dick with a movement of her hand as he rose, and went 
 forward. But Ducane had already entangled his feet in 
 the branches. He stooped; wrenched them away from his 
 ankles, and flung them in Jennifer's face. 
 
 " Do you want to make me fall and break my neck? " 
 he stormed. 
 
 " Harry, dear " 
 
 And then a quiet hand put Jennifer aside. 
 
 " Please go away for a few minutes, Mrs. Ducane," said 
 Dick. 
 
 " Oh you won't ? " 
 
 " I won't hurt him. But he might hurt you. Please 
 
 go." 
 
 He held the door open, and Ducane lurched forward, 
 inarticulate with fury. He had ceased to fear Dick for 
 the moment. And he was a big man. Bigger and heavier 
 than Dick. Jennifer stood on the threshold. She was 
 half-dazed, but one little sharp thread of fear ran through 
 her. 
 
 "Oh I can't. He's not safe " 
 
 "Not safe for me?" Dick smiled. "Don't be fright- 
 ened," he said, and shut the door, facing Ducane with his 
 back to it. 
 
 Jennifer stood outside it with her face white and set. 
 
 She was glad, fiercely glad that a man should meet Du- 
 
 on the ground where she had bowed in submission 
 
 so long. And she was burning with shame that it should 
 
 nm-ssary. And she was thrilling with some unexplain- 
 emotion which was more than anger, more than belief, 
 more than pain. She could not analyse it; but she knew 
 that from no other man would she have allowed this in- 
 terference between herself and her husband. 
 
 Ducane's voice rose, loud and hectoring. She could 
 not hear Dick. She did not want to hear him. She went 
 down the passage to her own room and stood looking out 
 on the calm night of stars. There was no love for Du-
 
 144 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 cane left in her now, and at present she felt that there was 
 no love for anyone or anything else in all the world. 
 
 Ducane was scattering curses through his incoherent 
 wrath. His natural bullying temper had outleapt its 
 bounds and he was nearly mad with fury. But the quiet, 
 half-smiling man against the door cowed him. He kept 
 his distance. 
 
 "How dare you interfere between me and my wife?" 
 he foamed. " In a man's own house, too. I'll have 
 you " 
 
 "Do you really call yourself a man?" asked Dick po- 
 litely. 
 
 " I I " Ducane became incoherent again. " You 
 
 have no right, legal or otherwise, damn you 
 
 " I don't want any right other than my muscles." Dick 
 came forward suddenly ; close up to the stuttering, purple 
 face. " Your word isn't worth much," he said. " But 
 I have a fancy to make you give it to me. Will you control 
 yourself more in future? You had better say yes. I give 
 you a couple of minutes to think it over." 
 
 " I'll have you up for assault if you try to bully me." 
 
 "If you do I assure you I will endeavour to make it 
 worth your while." Dick began to unbutton his tunic. 
 " You prefer it this way then? " he asked. 
 
 " No ! No ! " Ducane backed away, unmanned by a 
 sudden fear. " No. I know you could lick me." 
 
 " So do I. If I wasn't so absolutely sure perhaps I'd 
 take a sporting try at it. Mr. Ducane, nerve-attacks like 
 this don't come on a man without reach. Unless you want 
 me to begin taking a professional interest in your affairs 
 you had better learn to control yourself. Do you under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 He doubted the wisdom of this half-veiled threat. But 
 he needed a weapon which would strike home. This did. 
 Ducane reeled back against the wall, and his puffy face 
 turned tallow-pale. 
 
 " There's nothing wrong with my private affairs," he 
 gasped. " Nothing." 
 
 " Then it is heart or stomach, I suppose. You'd better 
 see de Choiseaux. Shall I send him over in the morn' 
 ing?"
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 145 
 
 Ducane acquiesced sullenly. But it seemed to Dick that 
 he snatched at this way of escape. Dick bade him good- 
 night blandly. 
 
 "I'll come over with de Choiseaux," he said. "And 
 I'll ask Mrs. Ducane to tell me how you've spent the 
 night. You mustn't let those nerves get any more bold, 
 you know." 
 
 He left Ducane groping with the hint behind this, and 
 went down the passage to get his hat. In the open door- 
 way Jennifer came to him, and under the pale starlight 
 she looked very small and frail. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, almost inaudibly. " But I hope 
 that it will never be necessary for you to do this any 
 more." 
 
 He had to lighten that note of tragedy in her voice be- 
 fore he could think of anything else. 
 
 " Why, it was nothing," he said. " When a man gets 
 a bad attack of nerves a few plain words from another 
 man soon help to make him 'see things straight. I am go- 
 ing to bring de Choiseaux over in the morning. Ducane 
 has consented to take a tonic. You'll see that he'll soon 
 be all right again. But he'll have to knock off his smok- 
 ing." 
 
 Both knew well that it was very much more than noth- 
 ing. But she said only: 
 
 " How very kind you always are to me." 
 
 Dick looked down at her smiling. He was wondering 
 if she would say this to him in the days that were 
 coming. 
 
 " That virtue brings its own reward in this case," he 
 said, and rode away into the night. 
 
 A week later Slicker tottered in at the barrack-gate, 
 white- faced. 
 
 " Dick, I've found him," he gasped. " I've found Ogil- 
 vie." 
 
 Dick led him into the little office and shut the door. 
 
 "Where?" he said. "Take your time and take this 
 first." 
 
 Slicker swallowed a small nip from Dick's flask, and 
 shuddered. " He's at the bottom of that coulee a couple 
 of hundred yards from the Mission trail. I didn't go
 
 146 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 down, but I knew that coon coat of his. And the flies were 
 buzzing. Ugh ! " 
 
 " All right. Don't you worry about Ogilvie. He's 
 been shut of his troubles these six months, lucky devil. 
 Hold on till I get Kennedy and the buckboard. You must 
 show us the place right now." 
 
 But among the close-set young poplars and the sweet- 
 scented Balm of Gilead at the coulee-top Slicker backed 
 away. 
 
 " I I guess I'll stay with the team," he said, and the 
 two policemen crashed down through the undergrowth 
 together, with the drumming of woodpeckers in the hollow 
 trees about them sounding like hammering on an empty 
 coffin. 
 
 Sunk deep in the coulee-bottom was a bundle of rough 
 fur; something that gleamed, as though scratched out by 
 a questing coyote, and a boot turned upwards, with a white 
 butterfly poised on its tip. In the hot air the buzzing of 
 flies came up drowsily, suggesting sleep. But Ogilvie's 
 sleep was six months long. 
 
 Dick stooped over the thing on the ground. For a little 
 time he did not move. Then, with a strong jerk of his 
 wrist, he pulled a knife from the joint of the neck and 
 collar-bone and stood up, quenching Kennedy's exclama- 
 tions. 
 
 " We have found Ogilvie's bones," he said. " That's 
 all you know. Now help shift him out of this." 
 
 Four drove home where three drove out, and in the 
 loose-box at the barrack-stable Ogilvie was laid, wrapped 
 decently in a Hudson Bay blanket. Then Dick went up 
 to his bedroom and washed and brushed himself, whistling 
 softly the while. The hound-instinct was awake in him, 
 whipping him on to the blood-trail, and already he had 
 scented the two whom he must follow. If it were not 
 Robison who had done this thing then it assuredly was 
 Grange's Andree, and it behoved him to have those two 
 suspects in his hands before the news of Ogilvie's return 
 got loose in Grey Wolf. He had enforced present silence 
 from Kennedy and Slicker. But he would not be able to 
 keep it for long. He laughed, brushing the thick hair back
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE" 147 
 
 from his sunburnt forehead, and settling his cap with a 
 swagger. 
 
 " It's you and me for it first, I reckon, Grange's Andree," 
 he said, and clattered cheerfully down the narrow stairs. 
 
 He felt relieved that Tempest would not be back from 
 the Black Mile until the next night. The matter was en- 
 tirely under his control, and he knew exactly what he was 
 going to do as he walked down to Grange's where a Sab- 
 bath calm lay over everything, including the many dogs 
 that slept in the dust round the door. 
 
 " I want to speak to Andree a moment," he said, lean- 
 ing in through the back-parlour window ; and Moosta, with 
 unsteady babies reeling round her ample skirts, answered 
 him. 
 
 " Suppose she go in canoe. She mak' fight avec Mon- 
 sieur Lampard." 
 
 " Thank you," said Dick, and withdrew his head, and 
 went down to the river. 
 
 " She can flirt with that little beast when she has Tem- 
 pest ! " he said. Then he shrugged his shoulders. " I 
 know something about women," he said. "But I doubt 
 Andree is rather too raw even for me." 
 
 Against the bank where the canoe widened to the lake 
 he found Andree in her canoe. She held the overhanging 
 willow-branches with one round arm from which the sleeve 
 had fallen back. There was a bracelet of the dyed por- 
 cupine quills on it, and a belt of like make clipped her 
 supple waist. She lay back idly, and her long slender feet 
 were thrust out before her, cased in new moccasins gay 
 with blue and magenta bead-work and silk. Dick 
 smiled. 
 
 " Waiting for Monsieur Lampard to come back and 
 make friends," he murmured. 
 
 Then he slid down the bank and stood beside her. An- 
 rlrrr looked up with a pretty pretence at anger. Then 
 she frowned. She had no reason to love Dick. 
 
 "What boy are you waiting for this evening, Andree?" 
 asked Dick pleasantly, and stepped into the canoe. 
 
 " Not you," she said sharply, and drew her feet in. 
 
 "Ah, I'm sorry for that." Dick reached for the pad-
 
 148 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 idle and sent the canoe out into the stream. " Because you 
 see, I've come. I want to speak to you rather particularly, 
 Grange's Andree." 
 
 She looked up with suspicion at his suave voice. Dick 
 nodded. His smile was almost bland. 
 
 " Why did you tell me that you didn't see Ogilvie that 
 night in the Mission trail? " he asked softly. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, and half-sprang up. But Dick was 
 too quick for her. He dropped the paddle, and thrust her 
 back in the seat. 
 
 " You can't swim," he said. " And I'm not going to 
 hurt you. Now, what time did you see Robison on that 
 same night ? " 
 
 " I did never see either," she said with a gasp. 
 
 " Did you see them both at the same time? " 
 
 " I did not see " 
 
 " Were they both in the trail together when you saw 
 them? " 
 
 " Nona de Dieu ! " she burst out. " You devil ! " 
 
 " Keep quiet. You near had us over. Both at once, 
 was it? " 
 
 " I did never " 
 
 " It was both at once then ? " 
 
 This steady hammering was too much for her. 
 
 " Aha," she said, and Dick told her fear by her quick- 
 ened breathing. 
 
 " Now," he said, persuasively, " you will tell me what 
 else you saw, Andree." 
 
 " Diable ! " she cried, and her voice rose in a scream. 
 " I not see nothing. I not know. Oh damn you, Dick." 
 
 " That matter has already been attended to, thank you. 
 Now, what did you see ? " 
 
 " I did see nothing." 
 
 Dick's hand slid round her wrist softly, and sugges- 
 tively. " I think you know what it means if you keep on 
 saying that," he said. 
 
 " Oh ! " Andree shuddered, drawing her head in be- 
 tween her shoulders. Then suddenly she flung it up and 
 looked at him defiantly. 
 
 " Est-ce que vous avez envie de moi to tell?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 " You have guessed exactly right, Andree."
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE" 149 
 
 " Robison," she began. Then she put her hand out. 
 " Take those eyes out of my eyes/' she said. " Now 
 I will say. They did mak' fight. An Ogilvie he hit. 
 An' an' Robison take le couteau " she dropped her face 
 in her hands. " Non, non," she gasped. " Tais'-vous. 
 Ah! Cette affaire! C'est affreux!" 
 
 Dick sat back, letting her go. 
 
 " I think that will do for now," he said. *' You can 
 tell the rest in court. Where is Robison ? " 
 
 " He did go north with Ducane on Mercredi on Wed- 
 nesday. I do not know " 
 
 Dick smothered an oath. This was an unforeseen com- 
 plication. And the man had four days' start. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oui," said Andree sulkily. 
 
 On the night before Robison had left he had shown his 
 increasing jealously against Tempest very plainly, and it 
 had taken all her small amount of wit to quieten him. 
 Andree had no more love for Tempest than for Robison. 
 But it pleased her to have the men in the bar chaff her 
 about him, and it pleased her to see the light leap into his 
 eyes when she came near him. 
 
 Dick took up the paddle and drove the canoe in under 
 the willows again. 
 
 " I am obliged to you for your graciousness, Andree/' 
 he said. " But I advise you not to shower it on any one 
 else in this matter, or you may get yourself into trouble. 
 And I wonder if any girl who had not Indian blood in her 
 could have held her tongue for so long." 
 
 He went back through the streets, asking for Robison 
 and Ducane, and confirming Andree's words. They had 
 gone to catch the scows making north with the first spring 
 freight for Fort Smith and Hay River and many a lonely 
 outpost beside. Dick knew well the trail they must take. 
 He knew the run of the river from Pelican Portage down, 
 and he knew just as exactly his chances of catching the 
 steamer which met the scows at Fort McMurray. An hour 
 later he ran down to the bank on moccasined feet, and 
 within ten minutes a little canoe shot out into the sunset, 
 with Dick kneeling, eager-eyed and lithe-armed, in the bow, 
 and Tommy Joseph in the stern. 
 
 Tommy had tracked up that river and sailed down it until
 
 150 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 he knew the lie of it by heart, and when night came the 
 steady push of the paddles still ate up the miles. Once a 
 bull-moose thrashed the undergrowth close by with his 
 wide-branching horns, and far off the shy cow answered with 
 a wild note; harsh, and strangely appealing. Silence 
 dropped, and Dick knew that the huge animal was swing- 
 ing his mighty bulk and heavy antlers through the woods 
 as noiseless and as swift as a weasel. 
 
 It was hot on the river through the days that followed. 
 And it was very lonely. Sometimes across an open sweep 
 of red-top grass coyotes raised their high wild howling and 
 shot from sight like yellow shadows. Sometimes loons 
 rose from desolate marshes and flew into horizon with 
 straight beaks wide open and strident cries that made 
 crazy echoes. Sometimes a brown bear rocked along the 
 rim of their night-camp with his silent shuffle, or the 
 nasal whistle of a night-hawk on the trail of a bat came 
 to them where they lay under the white moon. But the 
 men spoke little, and in silence they thought their own 
 thoughts, still-faced and quiet-eyed, in that reserve which 
 the men of the back-trails know well. 
 
 Many times Dick thought of Robison ; swarthy, stealthy, 
 ready to die hard when his time came. Of Ducane who 
 would crouch and cry when rounded up for his branding. 
 Of Jennifer and then his thoughts went no further, and 
 all the great dead of whom the forest told were nothing 
 to him. For the men who loved Canada haunt her silent 
 places still; a ghostly, unforgotten company, grey with the 
 thickening dust of time. Alexander Mackenzie, who broke 
 out the white-man's flag where only the Indian's smoke- 
 flag had blown; Franklin, thrusting his pincer-points down 
 from the naked Pole; Bishop Bompas, that wide-hearted, 
 dauntless " Apostle of the North " ; James Robertson ; 
 George Munro Grant, and the men of a later day; Strath- 
 cona and Mount Stephen, who smote with steel and paved 
 with iron and buckled up coast to coast. 
 
 And a thousand untold, and yet another thousand; men 
 who died with shut teeth and fierce eyes on the Long Tra- 
 verse ; trappers whose sleeping places the grey wolf knows ; 
 freighters, Indians, Hudson Bay runners, men of the 
 Mounted Police Canada's lovers all, sowing their bones
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 151 
 
 down the trails they blazed that other men might follow 
 after. 
 
 All the world was full of summer, from the duck nesting 
 in unknown pools to the reeling rim of the Arctic day, 
 where the reindeer moss pushes green through the snow, 
 and the bergs break out, and the whalers wake and the 
 great seals put to sea. One early dawn, when the port- 
 ages of Grand Rapid Island were passed, a sleepy breed 
 in his tepee was waked to hear a burnt-skinned, sunk-eyed 
 man in uniform which explained more than his words ask 
 how long it was since the scows had passed the Rapids. 
 His answers seemed jerked from him; and then the man 
 sprang into a canoe, and struck out where the Athabaska 
 ran red under the dawning. The breed grunted rubbing 
 his eyes. 
 
 " By gar," he said. " Go roun' wit chip on hees shoul- 
 der, dat chap. Carcajou, heem." 
 
 Carcajou, the wolverine, was first made of all created 
 things, and he alone has changed neither habit nor form 
 since Kitche Manitou put him into the woods. Therefore 
 Carcajou has knowledge of all his things behind those 
 watchful eyes of his, and the breed on the bank was not the 
 first man who had called Dick Carcajou in uneasy resent- 
 ment. 
 
 Down this wide northern road uncounted men of many 
 lands have gone to the Yukon gold; to the untapped min- 
 eral wealth of the hills; to the lip of the Arctic where the 
 kit-fox breeds. Scores had never come back. But their 
 ghostly march did not trouble Dick. Between the great 
 wash of water and the hard naked sky all the past was 
 shrivelled up. He had come with chafed limbs and stiff 
 shoulders to get his man; and that instinct would not die, 
 though the sunset flung mocking colour on drawn, set faces, 
 and the moon saw two figures that crouched lower with 
 humped shoulders as the weary paddles flashed in and 
 flashed out. 
 
 Citrons and tender blues swamped the flats of Fort 
 McMurray under daybreak when a man in earth-stained 
 kharki walked drunkenly up the gangway of a little 
 steamer where the bare-foot crew laboured among the hay- 
 bales, boxes and myraid things that collect naturally whert
 
 152 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 a river-steamer comes to anchor. Two hours later the 
 captain, coming aboard, trod on that man where he 
 stretched unlawfully into the passage-way. But he showed 
 no surprise when Dick sat up and asked for a passage 
 so far as she chose to go. Bessait listened in silence. 
 Small curiosities do not fit with a thousand-mile landscape, 
 and the talk of the great rivers make the human voice 
 sound thin. Then he made reply in one grave nod and 
 went on deck. 
 
 Dick proceeded with his toilet in a lazy content. Haste 
 was over for the time, and at leisure he made his investi- 
 gations. 
 
 The crew were as mixed a draft as Bessait usually car- 
 ried. French breeds with the strength of ten ; a remittance 
 man gone sufficiently insane to cook junk and dried moose 
 and tinned meats and fresh fish month in and month out 
 for a clamorous multitude; a stoker with an unnecessary 
 certificate, who was engineer and greaser and everything 
 else; an Englishman with suggestive holes cut in his 
 clothes corners as though some name had been blotted 
 out; a few quiet, firm-lipped Canadians, Fraser's young 
 son, and a delicate-limbed, fine-faced boy-student from 
 McGill University, who did what he was told for the sake 
 of learning life in his holidays. 
 
 Dick yawned and went aft among the carefully-stacked 
 barrels, boxes, cases, bacon in sacks, harness, bales of 
 clothes, seasoned timber, bags of sealed mail, and many 
 things more which Bessait was taking north addressed to 
 men whom the world " outside " had forgotten long since. 
 On a bale sat a French priest with biretta and breviary. 
 The stamp of an old-world monastery was raw on him, 
 and Dick wondered idly what kind of work this man would 
 make of life among the realities. Then he pushed open 
 the door of the half-moon glass-sided saloon where a hand- 
 ful of men were playing poker at this nine of a summer 
 and looked in. 
 
 Brodribb, the Hudson Bay factor from Fort Smith, saw 
 him first, and gave welcome. Ducane twisted in his chair; 
 went white, and gripped the table-edge. Robison made 
 the cards in great hairy hands that did not shake, and 
 Dick's heart approved him. For Robison would never
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 153 
 
 lick the hand that lassooed him. He was too surely a 
 son of the strong North for that. 
 
 Dick got his pipe out, and cast himself into the smoke- 
 reek and talk. And the doings of these men of the naked 
 lives unrolled in their idle speech. There was Caird of 
 the Government Survey, grey-haired and keen-eyed and 
 calm, going down for his twentieth year's measuring-off of 
 the solitudes with gay young de Musset from Ottawa and 
 the silent Lyons with the tragedy in his still face. There 
 was a broad-barrelled German, prospecting for gold with 
 an absolutely admirable outfit and an easy knowledge that 
 he might forget the ways of white nations before he mixed 
 with them again. There was a Revillons' " fur-pup " go- 
 ing North to a dim, slim branch of that great Company 
 which has dared raise its head against the Hudson Bay, 
 and a big, buoyant lad of the North-West Police called to 
 the long lonely beats of Fort Macpherson. He would be 
 a man when he came back, that fresh-faced boy, and the 
 little " fur-pup " would have ceased to yelp when the cards 
 of Life went against him. 
 
 Through the open door Dick heard Bessait shout down 
 the tube to the other controller of the steamer's des- 
 tinies. 
 
 "Kick her into it/' he said. And then the shudder of 
 life ran through the dead timber; the screw backed and 
 squattered; swung out to the broad full stream, and the 
 " Northern Light " laid her nose to the Pole and went to 
 look for it. Among the cotton-woods a red handkerchief 
 leapt up like a heart-flame, and Dick slid out of the door 
 to make answer with his own. The red flag flew till the 
 banks veered in, and Dick laughed, wondering if the girl in 
 the cotton-woods knew. Then he ran up the steep ladder 
 to the naked upper deck where the funnel roared and all 
 the canvas surface lay at gaze to the open sky. And as 
 his head lifted above the level his eyes met Jennifer's. 
 
 He stared, almost unbelieving. Then he reddened with 
 anger. Was Ducane dragging his wife into these shady 
 games which he was playing? What had he brought her 
 up here for except as a blind? And if so what was he 
 going to do with her and with himself? The thoughts 
 fled through his mind like lightning on a cloud. But they
 
 154 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 left their mark. Even with those brave, frightened eyes 
 on his face; even with the realization that it was Jennifer, 
 the woman he loved, the eager hunting instinct leapt up 
 in him as he came forward. 
 
 Jennifer had dropped her work with an exclamation 
 of fear. And that nailed his suspicions home to the wall 
 of fact. Ducane was on special business dangerous busi- 
 ness; and she knew it. 
 
 " Oh what have you come for? " she said. 
 
 " I would like to say that it was to see you. But I'm 
 afraid I gave myself away just now." He sat down on 
 the bench beside her. " You don't know how curious it 
 seems to me to see you here with your work. Like the 
 real essence of home-life among all us men." 
 
 Jennifer flushed, with her fear fading out under his look 
 and his words. He was so familiar, so reliable, such a 
 piece of home at this edge of all things new. It was im- 
 possible that he should give reason for fear. She smiled 
 at him. 
 
 " I can generally adapt myself to my surroundings some- 
 how," she said. 
 
 " You do very much more than that. You can adapt 
 your surroundings to yourself." 
 
 " Indeed I can't. You, for instance. I wouldn't let 
 you wear that leather loop round your head at the back. 
 It roughs your hair up." 
 
 He took off his Stetson and contemplated the narrow 
 strap. 
 
 " I can't wear hat-pins," he complained. " Besides, it's 
 part of the equipment. Do you really think I'm a sur- 
 rounding that couldn't be adapted ? " 
 
 She glanced up, half-startled, half-puzzled at his earnest 
 tone. 
 
 " Give me my work-bag, please," she said, evading the 
 issue, and she took the little silken thing from his hands 
 and sought for her scissors. " Where do you people of 
 the outside edges get your chivalry from? I have never 
 been so waited on in all my life. Antoine carried my grip 
 into every cabin there is, and Louis Peaceful followed with 
 the captain's sweet-grass mattress. Mrs. Carter and I 
 could have had every blanket in the scows if we'd wanted
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 155 
 
 them, and some one has been drawing us pails of water 
 to wash with ever since we came aboard." 
 
 " Who is Mrs. Carter?" asked Dick idly. But he was 
 watching her face. 
 
 " Wife of the missionary at Fort Resolution," Jennifer 
 turned on him. " She sent her daughter out to school ten 
 years ago, and now she has been to Moosejaw to see her 
 married. It was the first time she had been out in eighteen 
 years, and she is going back to perhaps eighteen more. 
 It is not only you men who serve this great North-West 
 of ours." 
 
 ' And it is not only you women who know it." 
 
 " I know that it is better to work without being satisfied 
 than to be satisfied without having worked. But oh 
 dear ! she is so good that she makes me feel horribly bad." 
 
 " Take me as a, palliative, then'. On that basis I ought 
 to make you feel horribly good. And do you think that I 
 will possibly be able to exist in proximity with Mrs. Car- 
 ter?" 
 
 Jennifer laughed. But she shivered. A sudden wind 
 from the wing of the future had ^touched her, and the 
 woman in her feared the unknown even as the girl in her 
 reached out for it. 
 
 They talked in the new knowledge that had come to 
 Jennifer through these days when she had watched the red 
 sun sink and the long dusks darken the river, and had learnt 
 the slang and the run of the river- work and dipped deep 
 in the lives of the many men and the one woman about 
 her. And then that flat-chested, grey-haired woman with 
 the brave bright eyes interrupted them, and Dick went 
 away to smoke and to think. 
 
 He had no intention to arrest Robison so long as more 
 might be learned by leaving him free. What was to be 
 learned he did not know yet. But he meant to watch; 
 and Ducane knew it, and said so to Jennifer that night, 
 taking her up to the very nose of the steamer, among the 
 windlasses and the warping ropes with the silky water 
 parting a few feet below and day yet hanging in the sun- 
 set colours. He hid his face against Jennifer's sleeve as 
 he lay on the poop, turning to her as to an infinite well 
 from which he could draw his courage.
 
 156 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " He's after us," he said. " I know he is. What else 
 should he come for? " 
 
 " He says there is that defalcating Italian " 
 
 " He says! Jenny, I'd back out of this if Robison would 
 let me. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. But Robison 
 won't lose money, and I'll lose my own if I can't put this 
 through. But I'm afraid " 
 
 Jennifer bit her lips. 
 
 " Then lose your own," she said. " Let us go out poor 
 so long as we go honest. We can begin again." 
 
 " Don't be a little fool." Ducane sat up, pushing the 
 damp hair back from his florid, handsome face. His eyes 
 were bloodshot and his lips unsteady. " What the devil 
 do you know about poverty and disgrace? " he said. 
 
 " You know that I don't let you swear to me, Harry." 
 
 Ducane moved impatiently. 
 
 " Unless Heriot can be squared there won't be much 
 more from us in a little," he said. " Heriot has a long 
 head and a short suit, and he knows how to play his game. 
 I never knew a M. P. who could be squared yet; but 
 you're pretty thick with him. If you could keep him dan- 
 gling around you this trip, Jenny " 
 
 Jennifer looked down that great pale gleam of water 
 that led, link by link, to the Arctic Seas. Ducane was 
 killing her innocent friendship by his coarse thoughts as 
 he had killed so much else. 
 
 "And who is to guard Robison? He hasn't a wife," 
 she said. 
 
 " Curse Robison." Ducane brought his head close. " I'll 
 get ten years and likely more if Heriot catches me," he 
 said. 
 
 " And so sure as there is a God you deserve it," said 
 Jennifer. 
 
 Ducane sat up as though a cracker had exploded beneath 
 him. 
 
 " You you " he sputtered. " Do you know that you 
 
 are my wife? " 
 
 Jennifer turned her wide, dark eyes on him. The light 
 was faint and warm in her hazy hair. 
 
 " Oh, Harry, will you never be a man ? " she said sadly. 
 
 Ducane was silent. From the upper deck rolled the
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE" 157 
 
 sound of singing, where the McGill student and Dick led 
 the interminable chorus to each verse of each song that 
 was sung. 
 
 "Come up; come up, come all the way up, come all the 
 
 way up the river. 
 
 Come up; come up, come all the "way up ... come 
 all the way up the river." 
 
 To Jennifer there was menace in that strong body of 
 virile sound sweeping out to the lonely water and the still 
 forests and naked cliffs. Was she, too, called to go all 
 the way up the grey river of dread that broke at last to 
 the Arctic Seas? 
 
 Ducane spoke sulkily: 
 
 " I guess it's all right for you," he said. " &ou don't 
 go to prison." 
 
 Jennifer's spirit was there already. 
 
 " Oh," she said. " I can so well understand a man 
 doing wrong. But to do wrong and be afraid all the 
 time where's the pleasure in that? " 
 
 Ducane did not chuckle as Dick would have done. His 
 forehead was wet. 
 
 " Pleasure," he said. " Pleasure, good Lord ! " He 
 caught her hands. " You must save me, Jenny," he said. 
 " I can't stand it, I can't. Remember I've always loved 
 you, little girl " 
 
 Jennifer jerked her hands free and stood up. She could 
 not listen to the desecration of that word which had once 
 meant so much to her. It seemed so long since she first 
 knew that she never had loved Ducane. Those great 
 things which she had thought to honour in him were never 
 there. She was the supporter, not the supported; the 
 mother and nurse, not the wife. She had lost, lost right 
 through in this game of love which she had been playing, 
 and the naked path of duty was hard for a young heart 
 to follow. 
 
 Dick looked down and saw her, a slim, tense figure in 
 the warm, dull light that wrapped her, and for a back- 
 ground the great naked steel breast of the river and the 
 far faint sky. She looked so little and lonely; and the
 
 158 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 man at her feet was out of the picture, even as the man 
 on the upper deck. 
 
 " I will do what I can/' said Jennifer. " It may not 
 be much." 
 
 Then she turned from him and climbed the ladder to 
 the upper deck, for she dared not be alone with herself 
 just then. 
 
 The air on the upper deck was charged with life and 
 laughter and talk, and a swift impulse of childish longing 
 made Jennifer slide down with her head against Mrs. Car- 
 ter's knee. Her own mother was very far off in Ontario, 
 with half a continent of earth and more than a continent 
 of knowledge between them; but the hard, rough hand that 
 touched her forehead now and again was a mother's hand 
 also, tender with love for an absent daughter. 
 
 The women did not speak. They sat on the surge of the 
 man-talk that swept them this way and that through air 
 that was strong with tobacco-smoke and that curious pride 
 which falls on the Northmen when they speak of their 
 own domain. For the North and the things of the North 
 are the only world to the men bred in it. Brodribb him- 
 self had never seen the sea, and he did not want to. He 
 had a thousand miles and a thousand added of good earth 
 to his either hand, and the lakes he knew grew shells and 
 seaweed and beat their wrinkled cliffs with combers from 
 beyond horizon. And if the waters were fresh there were 
 salt-beds and salt-springs for moose and bear and buffalo 
 to find their comfort in. 
 
 Disconnectedly the talk ran round. Talk of the added 
 bounty on timber wolves, bringing it to twenty dollars ; 
 of the wood-buffalo yet killed by them yearly, and Caird's 
 belief that no bounty would induce the superstitious Indian 
 to court ill-luck by slaying a timber-wolf before he 'went 
 to the hunting. Talk of the " strong man " of the North 
 who had just won home beyond all records by dragging a 
 freighted scow unaided up the Pelican Rapids ; of " Soft- 
 wind-of-the-morning," the Indian girl at Great Slave Lake, 
 who had so queered the finest trapper in her tribe that he 
 sat without her father's lodge day and night, starving until 
 his bones stood out for love of her; and of the increased 
 tracking-wage and the price of silver and cross-fox skins. 
 Caird told of the prospectors in the tar-soaked sand
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 159 
 
 along the Athabaska, who struck rock-salt in punching an 
 oil-shaft, and later blew their whole plant to high heaven 
 by building a mosquito-smudge over-near. Brodribb spoke 
 of a bear-hunt when he went to break in three young dogs 
 and lost two. But he came home with the pelt and a 
 ripped-up arm where the white steel-hard claw had 
 touched. 
 
 " I guess it wasn't exactly bear-baiting," he said. " The 
 bear had a sporting chance. But my old rifle has never 
 played dog on me yet." 
 
 Here the men fell on technicalities concerning the one 
 weapon which means life on the trails; and Jennifer 
 leaned her head back and looked in Mrs. Carter's eyes. 
 
 " You have had things happen to you, too ? " she whis- 
 pered, and the grey-haired woman smiled. 
 
 " Why," she said, " perhaps. Things like cooking sup- 
 per for thirty children when it is pitch dark at quarter to 
 four and you can't see the crowds of Indian women 
 squatted about you cleaning the day's fish-catch, or the 
 children who steal in to get warm by the stove, or the 
 men who smoke and loaf and will leave the door open. 
 And when you go to the cupboard you get your hand in a 
 mouth or eyes, or you step on something, and don't know 
 if it is a fish or a human or or what. And the smell is 
 indescribable, and you can feel the dirt; and the cold and 
 the dark are real things that press on you and make you 
 slow and cross and stupid. But it is worth while, you 
 know. They love us." 
 
 " And love is a very, very great thing," said Ducane's 
 young wife gravely. 
 
 A few mallard splashed in the reeds alongside; rose 
 black against the primrose sky and flew north with harsh 
 clamour. Dick leaned out and gave their call back, clear 
 and true and far on the warm air. The flight wavered, 
 wheeled, and came circling. Dick called again, and they 
 dropped with sounding beat of wings ; realized man, and 
 fled in a terror that gave them no quarter. Brodribb looked 
 at the man by the rail. 
 
 " I reckon you never starved wherever you were located," 
 he said, and Dick looked on the twilight with eyes that 
 dreamed still of the long northern sedges. 
 
 " But I always preferred life's luxuries," he said.
 
 160 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Those of which moose-nose and bear-tail are the equiva- 
 lents." 
 
 "Give me caribou-tongue for luxury/' said Caird, and 
 his fine lined face was eager. " The tongue of a young 
 caribou just before they separate in the ice-moon. There's 
 no better feeding on earth." 
 
 " I ran across the female camp on the shores of some 
 lake last winter," said Brodribb. " Thousands of 'em, 
 pushing north to the sea, and their coats just prime. When 
 is the Government sending a survey into that country, 
 Caird? What say? Why, it was in west of Smith. A 
 fine lake, and I named it Caribou, but I guess I won't find 
 it any more unless I get hold of the Indians. It was on 
 one of their stamping-grounds, all right. Tepee-poles 
 everywhere in the snow." 
 
 Grahame, the big Mounted Police boy, sat forward with 
 hands gripped between his knees. His eyes were alight 
 for the cold white nights and the tepee-ribs by the frozen 
 lake where the caribou roamed were to him the land 
 where he would be. 
 
 " And a fellow could shoot them and shoot bear ! " he 
 said. 
 
 Dick looked at him keenly. To the far-scattered posts 
 whose positions are shown on the Police maps by little 
 red flags come many grades of men for Canada's serving. 
 Sons of earls, some; medical students, and clowns and 
 lumber-jacks; men from all the regular armies of the earth; 
 home-produced farmers, American broncho-busters, and 
 everything in between. Hours ago Dick had placed Gra- 
 hame as the younger son of some Scotch laird or baronet, 
 and he guessed at the steady Scotch courage which the 
 long winter patrols would not daunt. 
 
 " I've been held up half-a-day by caribou swimming 
 Artillery Lake," said Caird. " It was a sheer black line 
 of horns ruled across it, and they poured down over the 
 crest of the hill like molasses out of a jug. We didn't 
 dare bring our canoes near for fear of getting mixed up. 
 So we paddled around and timed them. That bunch took 
 exactly six hours and eighteen minutes to pass a given 
 point. They weren't sloushing it any, either." 
 
 " Goo-od Lord," said young Grahame, and drew his
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE" 161 
 
 breath in. "What a country! What a place to live in! 
 Do you do everything on as big a scale as that? " 
 
 " I suppose that some of our men are the smallest things 
 we have," said Dick dryly, and turned down the deck as 
 Ducane came up the ladder. But young Grahame followed 
 him. 
 
 " Excuse me/' he said with the stately courtesy which 
 made Dick put his choice in the baronet-father. " I hear 
 that you know Fort Macpherson. Can you tell me any- 
 thing about it, for I'm going there? " 
 
 Dick leaned on the rail. It had been nothing dishon- 
 ourable which had brought this lad over-seas. 
 
 " You have come after adventure, I imagine," he said. 
 " Well, you'll get it if your idea of it happens to be the 
 same as that of the Force. You will have to cut wood and 
 haul it four or five miles probably more. And the green 
 fish for dog-feed usually has to come from Arctic Red 
 River about thirty-five miles. You'll go after that in the 
 winter, through anything down to sixty or seventy below 
 zero, instead of attending balls and Caledonian meetings. 
 Some day you may shoot your bear or your moose to save 
 your life and may not save it then. There is the routine 
 work, of course. And the patrols to Herschel Island 
 two-fifty miles each way. The Dawson patrols consider- 
 ably longer and harder; and perhaps another to Kittiga- 
 zuit You'll have to chase the mountain Indians for deer- 
 meat for yourselves, and the river ones for fish for dog- 
 feed. The Peel hardly gives enough to last the summer." 
 He smiled a little. "Have I frightened you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Heavens ! " said young Grahame. " It's like Feni- 
 more Cooper and all the rest of 'em rolled into one. 
 You've been through all that ! " 
 
 " I have lived through it." Then Dick's face changed. 
 " I wish you luck," he said. " I believe you are probably 
 going to be a credit to us." 
 
 Grahame looked north to the faint stars that dipped to 
 the waste of waters. Beyond them he was to find stars 
 yet unseen, and his heart swelled high and hot in him. 
 Scotland's sons have broken the trails of Canada through 
 all the dim rusty centuries even as he himself would do.
 
 162 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 That kind of thing does not go into words, but there was 
 something else which did. 
 
 " And I'll be able to shoot bear! " he said reverently. 
 
 For some days Dick kept eyes and ears ready for the 
 clue which he sought. Then he discovered it through 
 Jennifer. He came along the upper deck to find her talk- 
 ing with Mrs. Carter, and there were some photographs 
 spread on her knee. She looked up at Dick's step. 
 
 " I'm taking these up to show Mrs. Lowndes of the 
 Hudson Bay," she said. " For I think they are some of 
 the best Harry has. I hope he'll get as good this time. 
 He has his big camera with him." 
 
 Dick put his pipe away and inspected the photographs. 
 Among them were two of rolling prairie-land which were 
 familiar. He had seen them in a pamphlet brought up by 
 the German to whom Robison had sold his land. Shuffling 
 a handful he managed to abstract one. And he did not 
 feel ashamed of himself for doing so. Anyone who could 
 dare fate as Ducane appeared to do deserved to have his 
 challenge accepted. Presently Ducane and Robison came 
 by. Ducane was more cheerful than usual, and he stopped 
 graciously to be complimented on his work. 
 
 "Why, where did you get them, Jenny? " he said. " I 
 never gave you all those." 
 
 " I found some plates in one of your drawers and printed 
 these myself. And they are nearly as good as yours." She 
 looked up at him saucily. " Wouldn't you think that was 
 yours? And that? And that? " 
 
 Dick caught his breath as she held up the last. Had 
 Ducane sufficient control? He had not. Blood suffused 
 his eyes and skin instantly. He snatched it from her. 
 
 " What do you mean by meddling with my drawers ? " 
 
 he said fiercely. " By , if I find you touching my 
 
 things again here ; give me those." 
 
 He swept the armful out of her lap and flung them 
 overboard, and then Robison caught him by the arm and 
 walked him off. And the suppressed fury on Robison's 
 face was not a pleasant thing to see. Jennifer had courage. 
 She looked at Mrs. Carter, and then she looked at Dick. 
 
 " I get just as cross when anyone pokes into my 
 drawers," she said. " Harry hunted through them once
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 163 
 
 for a necktie of his that I'd been wearing, and it took 
 me a week to put them straight. I expect he's afraid of 
 what he'll find when he gets back." 
 
 She laughed a little. But presently she got up and 
 went away. Mrs. Carter turned to Dick. 
 
 "Does this kind of thing occur often?" she asked. 
 
 " Well it varies according to circumstances," said Dick. 
 
 " Poor child," said the elder woman softly. " Poor, 
 brave child." 
 
 Then she too got up and went away, leaving Dick alone 
 on the upper deck, except for Bessait in the wheel-house. 
 But Bessait lived in his own world up and down these 
 hushed ways of men where no footprints are left on the 
 trail, and his far-seeing gaze seldom homed to those about 
 him. Dick shut the photograph into his pocket-book, lit 
 his pipe again, and settled back to think in the manner 
 Tempest knew so well ; foot held over his knee by his 
 hand; shoulders slightly stooped, and eyes dark and brood- 
 ing. 
 
 He had enough now to warrant a search into Ducane's 
 effects when he went back. His business at present was 
 to see where those two went in Chipewyan ; to whom they 
 spoke, and what photographs they took. That he must do 
 unseen. And then, when people began to rush Lake Atha- 
 baska land, it would go hard with him if he did not sheet 
 the reason for it home to Ducane. Except that one photo- 
 graph and Ducane's rages, which were not producible 
 proof, he had nothing yet against Ducane which would 
 stand in a law-court. Concerning Robison he knew much 
 more. Link by link he went over in his mind the points 
 which he did know. 
 
 Ducane had been supplying Robison with money lately; 
 Dick had seen the cheques. Through Robison's assistance 
 several breeds and one or two who had been supposed to 
 be Indians had managed to prove themselves of sufficiently 
 white extraction to receive scrip-land from Government. 
 More than two of those grants had passed into Robison's 
 hands publicly and been sold by him. The others prob- 
 ably belonged to him privately or to Ducane. There was 
 more drinking than formerly among the breeds Dick be- 
 lieved he could account for that when he was ready.
 
 164. THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Trappers were getting in debt to the Hudsan Bay Com- 
 pany and leaving it to trade with Robison. Dick had 
 discovered one occasion on which it was proved that Robi- 
 son had paid twenty per cent, less than the Company gave. 
 But the trapper was drunkenly happy about the matter, 
 and a little later he gave up trapping and took scrip land. 
 That had not yet passed to Robison publicly. 
 
 Dick had had more than one conversation with the Ger- 
 man who had settled on Robison's river-frontage, and he 
 had found those conversations valuable. 
 
 " I enchoy you," said the fat German. " You have imat- 
 chination. When I egsblain to people that there is not the 
 Canada Home-lot Egstention Company anywhere at all, 
 they say ' Ridiggleous. We haf the papers, see.' I say 
 that I did go to their address and what do I findt? A 
 blace on the groundt floor and a blace on the top where is 
 a dirdy man who baints eggs-chru-chia-ting bigdures. And 
 in bedween was a nod so young a lady selling babies' 
 foodt. No Canada Home-lot Egstention Gombany there. 
 Would I nod haf id seen? " 
 
 Dick felt more than a legitimate interest in the dirty 
 man. But he did not say so. 
 
 " Of course," he said. " Your only chance lies in finding 
 out from this end. You say nothing, and I say nothing. 
 But we observe. And presently we know." 
 
 " Egsactly," said the German with a long breath. " Ah, 
 you the imachination haf, my friendt." 
 
 The German passed in review through Dick's mind. 
 Then he summed up. To remove Robison that he might 
 answer in some still cell for the passing of Ogilvie would 
 cripple his own future operations very much. To arrest 
 him on a charge of swindling the breeds out of their scrip- 
 land might open up the whole affair. But Robison could 
 hardly be tried for roguery after he had been condemned 
 and hung for murder, and Dick dared not waive the knowl- 
 edge which he had bullied out of Andree. He regretted that 
 knowledge now. He wanted to make his big coup, and he 
 did not yet see the way to do it. And then he heard Jen- 
 nifer laugh in the saloon below, and it started him up on 
 his feet to walk the deck with his face set and his eyes 
 cruelly determined.
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE" 165 
 
 He could not leave this trail where the scent was so illu- 
 sive and where his mind ran so sure and rapidly. He 
 could not leave it, even for her. She would suffer for it 
 presently, and so would he; and he would watch the strug- 
 gles of both with a vivisecting eye because this great curi- 
 ous problem of life, swayed by emotion, and trapped by 
 circumstance, and controlled by some undiscernible power 
 had its grip on him and it would not let go. It possessed 
 him, side by side, with his love, and it made his face grow 
 cruel as he walked. 
 
 " She is better without him," he said. " And she'll love 
 
 me in spite of this. By , she shall." Then his eyes 
 
 narrowed, and he smiled slowly. " But it is more than 
 possible that I'll pay heavily all the same/' he 
 added. 
 
 In the following days he told stories and sang songs and 
 sketched sketches of the whole ship's company, until men 
 talked apart of the suggestion of fear which he had flung 
 into the bluff mask of Ducane's face, and the hint of tragedy 
 in the soft features of the little " fur-pup." Jennifer spoke 
 of this to Dick one evening when chance had left them 
 alone on the upper deck with a breed at the wheel to hold 
 the " Northern Light " on her clear course of scarlet where 
 the dying sun lay bleeding. 
 
 " He wants it to send to his mother, poor little boy," 
 she said. " Don't let him have it. You had no right to 
 put that look in his face." 
 
 " I'm sorry. But I saw it. People say that I see too 
 much, you know." 
 
 He smiled down at her with that hint of mockery which 
 she saw seldom, and her lips quivered. 
 
 "If you have that power you will be held very respon- 
 sible, some day," she said. 
 
 " I shall be very willing to meet my creditors. They 
 have added much to the interest of life for me, and I hope 
 they won't find me ungrateful. What do you think of 
 the French Brother? The man who never speaks even 
 to you? " 
 
 " How can I think anything? At table he pokes me 
 and points to what he wants, and he won't look at me. 
 Oh " She took the sketch Dick put into her hands.
 
 166 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 "How like him. But I hadn't thought yes; there is 
 that look of repression and of exaltation about him some- 
 where. As if he had overcome greatly. But I never 
 thought you would have seen that." 
 
 Dick took the sketch, pushing it back into his pocket. 
 
 "Why not?" he asked very quietly. 
 
 Jennifer looked away to the reedy banks where the wild 
 ducks splashed. A faint grey knot of shacks and' tepees 
 stood against a wedge of dark pine-forest on the shore, 
 and across the pure shining mauve of the river a canoe 
 shot out, breaking level silver lines that ridged each wave 
 from bank to bank. The " Hya he-e-e-e " cry of the pad- 
 dler came sharply, and Dick stooped. 
 
 "Why not?" he said, and Jennifer looked up, half- 
 laughing. 
 
 " Why I have thought you were too materialistic," she 
 said. 
 
 Dick glanced at her. Then he set his lips together; 
 drew a piece of millboard from a skin-case in his breast- 
 pocket and put it into her hands. He watched her while 
 she looked at it. In all warm, delicate tints it stood out; 
 a carefully, tenderly, finished portrait of herself, as unlike 
 the bold, crude sketches which he made of men as Jenni- 
 fer herself was unlike them. The wistful lips were there 
 and the brave half-dread in the eyes. Jennifer dropped 
 it and hid her face. She felt as though this man had 
 looked on her naked soul. 
 
 " Oh-h," she said. 
 
 The breeze swept the funnel-flag of bright wood-sparks 
 across them. Dick brushed a gleam from Jennifer's shoul- 
 der, feeling her wince. 
 
 " No one else has seen it," he said. 
 
 " But you have," said Jennifer, and her words were 
 stifled. 
 
 " I could not help that, Jennifer," he said. 
 
 The name drew her eyes up to his. And she knew what 
 they said and what hers answered as a man knows numbly 
 the sentence of death when it is read out to him: knows 
 it as a thing outside his control or comprehension; as a 
 thing which is. She sprang up wildly, pushing her hands 
 out.
 
 "THE RETURN OF OGILVIE " 167 
 
 " No ! " she said with dry throat. " No ! No ! " 
 
 She ran past him and down the ladder, and Dick walked 
 the little dusky deck for very long; quiet- footed, and for- 
 getting his pipe, while the bells clanged off the hours and 
 shunted them over, with all their prayers and passions, 
 into eternity. 
 
 Once he stood still and laughed ; half-angry, half- 
 relieved. " It had to come, soon or late," he said. " But 
 if I hadn't been a fool it would have been late. It was 
 going to be bad enough to take the man before. It will 
 be the very devil now." 
 
 He walked on slowly. 
 
 "But I've got to take him," he said. "I've cashed in 
 every other mortal thing at the bank of my desires, but 
 I'm damned if I'll let my brain go too. Ducane has got 
 to justify me. And then I've got to justify myself with 
 Jennifer." 
 
 Down in the little bare cabin which she shared with Mrs. 
 Carter, Jennifer lay headlong on the sweet-grass mattress, 
 gripping the pillow close over her eyes. She was terrified 
 to the quick by the fierce life of the knowledge which had 
 broken on her, and with stiff lips and dizzy brain she tried 
 to pray herself back into the old ignorance. But always 
 the merciless What Is scattered her will and denied her 
 help. 
 
 " God ! " she cried. " Oh, God ! Oh, God ! " 
 
 And then she shivered, pressing the pillow with shaking 
 hands against her eyes. 
 
 Once, long, long ago, in those days when Ducane meant 
 Hcavrn to her, Tempest had called her a civilizing influ- 
 ence. She felt a smile twitch her lips mirthfully. A civi- 
 lizing influence! She! She who knew the uncivilized ele- 
 ments of primal nature which are beyond all traditions, all 
 help, all law. She who loved where she would have given 
 her right arm not to have loved, and could not love where 
 all her prayers and duty lay. She who had touched sud- 
 denly to the heart of those huge forces which sway the im- 
 mortal soul, and who had to face them, giddy and alone, 
 with all outward interpretation driven back from eyes and 
 tongue. For a brief while Jennifer was a raw soul strug- 
 gling with eternal problems back of the crusted beams of
 
 168 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 time and the torn tie-ribs of old earth. Mrs. Carter came 
 in softly; asked for and accepted the woman's eternal ex- 
 cuse of a headache; undressed and climbed into the upper 
 bunk. Jennifer lay still with her eyes on the dark now, 
 and the steamer moved on with the strange hush of mid- 
 night around it. 
 
 The engine heart-beat stopped suddenly with a shudder 
 like the coming of death. Men called; moccasined feet 
 pattered the decks and the gang-plank ran out with com- 
 plaining squeals. Jennifer slid off the bunk and looked 
 from the unglassed eight-inch window. The boat lay along 
 a tall, dark bank where the pines were jewelled on their 
 tops by the stars. A flare glowed redly over the gang- 
 plank and over a string of silent, stooping figures which 
 trod up it slow and burdened and ran back swift and 
 lightly. To Jennifer came the fancy that each man 
 brought his burden of sins across the bridge of repentance 
 and turned earthward to his work again, glad and for- 
 given. 
 
 She had seen river-steamers wooding-up many times 
 before this. But the dark pines and the white face of 
 the stacked timber; the red, uncertain flare and the silent 
 bowed procession moving in moccasined stealthiness took 
 the blank reality from it. And then she saw Dick, tread- 
 ing the plank with sure light feet; bare-armed where he 
 gripped the rough wood ; bare-throated where the black 
 head rose beside it. He passed, with a flickering dark 
 shadow behind him, and Jennifer crept back to the bunk 
 because she dared not watch for that figure again. 
 
 But long after the flare died out; long after the steamer 
 sheered into the stream, and the talk and tread of men in 
 the alley-way ceased, and the smell of tobacco grew fainter, 
 Jennifer stole back to the window, and saw the stars wheel 
 their courses under the eye of the moon. There was no 
 sleep for her where all the world was dreaming. 
 
 For a man may sweat his present devils out by savage 
 work. But a woman must pray them out or let them 
 stay.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " ON THE ATHABASKA " 
 
 " WHO spilt that ? " roared Ducane. 
 
 He lay on Chipewyan beach, with the red flare from the 
 mosquito-smudges over him, and over half the population 
 of Chipewyan where they celebrated the undoubted fact 
 that the year's permits had come from the South, and that 
 it was the whole duty of man to see that no one drop of 
 them remained upon another by daybreak. 
 
 Out of the dark and noisy ring where ribald songs and 
 drunken laughter had gone up these four hours past a face 
 thrust forward. There was moisture on the forehead and 
 the skin by the nostrils glistened. But by the tight lips 
 and the still keen eyes Ducane knew it. 
 
 " I spilt that drink of yours," said Dick. " And if 
 you're civil you shall have another. But I won't wait on 
 a man who talks like a drunken cad." 
 
 Ducane sat up. He was flushed with conquest because, 
 a few hours earlier, he had forced a promise from Jenni- 
 fer. She had given it, brief and low, and without emotion, 
 and he was not afraid of Dick Heriot any longer. Jen- 
 nifer would manage him now. Jennifer would keep him 
 out of the way whilst he and Robison did the work which 
 they had come North to do. He laughed. 
 
 " Better than acting like one," he said. " I could tell 
 things of you, Corporal Heriot." 
 
 Dick shrugged his shoulders. He had spent unprofitable 
 hours in trying to discover why Ducane and Robison had 
 chartered beforehand the only tug in Chipewyan and what 
 they were going to do with it. He had spent more in 
 trying to decide whether he should arrest Robison now 
 or whether he might gain more by letting him do his work. 
 And finally, he had drunk with the revellers on the beach 
 until his temper was acutely on edge and his restlessness 
 almost bevond restraint. 
 
 169
 
 170 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Tell them/' he said. " I'll guarantee they're no worse 
 than some we have heard from you to-night." 
 
 " Keep that you-be-damned nature of yours quiet, Her- 
 iot," advised Brodribb; and Ducane laughed again. 
 
 " It's the women can tell most, I guess. Maybe my 
 wife " 
 
 " Yes? " Dick's hands shut with a sudden jerk. " Your 
 wife ?" 
 
 " She's lucky to have a husband who knows enough to 
 look after her/' sneered Ducane. 
 
 With a sharp curse Dick sprang up, and Lowndes caught 
 at his leg. 
 
 " Steady, Heriot ; the man's drunk," he cried. 
 
 " I'm not going to touch him ; " Dick kicked himself 
 free. " I have neither gloves nor boots on." 
 
 He swung down the beach into the dark, and Ducane 
 looked after him in tipsy triumph. He had made Jenni- 
 fer's task easier for her, and he had satisfied his own evil 
 temper in the doing of it. He rolled over with a grunt, 
 and thrust out his granite cup. 
 
 " Give me another drink, somebody," he said. 
 
 Dick went down the beach with face white and bitten 
 lips. Insults to himself never troubled him, but this insult 
 to Jennifer cut deep. And the truth of it stung. 
 
 Where the beach lay up to the forehead of the dark 
 wood the factor's house showed, low and pale, palely, and 
 there was something white beyond it which took the shape 
 of a woman as Dick came near. He knew it at once. 
 Jennifer had found the night too hot for sleep, and she 
 had come out to look, like Beatrice, over the hedge of her 
 innocence at those Dante-fires along the distance. Dick 
 had kept himself apart from her since that night on the 
 steamer deck, fifty hours ago. He had hurt her enough 
 for the present, and her white face and strained eyes told 
 it. By and by he would speak, and she would listen. But 
 all that was good in him repented that he had done this 
 when there was no escape for her from either Ducane or 
 himself, and he trod past her now with head a little away 
 and down, and a silent, suddenly-awkward salute. And at 
 that moment he was near to the kingdom of heaven be- 
 cause of the reverence in him.
 
 ON THE ATHABASKA" 171 
 
 And then Jennifer laughed ; laughed close beside him in 
 the hot dusky night; laughed a little mocking laugh that 
 brought the blood stinging to his face. He stood, dazed 
 as though the laugh had been a blow. 
 
 "Weren't you going to speak to me? " she asked. 
 
 She stood with hands linked behind her and head cocked 
 in that saucy way which she used to Slicker, and in those 
 age-old days when friendship was possible to himself. 
 Now with the thing that lay between them. Now when 
 he dared not lift his eyes to her she could laugh, and she 
 could look at him like that. 
 
 " I had thought that you would have preferred " he 
 
 began stupidly. But his head was singing. Why did she 
 look at him like that? 
 
 "What made you come away from them?" cried Jen- 
 nifer. " I can only stand a long way off and hear them 
 laughing. We can never have such a good time, you know. 
 / can't go and make offerings to Bacchus." 
 
 " He never objects to a Bacchante," said Dick. 
 
 He reddened, and would have taken it back, but Jennifer 
 laughed again, rocking on heels and toes. Her whole atti- 
 tude was daring, sharply vivid. She looked light as a 
 cloud and as free. She was the essence of life, distilled 
 to a burning drop, and Dick was not the man to look on 
 her unknowing it. He caught his breath, coming near 
 with tingling blood. This was not the white lady of his 
 worship. It was not Jennifer. He did not know who it 
 was. He did not know anything, but that he would have 
 his hands on her presently. 
 
 She moved a few steps down the beach, looking back 
 at him over her shoulder. And what she saw contented 
 her. She was playing her game, full and fiercely as a 
 woman can play it, and already she had puzzled the man. 
 In one moment she had smashed all his theories and left 
 his slower mind fumbling on the edge of something strange. 
 And before he had grasped that with masculine decision 
 she would be somewhere else. The spirit of illusion, of 
 excitement, of snatching hot coals and dropping them with 
 such swiftness that they would not burn was on her. She 
 saw him follow, and she was glad, for her hate for him 
 was as great as her love. He had flung her heart down
 
 172 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 from the secret place where she kept it, and he knew it. 
 Now he was going to unknow it, while she discovered him 
 for what he was. It would hurt her to see it, and she 
 desired to be hurt. She desired to trick and baffle and 
 shame him; to win all along the line for Ducane and for 
 her wifehood calm again. 
 
 A canoe lay down the beach, nosing the water-ripple. 
 Jennifer slipped in, a little white heap against the dark 
 edge. 
 
 " Take me out where it is cool and black," she said. 
 " I want to watch the fires." 
 
 Dick ran it out with one push ; leapt in, and knelt, grasp- 
 ing the paddle. He shot over the water with long savage 
 strokes until their outline was merged in the distant shore- 
 line. Then he rested the dripping paddle and looked at her 
 with her head among the stars as they floated in the dark 
 between heaven and the red flames on the beach. He did 
 not speak. He did not attempt to adjust the universe 
 which she had cast in broken shards about him. He did 
 not remember the difference between right and wrong. 
 The electricity of the night and of her nearness led him 
 into the trap she set. 
 
 "Do you remember Browning's 'Two in a gondola'?" 
 said Jennifer, idly dabbling her hand in the water. " I 
 think a canoe is much nicer than a gondola." 
 
 " It's not," said Dick, who remembered over-well. 
 " You can't move in a canoe." 
 
 "Why should you want to move?" said Jennifer inno- 
 cently. 
 
 Dick bit his lip. He could be subtle in some ways, but 
 he did not begin to know how subtle a woman can be 
 when she has an end to gain. 
 
 " You know better than to ask that, don't you? " he said. 
 
 Jennifer laughed a very little. He was going to be just 
 what she had expected him to be. He was going to kill 
 that unlawful love with his own hand, just as Ducane had 
 killed the lawful love. 
 
 " Perhaps I am glad that you know better than to tell 
 it," she said. 
 
 Dick drove the canoe further out. From the shore the 
 delirium of the bagpipes and the smell of smoke came
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 173 
 
 faintly. The hot night beat on his skin, making it hotter. 
 
 " How many women are you? " he said suddenly and 
 thickly. 
 
 "Are you just beginning to find out that I am more 
 than one? " 
 
 He was at a disadvantage already. 
 
 " I am beginning to find out that you are not the woman 
 I thought you." 
 
 " Are you sure now that I am the woman you think 
 me? " 
 
 Dick flung the paddle down. 
 
 " Let me come nearer and I'll tell you " 
 
 "Wait!" She leaned forward and her voice was 
 changed. " I want to ask you something. Would you do 
 for me a thing that you did not want to do? " 
 
 The sweet true ring was back in her voice again. Dick 
 paddled in silence. Then he said huskily: 
 
 " You can remember two nights ago and ask me that ? " 
 
 The thrust made Jennifer wince. She had not expected 
 it not in that tone. Then she rallied. 
 
 "But how was I to know that you had remembered?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " I I had thought that was the only thing " Dick 
 
 stopped, and swift, bitter derision of himself swept over 
 him. Had he been insanely careful of a thing which was 
 not there? Had he been scourging himself for his cruelty 
 to her while she had been laughing at his silence? 
 - it ? " she asked. 
 
 " I suppose you realise that your question gives the 
 answer to that," he said. " Sit still, for I am coming up 
 to your end to talk to you." 
 
 She saw him move, and she sprang up instantly. Dick 
 crouched, motionless, with his mouth dry. " Sit down," 
 he said. " For God's sake, sit down ! I couldn't swim 
 in with you from here." 
 
 A moment longer she stood, feeling in a sudden wildness 
 that death was best death was easier than life. Then 
 she dropped back, controlled by her knowledge of God's 
 " shalt nots." But her head was giddy. She had set her- 
 self to test Dick's real nature, and already she believed 
 that she hated it. It was as necessary for her to prove
 
 174 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the worthlessness of the man she loved as it was for her 
 to hide the worthlessness of the man whom she did not 
 love. It was as necessary for her to save Ducane as it 
 was for Dick to destroy him, and for precisely the same 
 reason. And she was going to win. But the knowledge 
 of it burnt her like hot irons. 
 
 " Shall I tell you what it was I wanted you to do ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I'll do anything you tell me, you witch, so long as you 
 don't try to drown yourself again. What is it, Jennifer? " 
 
 She leaned forward. There was only the worn-down 
 butt of an old moon up in the sky, but its light was full 
 on her face; that daring, mocking face which was not 
 Jennifer's. 
 
 " You've promised," she said. " Now tell me. You 
 came because Harry and Robison were coming." 
 
 His face changed. His natural suspicion awoke. 
 
 " What reason could there be for my coming after 
 them? " he countered. 
 
 She shook her head, and the come-and-go smile on the 
 crooked mouth excited him. 
 
 " Oh, you men," she said. " You can promise so gal- 
 lantly; but when it comes to doing why, where are you 
 then ? " 
 
 " If you would tell me why you want to know " 
 
 "Are you bargaining with me Dick? " 
 
 " No. No. I'll tell you. I have come to watch them. 
 You must make up to me for this, you know, for I have 
 practically put all I have in your hands by saying so." 
 
 " Then why did you say it? " 
 
 " You appeared to want it as a proof of my affection. 
 Have you forgotten that already ? " 
 
 His voice kept the thin edge of a sneer for all its ardour. 
 She shut her nails close into her palm. Just now she 
 hated him as she would never hate her husband. For she 
 had never loved Ducane. 
 
 " But you can't watch then unless you know where they 
 are going," she said. " I am not bargaining with you, 
 Dick. I'll tell you. They are taking the tug up to Lob- 
 stick Island very early in the morning before anyone is 
 awake."
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 175 
 
 She felt the canoe swerve at Dick's start, and she saw 
 his eyes stare. 
 
 " Good God ! " he said. Then, " Do you realise what 
 you are saying? " 
 
 Jennifer had not told the first deliberate lie of her life 
 without realising it. 
 
 " How much do you expect me to bear ? " she cried in 
 sudden passion. "If you want him take him. Take him, 
 and let me be free free of him and of you and of every- 
 one. Oh, I'm tired of it all. I'm tired." 
 
 There was enough truth in this to put the real ring in 
 her voice. Dick looked at her with his eyes hard and 
 sombre. Then he turned his head with a slight shrug of 
 his shoulders and looked out over the dark water. He 
 was utterly stunned; utterly disgusted. This was Jen- 
 nifer ! This was the woman for whose sake he had so 
 deeply regretted his past life! The bitter humour of his 
 nature woke again. It was only the old game which life 
 always played him. . Always there was a worm within 
 the apple; and always he had to bite to find it out; and 
 always the mouthful sickened him. But never as now. 
 Never as now; because he loved her and he had rever- 
 enced her. He looked at her again. She was leaning 
 forward with her eyes lit and eager and her lips half- 
 drawn back from the little sharp teeth. 
 
 " Thank you," he said. " I see that I have given my- 
 self a great deal of extra trouble. I might as well have 
 come to you for the whole affair long ago. My knowledge 
 of women has been at fault again." 
 
 " But I wouldn't have told you until I knew that you 
 cared for me," said Jennifer softly. 
 
 Her words turned him suddenly cold in the hot night. 
 He picked up the paddle and drove the canoe homeward 
 in a complete silence until the prow grounded in the 
 squishy sand, and he sprang out into the little protesting 
 ripples and reached his hand to her. He held it, looking 
 down at her with the mocking contempt in face and 
 voice. 
 
 " You deserve a kiss for that information," he said. 
 " But you're not going to get it. You have probably sold 
 your husband to me to-night, Mrs. Ducane, and if I buy
 
 176 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 that ends the transaction. I am not asking any commis- 
 sion. Good-night." 
 
 He turned on his heel and left her, walking straight up 
 the beach to the barracks. Jennifer stood still, watching 
 him; half-giddy yet with relief and thankfulness. 
 
 The lights were pulsing brightly on the shore, and the 
 bagpipe skirl and the laughter came up fitfully. They 
 had been less than an hour away, but to Jennifer it had 
 been many ages. She had won out for Ducane, because 
 Dick would most certainly start for Lobstick Island at 
 once. And she had lost for herself; lost for always, be- 
 cause she could never feel contempt for the man who had 
 flung his contempt at her so unequivocally. She went back, 
 and through the verandah-door to her own room, dropping 
 wearily on the bed. For the fire that had charged her 
 actions was spent, and the grey ash of it lay chill on her 
 heart. 
 
 Dick went into the barracks and found Forsyth, the ser- 
 geant, preparing for bed. And he stood in tlae door and 
 delivered his desires without circumlocution. 
 
 " I'll want you," he said. " And I want a boat that will 
 sail. I'm starting up the lake for Lobstick in ten min- 
 utes." 
 
 The jar in walk and tone enlightened Forsyth. He 
 knew of Dick as a man absolutely invaluable in his own 
 class of work and utterly dangerous to thwart. 
 
 " Sure," he said placidly, and proceeded to get into his 
 boots again. 
 
 He limped as he moved, quite perceptibly, for the ten- 
 dons of his left leg were stiffened by an ice-cut won on 
 a midwinter Yukon patrol. He had spliced and sewn up 
 the wound and gone his way of two hundred miles and 
 over. But he would never walk like other men again. 
 Dick took belt and revolver from the bed-foot and buckled 
 them on. He had left them there earlier in the evening. 
 
 " What's doing on the beach ? " he said. 
 
 Forsyth was Dick's superior in the Force, but he had 
 the wit to recognise the younger man's superiority in every- 
 thing else. 
 
 " Why they're mostly goin' home. Amazin' peaceable 
 they are, too. Ducane was gittin' nasty, but Robisou
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 177 
 
 hauled him off some place. I guess he's watchin' out for 
 Ducane these days." 
 
 " They're going to Lobstick," said Dick. " We're want- 
 ing to be there first. You must come yourself." 
 
 Forsyth swore liberally. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I guess they'd be apt to hit the trail some 
 twelve hours before we could raise it. D'you know how 
 far it aims to be up to Lobstick?" 
 
 " I imagine it is as many miles for them as for us. And 
 there's a breeze making right now. Are you ready ? " 
 
 " Why it is going to take us two days likely three." 
 
 " I intend that it shall be less than that. Who has a 
 dinghy? WTio? Very well. Meet me on the beach, for 
 it's important that you come too." 
 
 Forsyth was there within twenty minutes. He had a 
 smart young constable with him, and he poured directions 
 out at every step. Dick, superintending the stowing of 
 water and provisions, turned to add his word also. 
 
 " Watch what time those two get off," he said. " And if 
 tin y ask for me say I am drunk, or sleeping in. Take note 
 of anything unusual you may see. And Hinds, the 
 ' Northern Light ' won't go out till mid-day. Let no one 
 know where we have gone. Say Forsyth is on patrol and 
 I am drunk or sick anything." 
 
 The night was blowing up dark and suggestive of thun- 
 der. Scattered white-caps showed here and there down 
 the distance. It was a cross-wind, blowing in nasty, choppy 
 puffs, and the powerful breed who helped Dick run the 
 sail up predicted trouble very shortly. 
 
 "If it comes it comes," said Dick, and crouched down 
 in the stern-sheets. " Don't be afraid to let her have all 
 she can take, Honore." 
 
 Honore knew all that there was to know about a dinghy, 
 and about a wind that bellied the sail and slapped it flat 
 and endeavoured to unstep the mast all at once and the 
 same moment. And they ran out into the swift-coming 
 storm, with the combing of the wind about their ears and 
 the growling of the thunder sending sullen echoes down 
 the lake. 
 
 Dick had no conversation to give Forsyth as the boat 
 tacked ajid swung and drove on her beam until the upper
 
 178 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 strakes foamed with white lips. He was planning what he 
 would do with clear-minded decision. He would watch 
 those two at the work which they were doing, and if that 
 gave him no hold he would arrest them both on the face- 
 value of that photograph which he carried. In all prob- 
 ability he could frighten the whole affair out of Ducane. 
 And if he could not; if he failed, and broke and spoiled 
 it all, what did that matter? There were more things 
 spoiled in this world than a man's work. But Ducane 
 would turn King's evidence and sell every soul of them all 
 to ransom his coward's skin. Concerning Jennifer's part 
 in this his beliefs were unshipped and astray, and a heavier 
 wrath held him than the dark wild wrath of the sea. For 
 it was the impotent anger of a strong soul struck in the 
 dark and blindly struggling to hit back again. Since he 
 had cleared himself of the old truths he had forsworn his 
 God with light lips and trampled the great threat of the 
 afterward under a reckless heel. Jennifer had stripped 
 that sheltering harness off him and left him naked to the 
 doctrine of Retribution; not in words, but in the knowl- 
 edge that he had lost the power to do the good thing so 
 far as he could see it. Under her pure eyes he had tried 
 sometimes to crawl up to the good. And now she had 
 taken that which she gave and made a hideous thing of it, 
 thrusting his unbelief out into belief savage and more 
 bitter still. He had banished the gods of his youth; but 
 out of the storm they mocked at him, gibbering in the 
 lightning and chuckling in the wind. 
 
 From the black cloud-breasts the lightning jetted in 
 great, ragged handfuls, and once Forsyth saw Dick's face 
 clear in the yellow gleam of it. He sucked in his breath 
 as he looked, and for a moment he forgot the lesser death 
 which reached long arms at him over the gunwale and 
 whistled shrill derision in his ears. For the man who 
 knelt gripping the sheets and staring into the night with 
 the water streaming off him was surely testing a greater 
 death. That face would be merciless to the utter need of 
 woman or man. And it would be worse than merciless; it 
 would laugh. 
 
 Out of the south-west the storm smote fully. It struck 
 the little boat sheer on the quarter, heeling- her over until
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 179 
 
 the cant jerked a curse of terror out of Forsyth. The wa- 
 ter was running ankle-deep along the bilge, and Honore 
 sprang to slack the sail-ropes. But Dick was before him. 
 
 "Let her have it," he shouted, and the words came thin 
 and weak upon the gale. " She can stand up to it. Let 
 her have it. By - , we've got to drive her." 
 
 " You'll drive her under in less'n no time/' yelled For- 
 sytli. hailing on his knees. 
 
 Dick gave no answer. He was battling with Honore to 
 secure the foresheets. From his expression Honore was 
 evidently objecting. But the words were blown out of his 
 mouth, leaving him with distended cheeks and eyes where 
 the round white showed. The men were flung this way 
 and that as the stout little boat fought for its life, and the 
 high waves slapped over them and through the wet shrill- 
 ness of the wind came the boom-boom of thunder-guns. 
 For three hours they hung on the edge of eternity, stiffened 
 and bruised and beaten. But the knots of the black lake 
 flew by beneath the counter, and when the saffron dawn 
 caught the sky Honore cleared his eyes. 
 
 " By damn," he said. " I t'ink we come tres queek, moi. 
 I vas s'pose we be to Lobstick in four, seex heures." 
 
 " Trappin' lynx isn't a circumstance to boatin' wi' you, 
 Heriot," said Forsyth, straightening his cramped limbs 
 cautiously as the great waves took the red of the sun on 
 their crests and sank under it. " There's no waitin' for 
 reinforcements when you go into action." 
 
 Dick said nothing. He was looking forward with keen 
 
 to the moment when he should get his hands on Du- 
 
 cane. And then he would go back and take his reward 
 
 from Jennifer. For he had been a besotted fool last night. 
 
 Through the day they ran on with a strong clear wind 
 behind them. To the left little islands gathered, separated, 
 and slid by, rough with scrub-pine and soft with young 
 blooming willows. The sky toned to hottest hazy blue 
 that stooped to meet a hazy sea. And nowhere down the 
 distance could the keen, searching eyes pick up the smoke- 
 trail that would be the Hudson Bay tug coming up from 
 Chipewyan. The sun was yet high, though seven hours 
 had gone by since noon, when the dinghy slid between Lob- 
 stick Island and the jutting mainland and Dick went
 
 180 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 ashore, seeking information. He found reindeer moss and 
 willows and pines bent with the wind. He found a dead 
 beaver, and white ash where a camp had been. Then he 
 came back. 
 
 " Best cache the boat and stay ashore/' he said. " Some- 
 one's bound to turn up before long." 
 
 Forsyth looked round with dubious eyes. The very air 
 of the place smelt of something given over to the grey gull 
 and the musk-rat. 
 
 " What would you suppose they want to come here for ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " How should I know? Fond du Lac Indians in it, 
 likely." 
 
 Forsyth made doubtful noises in his throat and flung 
 
 himself down in the soft warm moss. " I guess " he 
 
 began, and slept with the words in his mouth yet. 
 
 Honore was already sleeping, unrestrained and peace- 
 ful. But Dick had never been more fully awake in all his 
 life. He was strung up to tension that would give him no 
 rest until this business was put through, and he smoked 
 two pipes scarce knowing it, clenched grimly in his 
 thoughts. With the third he began to grow restless. For 
 in all that wide far sweep of blue there lay no smudge of 
 smoke; in all the green silence behind there came no sound 
 of life; no straggling camp of Indians to set their tepees 
 up and to make their fires, even as Honore had done, 
 against the mosquito army. He walked and watched, but 
 he did not doubt, and it was Forsyth who flung the first 
 bomb over the supper at a later hour. 
 
 "Where did you get your information?" he demanded 
 suddenly of Dick. 
 
 " From a reliable source," said Dick curtly. 
 
 " You can bank on that ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Forsyth wrinkled his eyes up, drawing under lee of the 
 smoke. 
 
 " They say you've never been caught," he remarked. 
 " Otherwise I'd go bail as this were a put-up job. 'Taint 
 the first time I've experienced such things. Robison's 
 about up to all the tricks there are." 
 
 " The information did not come through Robison."
 
 181 
 
 Dick's tone invited no more speculation; but when the 
 long, sunlit evening drew to ten o'clock Forsyth came seek- 
 ing the younger man where he stood with feet lipped by the 
 lake-waters. 
 
 " What are you goin to do? " he demanded. " Don't 
 you reckon the fellow who told you is liable to be makin' 
 a mistake? " 
 
 Dick wet his dry lips. 
 " I don't think so." 
 
 " I do. I reckon they've been goosing you, Heriot. 
 They've likely gone across to Manawi or Claire, an' when 
 we git back we'll find the whole thing put through an' 
 swallered an' Ducane lickin' his lips like a cat that's just 
 polished off the canary." 
 
 Dick looked at him with the tired eyes which had lost 
 the power even to smile at himself. 
 
 " I don't think so," he repeated, and walked away. 
 
 But at daybreak he awoke the two who slept, and sug- 
 gested a return. 
 
 " You reckon you have been tricked then ? " demanded 
 Forsyth, sitting up. 
 
 " Yes," said Dick very quietly. " I reckon I have been 
 tricked." 
 
 Forsyth followed down to the boat. He was a mild man 
 himself, and Dick's face made him uneasy. 
 
 " My word," he said. " I wouldn't like to be the joker 
 who served him that sauce." 
 
 It was on the evening of the fourth day that a little 
 dinghy beached on the red Chipewyan sands where the 
 big-shouldered dogs and the children seeking scraps of 
 dried fish in the heeled-over boats gave welcome. 
 
 Forsyth limped more than usual as they climbed the 
 slope to the barracks, but Dick burst in on Hinds before 
 the constable could rise up from his supper and stare. 
 Dick's clothes had been wetted and dried on him twice; 
 his skin was rain and wind-beaten and lined, and the 
 beard-growth was black on his face. But his manner 
 showed neither agitation nor weakness. 
 
 " Win re is Ducane?" he asked, and over his shoulder 
 Forsyth gave a mild echo. 
 
 " Why, that's the devil of it, don't you know," said
 
 182 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Hinds. " We've got Robison, but Ducane has disap- 
 peared." 
 
 The sudden exclamation was in Forsyth's voice. Dick 
 walked to a chair in silence; dropped down, and pulled 
 out a notebook. 
 
 " Tell me what you know/' he said. 
 
 Forsyth looked at the cooling supper, sat down and 
 filled a plate. Hinds said: 
 
 " Why, you know, I couldn't have touched Ducane in 
 any case. But you told me to watch out, so I did the best 
 I could. They must have got off in that storm sometime; 
 but we didn't know they hadn't gone up the Lake until the 
 tug came back from Rocky Island two days ago with only 
 Robison and Mrs. Ducane aboard." 
 
 "Mrs. Ducane?" said Forsyth, glancing up. 
 
 " Exactly. A hand on the tug told me there'd been some 
 sort of pow-wow with Indians in Quatre Fourches Chan- 
 nel, and it seems probable that Ducane slipped off there. 
 Likely he has got them to take him up it to join the Peace, 
 and he means to get out that way. Or he could get down 
 the Slave to the Arctic." 
 
 " What about Robison ? " interrupted Dick. 
 
 " I've made sure of him" said Hinds in broad content. 
 " Arrested him on the Ogilvie business, and he didn't kick 
 worth a cent. But I can't get a word about Ducane out 
 of him or out of Mrs. Ducane either." He paused a mo- 
 ment. " Ripping good luck I nailed Robison, wasn't it? " 
 he said. 
 
 " Sure ! It could only have been better if you hadn't." 
 
 " Why " Hinds went red. " What the deuce do 
 
 you mean ? " he said. 
 
 " We won't get information from Robison any more." 
 Dick stood up. " He can't save himself from the gallows 
 by betraying Ducane, and so he'll hold his tongue to spite 
 us all. Can I go to your room and clean up, Forsyth ? " 
 
 " You sure can. Where is Mrs. Ducane, Hinds ? " 
 
 " At Lowndes', of course. I guess Robison was mean- 
 ing to get back south on his own, but I don't know what 
 she expected to happen to her. A very peculiar business 
 altogether."
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 183 
 
 "Why " began Forsyth, and then, over the broken 
 
 meats Hinds told him several things which presently sent 
 him hastily in to Dick. 
 
 " There's quite a good deal of talk about this goin' 
 around," he said. 
 
 " Ah! " Dick was shaving with stretched jaws, and he 
 did not appear interested. Forsyth sat heavily down on 
 the cot. 
 
 " Who's to say those two didn't put an end to Ducane 
 out there? Robison would likely make his pile out of the 
 transactions they've been through together, and Mrs. D. 
 must have hated the brute. And there's more than one 
 >hc had a fancy for somone you know. I guess you 
 understand how news travels on the Rivers, Heriot." 
 
 "Ah! What an innocent and friendly old world this is. 
 I am going to see Mrs. Ducane now, Forsyth; and I think 
 I can promise that she will tell me all I want to know. 
 Yes; I think I can promise that." 
 
 " Did she send you up to Lobstick, Heriot? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I believe that's a damned lie, you know. She did. 
 You'd best be careful, or you'll be in the soup yourself 
 ntly. Can't you guess what fellows are saying about 
 this business? " 
 
 Dick looked at him with half-shut eyes and a slow smile. 
 
 " No," he said. " I can't guess. How could you expect 
 me to ? " 
 
 All the world swam in a warm yellow haze of evening 
 when Dick came on to the wide verandah where Lowndes 
 sat smoking with his wife beside him. The children ran to 
 him, and he lifted one wild-haired little imp and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " Well, Jack," he said. Then he looked over her head 
 and smiled at Mrs. Lowndes. 
 
 " I am afraid I must be uncivil enough to say that I 
 didn't come to call," he said. " I came to see Mrs. Du- 
 . Would you tell me where I can find her?" 
 
 Mrs. Lowndes stood up nervously. Her heart was bob- 
 'ii her throat, 
 rtainly. She is in the side room; fourth down the
 
 184 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 passage. She she has had a trying time, Mr. Heriot. 
 I I hope you will remember that." 
 
 " Most assuredly, Mrs. Lowndes. And I will only keep 
 her a short while. No; please don't trouble to come with 
 me. I can find my way quite easily." 
 
 He walked down the dusky passage, and presently Mrs. 
 Lowndes heard a door shut crisply. She looked at her hus- 
 band with a little shiver. 
 
 " I'm afraid of that man, Gregory," she said. " He 
 looks so so cruel." 
 
 " Well, what can you expect? You know what people 
 are saying and so does he, if she doesn't. If he's inno- 
 cent he's got to get all she can tell out of her and sharp, 
 too. Emmett doesn't care about having a disappearance off 
 his tug, and he's lodged complaints with Forsyth already 
 in order to clear himself. It's a case of suspected murder, 
 anyway." 
 
 " But why can't they be content with asking the 
 men " 
 
 " They have asked the men. Hinds has done nothing 
 else these two days. And he has had Jackson patrolling 
 Quatre Fourches Channel for information, too. It's im- 
 possible that Mrs. Ducane can't know- 
 
 " If you dare to believe she had a hand in it- 
 
 " I reckon I can believe anything," said Lowndes philo- 
 sophically. " Or nothing. It's not our business, Amy. I 
 fancy Heriot will sort all he wants out of this mess, any- 
 way. He has all his senses, that fellow." 
 
 In the side room Jennifer sat by the window looking out 
 on the silver lake streaked with dark shadows. She had 
 the last Lowndes baby in her arms, and her grasp tight- 
 ened round it instinctively when she looked up and saw 
 Dick at the door. He came to her in silence, walking 
 lightly, and his face showed something of the strain which 
 he had been through. 
 
 " Please allow me," he said quietly, and stooped, draw- 
 ing the sleeping child from her with the manner of one 
 clearing decks before action. He laid it in the seat of a big 
 chair and came back to her, with a very faint smile on his 
 lips. But it was not the smile which she had seen there 
 last.
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 185 
 
 " I have come to pay my debts," he said pleasantly, and 
 pulled a chair up, sitting opposite to her, and leaning for- 
 ward. " You have won quite a good deal from me, Mrs. 
 Ducane. I suppose you understand that? " 
 
 She did not lift her eyes from the wrist-muscles of the 
 shut hand across his knee. But she felt her own hands 
 and feet getting cold. There was nothing familiar in this 
 man, and there was nothing in her which knew how to 
 answer him. 
 
 " Of course we both know how you managed it," said 
 Dick. " You knew where I was weak, and you took ad- 
 vantage. I don't reproach you, for I know that women 
 . like to work that way. But you will not find me weak any 
 more, Mrs. Ducane." 
 
 Jennifer did not speak. She was trying to remember 
 the Dick she had known: the courteous, kindly friend who 
 had helped her over so many hard places. There was 
 nothing left but the courtesy, and that was congealed al- 
 most into threat. 
 
 " You know what I came here for ? " said Dick softly. 
 " I came for you to tell me what you have done with your 
 husband." 
 
 " I can't," she said sharply, and a shudder ran through 
 her. 
 
 " I assure you that he cannot escape if he is living. 
 You have not the least idea of our power and organisation. 
 He cannot get out of Canada from here, and he cannot 
 stay in it long without our knowledge. You can do no 
 good by holding your tongue. But you can do much 
 harm." 
 
 " To whom? " 
 
 " To yourself." He would not add his own name. " You 
 know that people are saying that he has been made away 
 with? The captain of the tug has already lodged an accu- 
 sation against you. It is unsupported. I believe it to be 
 unsupportable. But you can only prove that by telling the 
 truth now." 
 
 There was no mercy in his voice. She knew that he was 
 in a white heat of anger at the check to his plans and the 
 blow to his pride. And she knew how the knowledge that 
 she had taken advantage of his love to make him betray
 
 186 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 his duty would cut very deep. She had scarcely resented 
 what that duty was leading him to do. Her own recogni- 
 tion of the word explained the matter for her, and she did 
 not think of the ways in which he had come by his knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 " I cannot tell you," she said. " I promised." 
 " You will break that promise. I came here to see that 
 you do. Cannot you understand that it is necessary for 
 your safety that you should ? " 
 
 Jennifer leaned back and her lips closed. Dick looked 
 at her with his eyes darkening. There might be trouble 
 for himself later, but there was trouble for Jennifer now. 
 She was so little and white, and his love for her was as 
 great as his anger against her. It would be greater in a 
 little while, when he had time to be thankful for the inter- 
 pretation of the Jennifer of the canoe. But through the 
 long hours in the dinghy his terror had been lest Robison 
 had escaped; lest Andree had sent him word in some way. 
 Fear of that disgrace had half-maddened him, and he 
 could not easily forgive the cause. 
 
 Then he leaned forward, keeping his eyes on her; and 
 he questioned her over and over in various ways; steadily, 
 mercilessly. His voice seemed a great hammer beating 
 on her brain; on her heart. A cry broke from her at 
 last 
 
 " Don't. Oh, don't. I can't bear it," she cried. 
 
 " Where is he ? " said Dick, and put his hand on her 
 arm when she would have risen. 
 
 " I can't 1 can't tell you " 
 
 " Where is he?" 
 
 "O stop " 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 Then the tears came, and she flung herself sideways, 
 hiding her face in the arm of the chair. Dick sprang up, 
 stooping over her. 
 
 " For God's sake quit torturing us both," he said thickly. 
 " Don't you understand that I've got to make you? " 
 
 " You can't make me," she sobbed. " You can't. You 
 can't." 
 
 He was coming to believe it. Such a resolute will in 
 this small creature had been beyond his understanding.
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 187 
 
 But he was coming to believe it. Then he used his last 
 weapon. 
 
 " Laroupe's scows are tracking up to Grey Wolf to- 
 night. I am taking Robison on them. If you won't speak 
 I must take you, too, for Emmett has definitely charged 
 you with Ducane's disappearance. It will be probably a 
 month's journey or even more. You and I will be the 
 only white people, and our names have been coupled to- 
 gether too much already. But I have no choice. That is 
 for you. Will you be good enough to tell me what you 
 decide to do? " 
 
 She lifted her head and looked at him. The unconscious 
 reproach in the wistful eyes and lips nearly shook his 
 control. 
 
 " I have no choice, either," she said. " You know that 
 well." 
 
 " As you will." He shrugged his shoulders. " Then I 
 must ask you to be ready in an hour. The men prefer to 
 track at night during the full moon." 
 
 He went out and spoke a few civil words to Mrs. 
 Lowndes. But she saw that his face was set and strange. 
 Then he took Lowndes down to the gate with him. 
 
 " Mrs. Ducane won't speak," he said, " and she will 
 have to come back on the scows with me. Will you and 
 Mrs. Lowndes allow Jack to come along too? It is a long 
 journey for a lady to take alone." 
 
 Lowndes asked some questions, receiving concise an- 
 swers. Then he said: 
 
 " I'll speak to my wife, but she won't make any difficulty 
 if we can possibly get the kiddie's kit together in the time. 
 Don't thank me. I am glad to do it for you both." 
 
 To Jennifer little seemed real through the following 
 hours. In the house was talk and hurry and the excited 
 voices of children. On the tug which took them to meet 
 the scows at the mouth of the Athabaska River there was 
 the smell of cool air on the night-breeze; there were many 
 dark slouching men moving in and out of the lamp-light, 
 and there was Mrs. Lowndes close beside her with Jack 
 on her knee. On the beach at last was red sand where a 
 mosquito-smudge flared ; a broad, black breast of forest 
 beyond it, and, all along the lip of the water, the great
 
 188 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 forty-foot scows, dark and heavy, with willow rickers and 
 tarpaulins rigged over the sterns of a few. All was move- 
 ment and chuckling laughter and sudden calls and shouts 
 as the trackers got themselves into the harness with light- 
 hearted horse-play; and the wiry, springy strength of the 
 North was in their muscles, even as its keen power was in 
 their eyes. Lowndes spoke at Jennifer's side. 
 
 " This leading scow is yours, Mrs. Ducane. Heriot 
 thought you'd like the rickers there as it's such a hot even- 
 ing. Yes say good-bye to her, mother. It's time they 
 were off. Let me help you up the plank, Mrs. Ducane. 
 That's right. Drop over. Jack, you young sinner. Wait 
 till I come for you." 
 
 With Mrs. Lowndes' warm kiss on her lips Jennifer 
 dropped inside the tall sturgeon-head which was to be her 
 home for so long, and felt her feet on a grey yielding floor 
 of fur-bales. The scow smelt and whispered of strange 
 things ; of loneliness, and of the cries of little animals that 
 had died, and of the men who did these cruel things and 
 did not care. Then Jack slid down beside her with a crow 
 of delight, and immediately scrambled up again to shout 
 her good-byes. Lowndes' bearded face showed over the 
 edge. 
 
 " Comfortable down there? " he asked cheerily. " That's 
 right. Eusta will make up your beds in five minutes. 
 Who's steering this scow? You, Ooti? Good. Take care 
 of my kiddie. Tell her keyam upe if she climbs around 
 too much." 
 
 The big breed showed white teeth as he stepped on the 
 hinder decking and leaned to the sweep, tall and finely 
 poised as a statue. And then the long scow surged for- 
 ward with a groan and a spewing-up of sand and water; 
 the talk and laughter died; the group of figures on the 
 strip of beach slid behind, and Jack began to sniff omi- 
 nously. Jennifer stooped to give comfort. And when she 
 looked again the fires from a big Indian camp cast a red 
 glow along the beach, and, black and strong across the face 
 of it, swung the trackers; leaning deeply in the traces; 
 swaying bodies and loose arms ; the nine keeping step as 
 one and passing out of the light to give place to the nine 
 of the scow behind. As she looked a man raised the chant.
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 189 
 
 It surged by her; surged back, and burst out in a volley 
 from each mellow throat that knew the voyageur call of 
 the other days. 
 
 "Huh! Huh! Huh! We come. We come. Huh! 
 Huh ! Huh ! We come ! " 
 
 The naturally dauntless spirit in Jennifer waked. She 
 sat up. And Jack, squirming about her with restless arms 
 and legs, cuddled into her suddenly. 
 
 " Oh," she cried. " I guess we're going into the fairy- 
 tale place where the dreams belong." 
 
 " You darling," said Jennifer, and laughed with a de- 
 licious feeling of excitement. " Perhaps it will be a fairy- 
 tale place, Jack." 
 
 Then she too passed on into the dark, and from behind 
 she heard Dick call her name. 
 
 " I am in the next scow," he said, and his voice came 
 clear across the gap. "If you want anything call me. 
 Have you all you need? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you," called Jennifer, with a new resil- 
 iency in her voice. And as she said it she realised that, 
 for the first time in many months, she had all she needed. 
 Freedom from the almost unsupportable life with Ducane; 
 peace, and the soothing of nature in the hush of the night; 
 the unjarring glide of the scow, the dear familiar stars 
 and the scent of the wind's warm breath. Above her came 
 the low creak of the decking where Ooti swung his weight 
 from one noiseless foot to the other, and at her side Jack 
 snuggled, close and soft. The voice across the water had 
 held the old protecting kindliness of other days, and she 
 tried to cling to that, forgetting what had come between. 
 
 Day by day the tread of a host passed up the long river 
 reaches ; the tread of the brown men to whom the brown 
 earth was the natural heritage. Again they took the trails 
 which their voyageur forefathers opened in hours of fierce 
 adventure and grim horror; trails which shall be closed 
 for ever on that labour when the white men drive their 
 railroads down, far and farther, until the engine-roar 
 drowns out the beat of the moccasins, and big cities rise 
 where the tepees fall and the men of the outer ways go, 
 keen-eyed, keen-eared and silent, before the in-wash of the 
 city men.
 
 190 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 But when Jennifer went up the Athabaska it was still 
 the place where the dreams belong, and through all the 
 after years the stray tang of green wood smoke was to 
 bring her a sharp thrill of longing for the North-West 
 rivers again; for the hot, dry smell of the forest, and the 
 short barks from a clearing where a red fox led her young 
 to play in the moonlight; for the flowering vetches round 
 her feet with the golden-rod, and the bird-calls from hid- 
 den singers as they passed, and the great cranes that flew 
 against the sunset with long legs rudder-like behind. To 
 Jack the days were sunshine and gladness only; from 
 breakfast in the cook-scow, sitting with granite plate on 
 restless knees among the boxes of tinned foods, to the 
 fresh-cut bed of blue- joint grass or spruce branches in 
 the white tent pitched on some lonely shore where the 
 sandpiper ran and the cliff-swallow called. But for Jen- 
 nifer, because no older palate can take life without the 
 seasoning, pain was mixed with all the pleasure. 
 
 And yet Dick's endless tact and thoughtfulness made 
 the world very truly a place of happy dreams. Outwardly 
 he seemed just the friend of old, with his flashes of cyn- 
 icism and hardness for others, but never anything but gen- 
 tle deference for her. And yet the change was acute, and 
 she knew it. For all his quiet courtesy and his nonsense 
 with Jack she knew well that he was only waiting, tight- 
 ening the bond between them with skilful, unerring per- 
 sistence. He was only waiting, and by and by she would 
 need all her powers for the battle that would come. But 
 he made those days so beautiful for her; days of intimate 
 friendly talk, of arguments on all things that were and 
 were not; of song and laughter and silent times over the 
 camp-fires when Jack had gone to bed. 
 
 And she knew that he was reading her; better than she 
 could ever read him, and that he was a little amused, per- 
 haps, at her scruples in small things, and at the prayers 
 which she persuaded Jack to say each night, and which 
 Jack once, to Jennifer's embarrassment, decided to say at 
 Dick's knee before she went to bed. 
 
 " Land of Liberty ! " said Jack, with a shake of her 
 black elf-locks, "Why not? I'd be much gooder if I said 
 them by the fire than if I hurried over them in the
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 191 
 
 tent, for I could take my time here. Couldn't I, Mr. 
 Heriot? " 
 
 " Certainly," agreed Dick. " Say all you want to, Jack. 
 Which knee is to be the altar? " 
 
 It was the first time Jennifer had heard that tone to 
 Jack, and she bit her lips as Jack chose the knee with care 
 and bowed her shock head. Jack marshalled all her fam- 
 ily with determination, even to the guinea-pigs left behind. 
 Dick heard her ask a blessing for Jennifer, and then he 
 started at his own name. 
 
 " And please take care of Mr. Heriot and make him a 
 good man amen good-night Mr. Heriot." 
 
 The quick, sticky kiss on his lips full-stopped the words. 
 Jack whirled; bestowed a second on Jennifer, and tore 
 headlong up the beach, singing as she ran. Dick gazed 
 after her reflectively. 
 
 " Was that her wording or yours ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, hers, of course. You heard her ask to be made a 
 good girl herself." 
 
 " I did," he turned to her with amusement. " And I 
 heard her place you in the category with her parents and 
 the guinea-pigs as those who are presumably above im- 
 provement." 
 
 " I have told her that it is want of respect," said Jen- 
 nifer in distress. " But you know Jack." 
 
 " And she evidently knows me." He laughed at her 
 troubled face, but the laugh hardly rang true. " Please 
 don't apologise. I am flattered at her interest." 
 
 But he sat silent for a while after that, and then she 
 heard him singing softly a little French song of Swin- 
 burne's which Jack had objected to as " silly " earlier in 
 the evening. 
 
 " Toi, mon ame 
 
 Et ma foi, 
 Sois ma dame 
 
 Et ma loi; 
 Sois ma mie, 
 Sois Marie, 
 Sois ma vie, 
 
 Toute a moi ! "
 
 192 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Jennifer went away, leaving him singing, and Dick 
 smiled more than once before he got up, seeking the tent 
 which he shared with Robison. The natural instincts of 
 the breeds took them up to the forest on the cliff-top, where 
 each rolled in his blanket and slept where he lay. But 
 Dick never let Robison out of his sight for long, although 
 the man had shown no interest in anything since the first 
 conversation which he had had with Dick in the cell at 
 old Chipewyan. 
 
 " Who told on me ? " he asked then ; and Dick, watching 
 with interest, made answer: 
 
 " Grange's Andree." 
 
 He saw the big breed's chest sink and his shoulders bow 
 down as though he had been struck in the wind, and he 
 knew that this primitive man was torn in the agony of 
 love and hate even as he had been himself. This inter- 
 ested him, but it displeased him. Human nature had not 
 climbed so much higher in the essentials after all. At 
 last Robison glanced up, and in his face was that curious 
 high look which Tempest had once seen there. 
 
 "If I plead guilty that ends it up?" he said. "An- 
 dree's out of it? " 
 
 " It's ended anyway. I fancy you're just about all in, 
 my friend," said Dick. " Of course it will simplify mat- 
 ters if you don't want to fight." 
 
 " I don't want to fight," said Robison slowly. " I done 
 up Ogilvie." 
 
 Watching him a faint gleam of suspicion came to Dick. 
 Any man with such good red blood in him as Robison fights 
 by nature for his life. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " He he " The unready stammer quickened Dick's 
 
 suspicions. " He showed me a picture you made of me." 
 
 " Ah ! Don't you think you punished the wrong man, 
 then? I might have made some more." 
 
 " If Ducane ain't found his missus is responsible, ain't 
 she?" 
 
 This let in a flood of light under which Dick staggered. 
 Through that sketch he had quite certainly found out 
 what Robison was like. 
 
 " How about yourself? " he said, and his voice was un-
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 193 
 
 moved. " Were you going back to open that cache you 
 made ? " 
 
 Hinds had found Ducane's camera and several bundles 
 of notes hidden in a bank by the Quatre Fourches Channel, 
 and Dick was taking them up to Grey Wolf with him. 
 There may have been other work done; but this was a piece 
 of sure proof which, nevertheless, was valueless until he 
 and Tempest had gone through Ducane's papers. 
 
 " I was fixed all right if that smart young constable 
 hadn't been a bit too smart. I don't mind him. But 
 you," Robison straightened up suddenly. " You're one o' 
 these damned lot what's always interferin' wi* a man. 
 Tempest was after my gal, an' you bin after me. I hate 
 the whole bunch o' you. But you're the pick of 'em." 
 He spat on the floor of the cell. " That's what I think 
 o' you" he said. 
 
 " You are welcome. Probably I should think precisely 
 the same in your position, although I might not have the 
 grace to tell it. But since you do think that of me you 
 must not object if I put you out of action so far as I 
 consider fit when we go up the Athabaska." 
 
 Robison made no objection. The salt of life seemed to 
 have gone out of him, and he let Dick do as he would. 
 There was no information to be got from him, and Dick, 
 understanding this, began to shape the plan by which he 
 must help Jennifer when the time came. But because this 
 plan was going to require of him something which he did 
 not want to give, his selfishness made him require from 
 Jennifer also something which she did not want to give. 
 
 Jennifer knew that Dick would require it of her some 
 day. She guessed what his eyes could show when the 
 cynical indifference or bold command went out of them, 
 and she guessed what that dominant temper which submit- 
 ted so instantly now to her wishes would want to do. But 
 she was not afraid. Through these weeks she had gone 
 over and over this awful and beautiful thing in her heart: 
 moulding it with prayers; softening it with tears, and 
 building up, word by word, all that she would say to Dick 
 when he spoke to her at last. Ducane could have no more 
 love of hers. She knew where all that had gone, and from 
 the first agonised moment of understanding she had known
 
 194 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 what she must do with it. Never once did she think that 
 this great love could be less wonderful, less sacred, less 
 beautiful to Dick than to herself. It was to be a glorious 
 renunciation, an ennobling for them both, and on the last 
 night before the scows drew in to Grey Wolf she sat alone 
 over the camp-fire in the hush that bore only the wash 
 of the water and the cry of a far-off white owl, and thought 
 of it with a tremulous smile on her mouth. 
 
 Dick's tread sounded up the pebbles of the beach. He 
 had been bathing, and she saw the glow on his skin as 
 he came round the fire and sat on the log beside her. She 
 put her hand out in sudden fear. 
 
 " Not to-night," she said. " Oh, not to-night." 
 
 " I think it has got to be to-night, Jennifer," he said. 
 " I must speak, and you must listen." 
 
 She shut her hands together, trying to marshal all 
 those arguments again. 
 
 " I want to know if you have any real objection to 
 divorce?" he said. 
 
 " N-not in the abstract." 
 
 " Never mind the abstract." She heard the amusement 
 in his voice. " I am not making conversation just now. 
 I want to know your personal objections to it, For that 
 is going to come, you know." 
 
 " No ! No ! Oh, never. There is no reason " 
 
 " He has deserted you. And it would be easy to prove 
 that he has ill-treated you. Very many of the States 
 would give a divorce for less. Morally, I do not see any 
 necessity for these things. Marriage is, and always has 
 been, purely a social matter. But on the social side I 
 acknowledge the necessity. I want to make arrangements 
 for putting it in hand at once. We cannot go on so much 
 longer, Jennifer. Don't you know that this month has 
 tried me nearly as far as I can stand ? " 
 
 There was a depth and a tenderness in his voice which 
 she did not know. She shrank away from it, and from his 
 eyes. 
 
 " You have been so good to me. But I must hurt you. 
 I must tell you there is something in life which is better 
 than having what we want. It is giving what we have." 
 
 Her words came in little gasping sentences. Diet
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 195 
 
 looked at the fire. It seemed as though he had expected 
 something of the sort, for the amusement was in his eyes 
 again. 
 
 " I I wouldn't divorce Harry if I could. He needs 
 my help. He may come back for it. And then I must 
 give it. One can't help love. But one can help marriage, 
 and I had no right to marry if I didn't intend to to mean 
 it for better or for worse. I must keep my oath. I can't 
 break it while he lives." 
 
 In the little detached sentences her voice shook and 
 hurried and failed. Still Dick did not speak. She had 
 prayed that he would give her the chance to say what she 
 wanted, and he was giving it, quite fully. But in some 
 strange way this did not help her. His silent personality 
 had its effect beyond her will. She was realising vividly 
 how little she knew of him: how much battle and thought 
 and decision and temptation had gone to his making apart 
 from anything which she could guess at in him. Then she 
 began again; dragging out those carefully-planned sen- 
 tences which were to convince and comfort him. She 
 spoke of the glory of self-renunciation, the help of prayer, 
 the sacredness of a love which is strong enough to slough 
 off the earth-ties. Still Dick watched the fire, saying 
 nothing. But his eyes were dark and brooding. He was 
 remembering that flame in Tempest's eyes when he spoke 
 of his Norse legends ; he was noting the shake in the earn- 
 est, girlish voice using the simple sweet words which re- 
 flected her heart. And he was looking for the first time 
 on an innocence which barred the door against wrong 
 more effectually than all knowledge can do. 
 
 At last she stopped. She had said some of the things 
 which she had meant to say; said them badly, perhaps, 
 but he would understand. He must have understood, for 
 he sat so still with his lips shut, staring into the fire. 
 Why did he sit so still? Had she hurt him too deeply? 
 Had she shown too high a path for him to tread at once? 
 Or had she perhaps said more than was necessary? More 
 than was womanly? Her face flamed suddenly, and her 
 pulses drummed in her ears, and her eyes went blind. 
 Then he spoke. His voice was very gentle; almost pity- 
 ing.
 
 196 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " You don't know very much about men, Jennifer," he 
 said. 
 
 Jennifer felt sharply flung back on herself. She had 
 expected anything but this. 
 
 " I I perhaps not," she stammered. 
 
 He turned on the log and took her hands. 
 
 " We are not like that, Jennifer," he said. " When we 
 want a thing we go on trying until we get it. At least, 
 most of us do. I do." 
 
 His voice was very quiet, very convincing. It made 
 Jennifer feel more helpless than she had done in all her 
 life. He lifted her hands to his lips; kissed them, and let 
 them go. 
 
 " I will do you all the reverence you deserve," he said. 
 " But I will not let you go out of my life. Did you really 
 ever think I would ? " 
 
 " Oh/' she said, feeling the tingling in her hands. " That 
 is all wrong. We have to sacrifice something " 
 
 " I have no objection. I am willing to sacrifice any- 
 thing so long as it is not you or myself." 
 
 There was more than a suspicion of raillery about him 
 now. He was humourously humouring her, just as he did 
 Jack. She sprang up, struggling for her self-restraint. 
 For her heart was fighting with Dick against her. 
 
 " Oh," she cried. " We must end this now for alto- 
 gether. I can't. I never can. I " 
 
 He was on his feet beside her, and his smile hurt her. 
 
 " Do you think you can end it ? " he asked. " You ? 
 I have got to give you pain yet, Jennifer, and I have got 
 to give myself much more. But that will not end it. And 
 when this wretched business is over and you see what I 
 have done you, that will not end it. I know you better, 
 and I know myself." 
 
 She felt his eyes on her, but she could not lift her own. 
 
 " Poor little girl," he said. " Don't fret any more. 
 We'll talk of this again when I come to your own house." 
 
 He took her cold hand gently. 
 
 " Good-night," he said. " The matter is in my hands 
 more than yours. Don't grieve yourself about it." 
 
 Then he left her, and she watched him go down the white 
 path of moonlight to his own tent. And she felt utterly
 
 
 "ON THE ATHABASKA" 197 
 
 impotent; utterly weak and inadequate. Quietly and 
 courteously he had put aside all her carefully-prepared ar- 
 guments as one puts away childish toys things which the 
 man-mind had outgrown. He was one of those who hear 
 what they themselves say, not what the other person says. 
 But she had not known it until now, and now it was too 
 late. She shivered in the creeping shadows of that tree- 
 top army. Was his masculine mind as much stronger than 
 hers as his masculine muscles were stronger? Even the 
 difference between her light, noiseless step and his swing- 
 ing tread up the beach, crushing the pebbles and spurning 
 them out under his feet, frightened her. She began to 
 realise for the first time where she stood. She might 
 say " I will not," but she had let another factor into the 
 matter now. And she knew too little of it, of its hidden 
 forces and currents and dynamic powers to be able to 
 guard against it. Besides, her heart was on the side of 
 that factor, although her soul was not. 
 
 A little while longer she stood, listening to the wash of 
 the river. Then slowly, and with wet eyes, she went up 
 to her tent.
 
 " HERE'S Tempest to see you, honey." 
 
 Jennifer unlocked the door of Ducane's study and came 
 out reluctantly, holding it shut behind her. Her face was 
 white and her eyes startled ; and Dick, standing out in the 
 night behind Tempest, knew why in a swift flash of in- 
 tuition, and cursed the five hours which had passed since 
 Slicker brought her home. But here he was the under- 
 officer only, locked silently back into the law which bound 
 him, and he saluted her and stood still while Tempest took 
 her hand. 
 
 " I have come on a disagreeable errand," said Tempest. 
 " But I would have had to come earlier if court cases 
 hadn't detained us. I am sorry to say that it is necessary 
 for us to take charge of and look through your husband's 
 private papers, Mrs. Ducane." 
 
 "Haven't I the right to forbid this?" asked Jennifer, 
 and gripped the door-handle tighter. 
 
 " I'm afraid not. Under the circumstances I must re- 
 quest you " 
 
 "Isn't command the better word?" retorted Jennifer. 
 
 From behind Tempest Dick watched the light in her 
 eyes and her face with approval. He had always known 
 that she had plenty of courage. 
 
 " Perhaps so," said Tempest. " But I would like you to 
 remember that I too am the commanded, and not the com- 
 mander. I am sorry to say that it is quite necessary that I 
 should have access to those papers, Mrs. Ducane." 
 
 His manner was courteous as usual; but it was changed. 
 He seemed to speak from the lips only, with his mind 
 drawn back to struggle with some dearly-loved problem 
 which he could not solve. Already Jennifer had faced 
 him for a few official minutes in the Grey Wolf court-room, 
 
 198
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 199 
 
 when she had been formally charged to appear at the 
 Edmonton Sessions as soon as Forsyth had brought the 
 other witnesses down from Chipewyan and formally freed 
 on bail provided by Leigh and Tempest himself. He had 
 been gentle with her then, as he was gentle now. But the 
 old buoyant sympathy and understanding were gone. 
 
 " I I suppose there would be no use in my applying 
 force to prevent you," she said, struggling to maintain 
 an injured dignity. 
 
 A gleam of fun lit Tempest's eyes. She looked so very 
 small and frail. 
 
 " I am afraid not. You see I have Corporal Heriot 
 here too." 
 
 Jennifer reddened. Then she' stood aside from the door 
 with lips set and eyes defiant, and the two men passed her 
 and went in. Where Ducane's reading-lamp burnt on his 
 desk a litter of papers was scattered. Drawers and boxes 
 were open on the floor ; ashes smouldered in the fireplace 
 among broken plates from Ducane's camera. Dick said 
 nothing. He had expected it from the first sight of her, 
 but his face was hard with anger. Even now his work 
 came before everything; before Jennifer herself. He 
 crossed to the fire quickly, kicking the ashes apart, and 
 rescuing some half-burnt sheets. But Tempest turned 
 back to Jennifer, and pity and admiration were in his 
 voice. 
 
 " You brave little woman/' he said. " You brave little 
 woman." 
 
 Jennifer's defiance fled before a rush of tears. 
 
 "What's the use of it?" she sobbed. "What's the use 
 now ! Oh, what will Harry say ! What will Harry say ! " 
 
 " I know what he ought to say." He looked at Slicker. 
 " Won't you take her away and and do what you can, 
 Slicker? " he said. "We can't help this, you know. And 
 will you remember, Mrs. Ducane, that the keenest joys 
 and the worst sorrows are those which never come. You 
 may have no need to dread anything at all." 
 
 " Come along, honey." Slicker hugged her up against 
 his arm. " Sakes alive, if I'd known what you were after 
 I'd have had you out of there pretty quick. Left you to 
 do his dirty work for him, did he? On my soul, I "
 
 200 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 But Jennifer would allow no comment here. She fought 
 off her tears and dropped down on the rug before the fire 
 in her own sitting-room. 
 
 " Put on some more wood, Slicker/' she said. " Pine, 
 please; I like the smell. Now, tell me what you have all 
 been doing to Mr. Tempest since I've been away. He 
 looks as if part of him didn't belong to him, somehow." 
 
 Slicker followed her lead thankfully. He, too, knew 
 Jennifer's courage. 
 
 " It doesn't," he said. " It belongs to Grange's An- 
 dree." 
 
 Grange's Andree presented herself vaguely to Jennifer's 
 memory as a tall girl with short black curls who had car- 
 ried the little dishes of beans and corn on the last occasion 
 when she had supped at Grange's hotel. 
 
 " I don't understand," she said. " That girl is is 
 only " 
 
 " Exactly, honey. Tempest has discovered that she's 
 only about all there is to things. She has done up less 
 high-flown sensitive chaps than Tempest, so you can just 
 guess if she's making hay of him. His work is only the 
 husk to him now. It used to be the core " 
 
 " How did you know all this ? " 
 
 " How ? " Slicker shrugged his shoulders. His ideas 
 concerning love and human nature were increasing in se- 
 verity. " Because he's a fool. Men like Tempest usually 
 love as they work over-time. Everybody knows it." 
 
 Jennifer winced. She knew enough of Tempest to 
 know that something sacred was being despoiled here. 
 She forgot what was going forward in the next room and 
 turned her rage on Slicker. 
 
 " Why don't you try to stop it ? " she cried. " How 
 dare you let a thing like that go on, and you in the middle 
 of it? You stupid boy " 
 
 " Because I'm a boy I can't stop it. You should do 
 that. He might listen to you. You're a woman." 
 
 Jennifer had never felt the fact and its disadvantages 
 and joys more acutely than of late. 
 
 "And a boy or man naturally expects the woman to 
 do the unpleasant thing," she retorted. 
 
 " It wouldn't be unpleasant for you."
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 201 
 
 "Are you complimenting me on my tact or on the lack 
 of it? " 
 
 " Oh, don't be a beast, Jennifer. I've said all I could 
 think of " 
 
 " I guessed you would ! If only you'd sometimes try to 
 say the things you couldn't think of it would be much 
 safer. And of course he- " 
 
 " Well, he did." Slicker wriggled. " Maybe you could 
 get Heriot to do something. I won't ask him. He's such 
 a jeering, sneering brute " 
 
 " And you'd sooner I was sneered at than you ? " 
 
 " Oh, come off the roof ! What a little cat you are to- 
 night." Slicker slid down beside her on the rug. " See 
 here, honey. This is a serious matter. He's crazy for 
 her. Crazy for her. He's letting go of everything. We 
 men are like that sometimes," said Slicker in the wisdom 
 of his twenty-one years. " We will drop through the bot- 
 tom of all things to get what we want, and we never think 
 how we're going to get out. Tempest is just beginning to 
 realise that he's dropped in. But I don't know if he's 
 reckoned up the shame he'll put on himself and his uniform 
 before he climbs out if he ever does." 
 
 " Mr. Tempest will never shame anything or anybody 
 but those who are wicked enough to accuse him of doing 
 it." 
 
 " Sakes," said Slicker admiringly. " What a refresh- 
 ment you are, honey. Why, you see, there are plenty of 
 fellows ready to sneer at religion and law and all the other 
 things that Tempest used to stand for. Dick Heriot's 
 one. So can't you realise what a peg he's giving them to 
 hang their sneers on? Tempest was well, he was about 
 the genuine article. Now he's a fool. He forgets most 
 things, and doesn't bother about the rest. He isn't Tem- 
 pest any more. It's the fault of the life up here, of course. 
 A man sees so few possible women " 
 
 "You brat! How dare you attempt to judge men like 
 him and and anyone else? You ought to go east again 
 now your lung's healed. I shall write to Uncle Gerald 
 and tell him you spend all your time carrying scandal " 
 
 " By Heavens, Jennifer ! You're enough to make a 
 toad spit "
 
 202 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 " Slicker ! " Then Jennifer fell into sudden laughter. 
 " Oh, what a dear boy you are. It has done me all the 
 good in the world to get angry with you just now." 
 
 " That's all very well.' Slicker was not appeased. 
 " But somebody's got to do something about it." 
 
 No one was realising this more keenly than Dick in 
 Ducane's study. If Tempest had not been in arrears with 
 the court-case work, occasioning much delay and later com- 
 plications Dick would have been over here earlier. He 
 had never suspected this, of course; but his natural in- 
 stincts led him to desire to guard against all possibilities. 
 Now Jennifer had got her work in first, and the results 
 showed very effectively. For all his anger and disgust and 
 keen disappointment Dick laughed more than once at the 
 holocaust. Her accurate brain had grasped the salient 
 points so thoroughly. There was absolutely nothing left 
 which gave a clue to the real address or composition of the 
 Canadian Home-lot Extension Company, although there 
 were papers pertaining to it which were sufficient to show 
 Ducane's connection with it, and also a number of notes 
 in cypher which might contain clues if the key could be 
 found. 
 
 On other matters there were papers which verified the 
 scanty revelations discovered already in Robison's shack. 
 The men had certainly been getting in permits under 
 false names; they had been buying land from the breeds 
 at absolutely cut-prices, and they had an infinitely more 
 intimate knowledge of the values and owners of land in 
 the district than any ordinary inhabitant could hope to 
 have. But Jennifer had taken the poker to Ducane's 
 camera-plates, and Tempest looked up over the wreck 
 in some amusement. 
 
 " She has left a good deal to the imagination only," 
 he remarked. " Of course one can tell that these two have 
 been playing a crook game for years, and that Ducane 
 was evidently scared off the field on the verge of a com- 
 mission which Robison stuck to and tried to put through. 
 What scared him, I wonder ? " 
 
 Dick told of the photograph seen on Jennifer's lap on 
 the steamer. 
 
 " He couldn't know that I'd recognise it, of course,"
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 203 
 
 he said. " But I suppose he wouldn't take chances. He 
 never had much fancy for that." 
 
 " Well," Tempest looked round the room. " She's a 
 brave little woman and I should fancy this would help her. 
 She wouldn't bother to destroy evidence against him if 
 she had already destroyed him unless she was implicated 
 also." 
 
 " That is a legal suggestion only, of course ? " 
 
 " Of course. No one would suspect her privately. 
 Well, we'd best go back. You can come over to-morrow 
 and do the rest. I'll tell her that we are locking the room. 
 But we might take the cyphers, and what else ? " 
 
 He rubbed his hand over his forehead wearily. The end 
 of a long day usually found him weary now. Dick 
 straightened from his stooping position and looked at him. 
 But he was not thinking of the question. He was think- 
 ing of the man. There had always been such buoyant 
 courage in Tempest. He was one of those finely-tempered 
 rapiers which will bend hilt to point and swing back to 
 balance again with such a resonant note of strength and 
 verve. But the resilience seemed gone from the steel 
 now. Some unseen furnace had taken the nature out of 
 it for the time and whether it would ever come back Dick 
 did not know any more than he could understand what 
 had taken it. But he knew that he must find out, and 
 to-night too. He felt a sharp stab of pain in that he 
 had forgotten Tempest and all that he meant to do for him, 
 and he felt a warmer glow of love than ever before as 
 Tempest turned away, forgetting his question, and began 
 to pack the papers together. 
 
 Those feelings held with him through the drive back 
 to Grey Wolf; and when Tempest locked the papers in 
 the safe and turned to put the lamp out Dick checked him. 
 
 "Can you give me a minute?" he asked. "I want to 
 speak to you." 
 
 " Will to-morrow do ? I am very tired to-night, Dick." 
 
 Dick bit his lip. The cynicism in his nature was wide- 
 awake, and he doubted if he could speak to Tempest with- 
 out conveying his contempt for a man who could let go 
 of all the essentials for the sake of love. And yet pity 
 was strong in him too, and pride. He was so proud of
 
 204 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest, and it stung him to the quick that Tempest 
 should be willing to lower his standard of life as he un- 
 questionably was doing. Some unlocated words flashed to 
 his mind suddenly. 
 
 " When the will has forgotten the lifelong aim, 
 And the mind can only disgrace its fame, 
 And a man is uncertain of his own name . . ." 
 
 The mercilessness of the thought jarred all the love alive 
 in Dick. Such things might be for men spent with toil 
 and years; but for Tempest in full strength and vigour 
 the thing was brutal, unreal, hideous. And yet it seemed 
 very surely true. Tempest turned to the door. 
 
 " Put out the light when you go," he said. And then 
 Dick went after him, and laid a hand on his arm. 
 
 " You must tell me what's wrong, old man," he said. 
 " Don't you owe me this? " 
 
 " There is nothing wrong." Tempest straightened with 
 his face hardening. 
 
 " Are you going to marry her, Neil ? " 
 
 He had not used that name in many years ; and his voice 
 went tender with the sound of it. But Tempest drew 
 back; startled, and sternly indignant. 
 
 " How did you know what no one has been told ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " No one ? My dear fellow, you can't surely be as blind 
 as that? Don't you know that there are bets about it 
 from the Landing up to Chipewyan, and probably much 
 further? Everyone knows it. We live in the glare of 
 the footlights along these rivers, as I have found out, I 
 assure you." 
 
 Tempest leaned against the door, and his face was 
 drawn and horror-struck. All the finer dreamy reserve 
 of his nature was shocked; outraged; thrown down off its 
 balance for the time. 
 
 " They are not talking about her," he said. " Not 
 about her ? " 
 
 It seemed to Dick as though that passionate, vibrating 
 voice would ward off criticism from Andree by the mere 
 force of it. But he had to answer.
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 305 
 
 "About you both. Do you mean to marry her, Tem- 
 pest? " 
 
 " Marry her ! God knows I'd have married her long 
 ago if she would have had me ! But she's so shy so deli- 
 cate and hesitating and shy. I can scarcely get her to 
 talk to me at all. I feel such a rough, clumsy brute beside 
 her." 
 
 He broke off, walking across the room hastily. He 
 twitched at the blind as though he had gone to straighten 
 it, and Dick watched him with that dark contemplation 
 shutting down over his face. This was worse than he had 
 expected it. Much worse. Tempest was the kind of man 
 who saw the shining of high stars and the blooming of 
 white flowers wherever he looked. Grange's Andree 
 Dick knew as much as most people did of Grange's Andree. 
 He had seen her playing cards in the back-parlour; jealous 
 and grasping and ready to cheat with the worst of them. 
 He had seen her drinking with Robison and others in the 
 bar; setting her lips to the glass where theirs had been. 
 He had seen men pass her by with a careless jest and a 
 kiss ; he had done it many times himself, for the firm, olive 
 cheek was soft and satin-smooth. He had seen then 
 he looked again at the still figure in the window. 
 
 " I have no right to interfere," he said. " But you can 
 hardly be giving full consideration to the facts of the 
 case. Heavens above. Don't you know what we all think 
 of her ? " 
 
 Tempest turned and his eyes showed fire. 
 
 " I know how men like you can misjudge her. You 
 can't see that she is innocent ignorant ; just a wild thing 
 of the woods. She doesn't know that she needs protection. 
 But I know, and I can't rest I can't rest I want to give 
 it to her " 
 
 He stopped again, turning back to the window. 
 
 " I could hate you all for the way you behave to a child 
 like that," he said. 
 
 Dick shrugged his shoulders. He saw too far to be able 
 to see as high as Tempest saw. 
 
 "If she objected to us why doesn't she avail herself 
 of your offered protection?" he asked dryly. " Can't you 
 answer that? Grange's Andree wasn't made for the do-
 
 206 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 mestic proprieties, and you would do well to realise it 
 and pull out of this business at once." 
 
 " You were perfectly correct when you said just now 
 that you had no right to interfere. We will leave it at that, 
 please. Good-night." 
 
 Dick went to bed. But before he slept he came to a de- 
 termination. 
 
 " When I get back from Edmonton I'll put an end to 
 this," he said. 
 
 It had seldom been Dick's habit to halt on the road once 
 he had made his mind up to travel it. But an episode 
 two nights later hastened matters for him irremediably. 
 He came out of the big bar-room at Grange's, shutting the 
 inner door on the smell of smoke and drink and the talk 
 of a handful of settlers " going in " to the Grande Prairie 
 district; stumbled down the back passage and thrust open 
 the door of the room which had been Ducane's private 
 sanctum, and way out into the little alley behind the Eng- 
 lish church. He had been on canoe-patrol all day and his 
 moccasins shod him with silence, so that the two on the far 
 side of the room where the pale light from the window fell 
 did not hear him or heed. But to the man in the dark 
 of the door that poor, grey light gave a picture so cruelly 
 clear that it took his breath. 
 
 In Ducane's big padded chair sat Grange's Andree; and 
 Tempest was on his knees at her side, gripping both hands 
 and speaking low and thickly. Tempest's head and shoul- 
 ders were blocked out in a vague smudge ; but the light was 
 sharp across the girl's face, showing the wild, half-terrified 
 irritation of a young horse resisting the bit and yet lacking 
 the courage to break free. Tempest did not see. His 
 head was bowed and he was praying to Andree as a man 
 might pray for his life. Dick closed the door softly and 
 got himself out into the dark narrow alley where the 
 wooden church wall rose against the golden afterglow. 
 Crickets were chirping and crows were calling harshly. 
 From the hotel stables came the champ of feeding horses 
 and the occasional bang as they kicked the wall in en- 
 deavour to dislodge the flies. Someone came unseen down 
 the noisy sidewalk, whistling shrilly. Dick heard all the 
 sounds. But they seemed far off. Nothing was near but
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 207 
 
 the ugly rock on which a good man was splitting his life. 
 
 " Tempest/' he said in his throat. " Good God ! Tem- 
 pest!" 
 
 He tolJ himself that he had known it before. But he 
 knew with an artist's instinct that he had not known until he 
 saw Andree's face. There was no heart behind that face ; no 
 understanding. Tempest meant no more to her than Robi- 
 son or O'Hara had done. Perhaps not so much. And she 
 meant to Tempest Dick thrust himself through a gap in 
 the rail-fence, and felt the dried grass of the churchyard 
 beneath his feet. The door was open, and the light went 
 in, glorious and golden, to dazzle on the small brass cross 
 above the altar. Dick remembered a tall black cross stand- 
 ing bare on a hill on the trail to Lower Landing. Russian 
 emigrants had worshipped there before they built a church 
 to house their prayers in, but to Dick the man whom these 
 two crosses represented meant nothing, although the man 
 who was likely soon to be broken on the cross of his own 
 passion meant very much indeed. 
 
 The day was nearly done. The wind was full of rich 
 scents from the yellow-daisy blooms and clover and silver 
 reeds in the river; from grass on the low warm hills and 
 damp moss in the muskeg, and from thick, loamy earth in 
 the forest. Clear notes of birds fluted across the river, 
 and the sunset lights were flushing in warm opal on the 
 sky. As Dick reached the barrack-gate, slowly, and with 
 his head low, he was stopped by Parrett, the Dissenting 
 minister. 
 
 Parrett had been in Grey Wolf nearly a year, and he had 
 learnt much, though not so much as he would have done if 
 Grey Wolf had had more time to give to his education. 
 
 " I hear that Robison doesn't go down to Fort Saskatche- 
 wan till to-morrow," he said. " S'pose I can come right 
 in and see him, Corporal? " 
 
 Dick never considered his title an insult on any lips but 
 Parrett's. 
 
 "Don't you think you are a trifle premature?" he sug- 
 gested. " The man is not condemned yet." 
 
 " Why why it's not necessary to wait for that." 
 
 " But I think I would, really. Robison might feel it 
 rather a personal matter. And, in any case, is it worth
 
 208 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 training your guns on him? They will turn him off in 
 Fort Saskatchewan where they keep the whole plant, par- 
 son and all." 
 
 Parrett's outraged earnestness found voluble expression, 
 even under those idle, amused eyes. He was breathless 
 before he ended heatedly: 
 
 " And you will receive your punishment for this this 
 blasphemy, as I told you before." 
 
 " Six times," agreed Dick. " Be easy. I am receiving 
 a portion now in my inability to fully appreciate the most 
 pointed sermon I have heard for many years. Robison 
 may prove a better listener. But don't give him anything 
 harder than a tract. His manners are often unexpected. 
 And he is a good shot." 
 
 He leaned over the gate after Parrett had gone, listen- 
 ing to the high, joyous voices of two little girls skipping 
 on the river-bank, and thinking of Jennifer. He was 
 dreading this trial for her as he had never dreaded any- 
 thing for himself, but he did not go to see her as the days 
 dragged by. Carefully, with his clear mind taking due 
 note of all side-issues, he was building up his own evidence 
 on the lines of assistance to Jennifer at any cost. Robi- 
 son was his chief fear. Nothing could touch the man now, 
 and if he chose to assert that he, with Jennifer's con- 
 nivance, had murdered Ducane, he could leave these two 
 whom he hated a heritage which would go near to crushing 
 them. If it happened that Robison went into the witness- 
 box before himself he would know better what to do. But 
 he had to prepare for the adverse contingency, and he did 
 not dare leave anything to chance. He knew now that 
 nothing would make Jennifer speak, and that fact caused 
 him a strange pride. She was fit mate for the undeniable 
 courage in himself, and not for the cowardice of Du- 
 cane. 
 
 Of course it was possible that Forsyth might bring Du- 
 cane with him. But Dick did not expect it. Without 
 doubt Robison had bribed or bullied the Quatre Fourches 
 Indians into silence, and Dick had sufficient experience of 
 Indian witnesses to know what happened when they did 
 not want to speak. Dick's daily work was trying just 
 now, for the guarding of prisoners usually fell to his lot.
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 209 
 
 But the two stupid Germans and the lunatic who had gone 
 insane from loneliness did to the last inch the work de- 
 tailed for them to do. They whip-sawed timber for a 
 shack to be built on the adjoining lot. They cleaned 
 stables and re-shingled an outhouse and dug post-holes 
 and stretched a wire-fence along them. There were days 
 when the lunatic desired only to walk through the head 
 of Dick's shadow as it moved over the dusty grass, and 
 Dick had to let him do it; there were days when the bully- 
 ing wind of the rain, or, worst of all, smoke from the forest- 
 fires which blanketed the hills above Grey Wolf made work 
 a torment. But time drew by at last. Forsyth came down 
 with his witnesses ; Jennifer went to Edmonton with Slicker 
 and Mrs. Leigh, and, by Tempest's arrangement, Andree 
 had gone with them. Dick did not speak to Tempest of 
 Andree now, though he had been more than uneasy over a 
 certain matter which occurred on the night when Andree 
 realised that Robison was taken to Fort Saskatchewan for 
 a trial which would mean death. Dick had gone through 
 the back-passage at Grange's that night and had suddenly 
 confronted Moosta. To all appearances Moosta had just 
 come through a storm which had fallen on her apart from 
 her will. She clutched Dick with fat, strong hands, and 
 all her respect for him could not straighten her English. 
 
 " Dieu ! She mak' hit ! " she gasped. " Hit Rosario. 
 An' moi. An' she cry. An' cry. An' mak' noise diable 
 noise." 
 
 " Who ? " demanded Dick, halting. 
 
 " S'pose it Andree," said Moosta. " She got devil, me 
 t'ink." 
 
 Dick pushed open the door of the back-parlour and 
 walked in. He had never been there before, and its musti- 
 ness and smell of smoke and cooking and its low, roughly- 
 beamed ceiling made all dark for the moment. Then 
 he saw Andree on the floor behind Grange's big chair, 
 with her head wound in a tablecloth and wild turmoil about 
 her. Dick pulled the cloth away, and stooped to her. 
 That always suspicious mind of his was interested. 
 
 " What's all this, Andree ? " he asked. " You have 
 scared Moosta's hair out of its pins." 
 
 Andree's eyes met his; soft, wild, and anguish-stricken
 
 210 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 as the eyes of a wounded doe. Dick had never realised 
 her beauty so keenly before. He stooped lower. 
 
 " Will he be kill ? " she whispered. 
 
 " Undoubtedly. I think he wants to be killed, Andree. 
 Do you know why? " 
 
 The tears darkened her eyes. She put up her long, 
 slender hands, framing Dick's face in them. 
 
 " What matter if he want it so? " she asked. 
 
 " What matter indeed. Not worth crying over, is it, 
 Andree? But why does he want it so?" 
 
 " Bien," she said. " He want to love me too much. It 
 is better quite better for him an' Ogilvie. Cela est fort 
 bien. I do not want them to love me. Tapwa, Dick ; they 
 do deserve it." Her soft fingers tapped gently against his 
 temples. " They do deserve it," she said, and there was 
 no feeling in her voice. 
 
 Dick drew his breath in, looking at her. 
 
 " Whether they deserve it or not I think most men will 
 get it in one way or another if they love you, Grange's 
 Andree," he said. " Why were you crying, then? " 
 
 " I was frightened," she said. And then she sprang 
 up; laughing and brilliant again. 
 
 " I go to put the hair of Moosta in its pins some more," 
 she said. " One pin will do if so it is in the right place.'^ 
 
 Dick had gone away, but he was not satisfied. If Robi- 
 son chose to die undefended that was the man's own busi- 
 ness. But the matter would have been clearer if Robison 
 had made a legitimate fight for his life. 
 
 But if Dick dreaded those Edmonton days for Jennifer, 
 Tempest dreaded still more the knowledge that there they 
 would make Andree swear away a man's life. He tortured 
 himself over the matter, bitterly angry with Dick because 
 of his share in it; illogical, anxious, wearied out by stress 
 of work and of thought. Everything which was said and 
 done seemed to rasp and hurt the delicate edges of his 
 nature, and Dick, coming into the office on the last evening 
 where Tempest was making up his end of the month re- 
 ports, understood that he would have to take this thing in 
 hand very shortly, or it would be too late; if, indeed, it 
 were not too late now. 
 
 Tempest looked up and handed a paper over the desk.
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 211 
 
 " I have duplicated this voucher three times," he said. 
 " Can you make the other three to-night? " 
 
 Dick was on night-watch from seven p.m. until midnight. 
 He nodded, folding the sheet into his pocket-book. 
 
 " If this goes on we'll have to get a hand-press/' he said. 
 " There has been a lunatic of sorts in cells ever since I 
 came, and that means sixfold vouchers each time." 
 
 " Oh, well ; all in the day's work, I suppose." Tempest 
 pushed his hair back. " Is everything ready for an early 
 start in the morning? " 
 
 " I think so. Tempest, you're letting all this get hold 
 of you too much, you know." 
 
 Tempest turned back to his blotting-pad impatiently. 
 
 " At least you keep the balance even," he said. 
 
 But when Dick had gone out he dropped his pen and sat 
 still, with a fear which had lately come to life dawning in 
 his eyes. Dimly he was beginning to know that he was 
 deceiving himself; that he was deliberately building up and 
 holding to a thing which had not, and never could have, 
 any foundation. He fought against this knowledge with 
 all his powers; telling himself that it was the right of 
 man to seek a woman, to give to her love and protection 
 and help, to enable her to fulfil her life gloriously and 
 wisely and fully. This was man's right; one of the primal 
 laws. Therefore, if he chose to give so to Andree where 
 was the sin? A thousand times he told himself that there 
 wa* no sin. The very height and fineness of his nature 
 made it possible for him to deceive himself. He had given 
 his all to the work. Now he was giving his all to the 
 woman. Surely these were the two things which Nature 
 and God required of him? But the fact that he had to 
 assure himself of this so often suggested the flaw in it. 
 He knew well that he was wrecking his powers and crip- 
 pling his work ; he knew that his unhappiness was due to 
 more than Andree's indifference. And in the centre of his 
 heart he knew that the truth was waiting, if he would 
 look at it. He had lived too near that truth all his life 
 not to know it. But he would not look. He was afraid 
 of what it might tell him ; and so he lived with his inner 
 heart shut against himself, and he suffered accordingly. 
 
 Dick could do wrong if he wanted to ; open-eyed, and ixt
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 half-derision at himself. Tempest could only do it by 
 blinding his conscience. Part of him guessed that he was 
 doing this. Part of him clung to that early image of An- 
 dree; of the ideal woman and the ideal life; clung fiercely, 
 with all the steel-spring tenacity of his nature. He could 
 not let her go, and he would not, until she was taken ir- 
 revocably from him. 
 
 But when the moment which he had feared came, four 
 days later, and he saw Andree walk into the witness-box 
 and take the oath, all his strength went out of him, and he 
 hid his eyes under his hand. Dick, sitting in the front seat 
 among the witnesses, watched with that silent intensity 
 which had gained him his Indian name of Carcajou. He 
 saw Robison in the dock raise his head and look once at 
 Andree with that expression which Dick had seen in the 
 cell at Chipewyan. There was renunciation in it; there 
 was adoration; self-abnegation. There was something 
 which lifted him for the instant to a plane where Dick had 
 never trodden yet. Then it was gone, and the thick, heavy 
 face and brutal eyes and forehead showed reddened and 
 swarthy in the airless heat of the filled court-room. Dick's 
 suspicions strengthened. Could it possibly be Andree who 
 was playing Robison into the hands of death? Was there 
 any means by which Robison could save himself if he 
 chose? Was Andree herself the sinner, and did Robison 
 know it? 
 
 Dick would have been glad to believe this or anything 
 else which could part her from Tempest. But he could not 
 believe it. He could not have done such a thing himself. 
 Had Jennifer stood there, lying away his liberty with the 
 half-coquettish innocence Andree used he would have had 
 her life for it though he took his own directly after. And 
 that breed, coarse and dark and soulless as a lump of 
 moosemeat, could assuredly never be so far swayed by the 
 epic passion of love, no matter how far the passions of 
 hate might move him. 
 
 One by one the questions went on, almost as a matter 
 of form. 
 
 " You say that you ran away while the murder was 
 taking place. Were you running into Grey Wolf for 
 help?"
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 213 
 
 A flash of Andree's coquetry had just sought and found 
 the admiring eyes of a young lawyer's clerk. She started; 
 half-laughed, and hesitated. 
 
 " I I suppose/' she said. 
 
 "Why did you not tell Corporal Heriot when you saw 
 him? " 
 
 " I do not like him sufficient," said Andree sedately, 
 with her chin up. A laugh went round, and Andree 
 shrilled to it. Dick saw the glow on her face, and the 
 consciousness in her actions, and he smiled. It was so 
 exactly the vain, irresponsible nature which he had always 
 ascribed to her. Surely it would disgust Tempest? But 
 Tempest sat still with his head in his hand, and he did 
 not move as Andree's simple evidence went through to the 
 end. She did not quite understand why they had quar- 
 relled. It was all si vite si sauvage. Robison did pull 
 out Ogilvie's knife. Oui, she saw that. Oui, she saw him 
 strike, and then she did run. 
 
 Dick's evidence established a little more, although it 
 was scarcely needed; for Robison pleaded guilty without 
 extenuating circumstances, receiving his sentence with 
 stolid indifference. A man behind Dick leaned forward. 
 
 " That fellow has an iron will," he said. " Or is it 
 just brutal stupidity? " 
 
 " It is will, I think," said Dick, and shuddered a little 
 to think what that will might do to Jennifer before long. 
 And then he went out to get through as best he might the 
 hours before he would see Jennifer in that dock. 
 
 Yesterday Tempest had driven Jennifer through the 
 town and along the tall banks of the Saskatchewan River, 
 assuring her that she had nothing to fear, and that this 
 absurd charge must fall to pieces on the least investigation. 
 And Jennifer did not mean to fear. But when she stood 
 with her bare hands on the edge of the dock, and saw the 
 white wigs bobbing below her, and the stand of the jury 
 opposite, and the judge in his scarlet robes, her strong 
 courage failed for a moment. Tempest and Dick and 
 Slicker were all there. But they could not help. It was 
 one of those crucial moments when the soul must stand 
 alone. Then, as the oath was administered to the first wit- 
 ness, she straightened and stood still.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Emmett, captain of the tug, was the first witness; a 
 small, mean-looking man, terribly afraid of being person- 
 ally implicated. He told how he had put Ducane, Robi- 
 son, and Jennifer ashore at Quarte Fourches Channel, and 
 how they had been taken up the stream by Indians. In 
 about four hours Jennifer and Robison had come back, and 
 inquiries for Ducane were met with the assertion that he 
 would return with the Indians. Emmett had thought no 
 more of the matter until Constable Hinds arrested Robi- 
 son on the arrival of the tug at Chipewyan and asked con- 
 cerning Ducane. Robison said that Ducane was coming 
 back later. Emmett could not remember that Jennifer had 
 said anything, either of denial or assent. Next morning 
 Hinds went across to the Channel. But the Indians were 
 gone, and it was only the cache in the bank which gave 
 the first suggestion of foul play. Hinds could not follow 
 the Indians up, for there was no one else at the Post. 
 
 Being asked where the other police were he told how 
 Dick had taken Forsyth to Lobstick Island, and how it 
 was rumoured that he had done so because he knew what 
 Robison and Ducane intended to do. Cross-examined, he 
 spoke of the well-known fact that Ducane was brutal to 
 his wife and that Dick, Robison, and Slicker were almost 
 the only visitors to the house across the Lake. Slicker 
 was called to corroborate this, and in the hands of the 
 direct ruddy-faced counsel for the prosecution he was 
 forced to admit Dick's friendship with Jennifer, his dis- 
 like of Ducane, and Ducane's scarcely-concealed hatred 
 and fear of Dick. He admitted that Jennifer felt her 
 position as Ducane's wife very keenly, and that once, in 
 a flash of temper, she had said that she hoped she would 
 never be tempted to strike him. Under cross-examination 
 he said that Jennifer had gone to Chipewyan against her 
 wish, and at Ducane's expressed command. Her counsel 
 asked : 
 
 " He was in the habit of making her do what she did 
 not want, then?" 
 
 " I don't know. She seldom spoke of her own feelings. 
 She was very good to him, and very patient with him al- 
 ways." 
 
 "Was she friendly with the breed, Robison?"
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 215 
 
 "No. She couldn't bear him. She never spoke to him 
 if she could help it." 
 
 " You do not think she would connive with him against 
 her husband ? " 
 
 " Never. And I know that Ducane is alive. Other- 
 wise his wife would tell what had happened," said Slicker. 
 
 The counsel for the prosecution rose again. 
 
 " If Ducane has escaped is it not almost certain that 
 he has done it with the joint aid of Mrs. Ducane and 
 Robison ? " 
 
 " I don't know/' 
 
 " The three were together. The remaining two must 
 know what occurred. Therefore, Mrs. Ducane and Robi- 
 son have acted in conjunction, whether the issue be escape 
 or murder." 
 
 Slicker went down, desperate and anxious, to see Tem- 
 pest grapple with the problem where he had left it. Tem- 
 pest was asked if it would not be to Robison's interest to 
 shield Jennifer until he himself had the chance to extract 
 from Ducane's study all such evidence as might be damn- 
 ing to his own liberty. 
 
 " Possibly. That matter would not affect him once he 
 was caught." 
 
 " He is known to hate the police. Might he not keep 
 silence to baffle them ? " 
 
 " His hate is focussed on Corporal Heriot. To accuse 
 him of connivance would, in these circumstances, be better 
 than silence." 
 
 " He knows that connivance has already been suggested. 
 Mrs. Ducane and Corporal Heriot were seen in a canoe on 
 the Lake just before Heriot went up to Lobstick Island." 
 
 " Corporal Heriot has been working up a case of fraud 
 against Ducane and the breed Robison for some months. 
 He was not likely to do anything which would thwart his 
 plans there." 
 
 " Personal reasons Have been suggested as a reason for 
 that." 
 
 " I believe them to be totally untrue." 
 
 Cross-examined he told how Jennifer had burnt the 
 evidence which might have enabled Dick to prove his case, 
 and of Dick's anger and disappointment on discovering
 
 216 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 this.He spoke of Jennifer's unswerving loyalty in word 
 and deed to her husband, and suggested that it had proved 
 itself by the fact that she dared something in destroying 
 his papers by his order. 
 
 " You believe that it was done at his order? " 
 
 " Certainly. When I stopped the work half done, she 
 said, ' What is the use of it now? Oh, what will Harry 
 say ? ' ' 
 
 The counsel for the prosecution suggested that Jennifer 
 was personally implicated. 
 
 " It is well known that she did not love her husband 
 and that she had reason to fear him. Even supposing that 
 he forced her into helping him to escape, is it likely that 
 she would make away with evidence which, in the event 
 of his recapture, would save her from his persecutions ? " 
 
 " She never forgot the duty she owed him as her hus- 
 band," said Tempest. 
 
 A few more leading questions were quietly parried, and 
 then Tempest gave place to Hinds, who told of the search 
 in Quatre Fourches ; the finding of the cache and the im- 
 possibility of extracting information from either Jennifer 
 or Robison. He had not been able to follow up the In- 
 dians; but Forsyth had done so later, and three of them 
 were now in court. They were called; but either they 
 were ignorant of the affair or Robison's threats had been 
 effectual. They had left the two white men and the white 
 woman on shore up the Channel, and, after taking a few 
 photographs, the three had gone into the woods. Some 
 hours later Mrs. Ducane had returned with Robison who 
 told them that Ducane was following in another canoe. 
 They never saw anything of that canoe, and on their re- 
 turn to their people they neither heard nor saw anything 
 of a white man. They did not know any more. 
 
 Forsyth was next called. His evidence asserted that 
 Dick had come to Chipewyan ostensibly to arrest Robison 
 for murder, but that he had refused to do so at once on the 
 ground that he wished to implicate Ducane on another mat- 
 ter first. He could not say that Dick had any other motive 
 in leaving the man at liberty. He could not say that Dick 
 had any but the alleged reason for taking himself to Lob- 
 stick Island. He did not see why the Indians should deny
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 217 
 
 the fact if a white man had passed up the Channel, and he 
 thought it very possible that Ducane could have been killed 
 and sunk in the Channel or buried in the swampy land 
 round about without being found. He acknowledged that 
 he had had men dragging the Channel ever since; but it 
 was muddy and full of snags. Under cross-examination 
 he had no reason to say that he suspected Dick of collusion. 
 Dick had promised to get evidence from Mrs. Ducane, and 
 had afterwards refused to give it. Dick had insisted on 
 taking Mrs. Ducane back with him in order that she might 
 supply information regarding the Company for which Du- 
 cane was supposed to be working. He had not heard 
 that she had given any. 
 
 His evidence closed the day's inquiry; and Dick, who 
 had never left the court, except to snatch a hasty lunch 
 while Jennifer was away, caught Tempest's arm at the 
 door. 
 
 " I must keep off," he said. " But go round to see her, 
 Tempest. Tell her that it's going all right. And don't 
 let anyone suggest Robison to her. Slicker, I want you." 
 
 Slicker turned wretched blue eyes on him. 
 
 " If she is condemned it's my doing," he said. 
 
 " Don't you flatter yourself. Twenty of you couldn't 
 condemn her. This is only the beginning of the thing. 
 My dear fellow, you wait until we get through." 
 
 He was kinder than Slicker had ever known him; and he 
 insisted on the boy dining with him, and staying with him 
 until Leigh came round and took him for a walk. And 
 after that Dick went through his own evidence again, ex- 
 amining it in the light of to-day's showing, and readjusting 
 wherever it seemed necessary. He was too busy to be 
 anxious ; too grimly set on his work to think of Jennifer. 
 
 The next morning dragged through with unimportant 
 evidence: the breed who had seen Dick and Jennifer go out 
 in the canoe; Grey Wolf residents who spoke of the state 
 of affairs in Ducane's house; those who knew Dick and 
 could say little good of him; those who knew Jennifer 
 and could say little ill. After the lunch-hour Robison's 
 name was called, and Dick said " Thank God," not be- 
 cause he believed in a God, but because there is no other 
 form of relieved expression. But Robison was not avail-
 
 218 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 able. There had been delay in bringing him from Fort 
 Saskatchewan prison, and Dick was presently put in the 
 witness-box in his stead. He felt a moment's tremor as he 
 took the oath. For he meant to clear Jennifer if it were 
 possible; but he knew that it would be at heavy cost to 
 himself. Tempest, looking at him, remembered his In- 
 dian name of Carcajou and sighed a little. Dick was very 
 quiet, and his eyes were half-closed; but Tempest knew 
 how he could flash out when it came to fight. Some un- 
 important questions opened the way for the leading one: 
 
 " Why did you take Sergeant Forsyth up to Lobstick Is- 
 land immediately after having been out in the canoe with 
 Mrs. Ducane ? " 
 
 " Because she told me I would find her husband and 
 Robison there." 
 
 " It is alleged that you went for another reason." 
 
 " Well, as it happens, I did. I made Sergeant Forsyth 
 sea-sick." 
 
 The counsel reddened as a smothered laugh ran through 
 the court. 
 
 " The captain of the tug has accused Mrs. Ducane of 
 sending you and Forsyth there to clear the way for the 
 murder of Ducane." 
 
 " He would," said Dick composedly. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 " To accuse everyone interested in the surest way to 
 save himself from suspicion. But I haven't heard yet that 
 he accused Ducane." 
 
 " Do you mean that Ducane may have committed sui- 
 cide?" ' 
 
 " Certainly not. I do not think that Ducane is dead." 
 
 " What reason do you give for that opinion ? " 
 
 " Sergeant Forsyth has had parties searching the woods 
 and Captain Emmett has had men dragging the Channel 
 almost ever since Ducane disappeared. I cannot believe 
 that they would not find him, supposing he was there 
 if they wished to." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' if they wished to '? " 
 
 " Captain Emmett might not care to acknowledge pub- 
 licly that through personal fear he had subjected a woman 
 to a thing of this sort."
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 219 
 
 Away in the back seat Grange was rubbing his hands 
 and grinning. 
 
 " My, my," he said. " Don't get much change out o' the 
 Corp'ral, does they? I guess that's hit Emmett where he 
 lives all right." 
 
 " I do not like to look at Dick," said Andree under breath. 
 " He has the eyes it is like one animal caught in a trap." 
 
 " Why I thought he was looking pretty gay, myself." 
 
 " Ah ! Bete ! " said Andree, and turned from him with 
 a shrug^ 
 
 The^piestion Dick had prepared for came next. 
 
 " On what terms were you on with Mrs. Ducane which 
 could make it possible for you to think she would send you 
 to arrest her husband ? " 
 
 " I got a very great deal of information concerning Du- 
 cane's fraudulence from his wife without her knowledge, 
 of course. I obtained it principally at her own house 
 where I visited very often." 
 
 " You mean that you went to a man's house and ate his 
 bread and used his friendship as a cloak to extract damn- 
 ing information about him from his wife?" 
 
 " Certainly. I had to have the information." 
 
 " But you could not have gained the knowledge that sent 
 you to Lobstick in this way? Please explain the matter 
 fully." 
 
 " It has been said that Mrs. Ducane and I acted in collu- 
 sion in the fact of Ducane's disappearance. That is so far 
 from being the case that she deliberately gave me misin- 
 formation in order to prevent his capture. I was under 
 the impression that she was telling the truth. I knew 
 that she had a great deal to bear from Ducane, and I was 
 I imagined that she had taken me into her confidence for 
 the first time. It was not until I got to Lobstick Island 
 that I realised how fully she had tricked me." 
 
 "If she had never given you her confidence before, why 
 should you have expected and believed it on such an impor- 
 tant point then? Was it not more likely that you should 
 be suspicious of her desire to betray her husband?" 
 
 Dick looked across at Jennifer, and he hesitated a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " Through all our friendship Mrs. Ducane lias kept me
 
 THE LAW-B1UXGERS 
 
 at arm's length. She relented somewhat that night, and 
 she allowed me to put my own interpretation on what she 
 said. She did it to save her husband, as I have since had 
 very conclusive reason to understand. For Mrs. Ducane 
 knows where Ducane is, and she knows that it means very 
 much to me to find him. But I can get no information from 
 her at all. She has fooled me, and shown me where I 
 stand in her estimation." 
 
 His voice was stern, almost sad. But it carried the ring 
 of truth. 
 
 " Is it not most likely that she has killed him or ffad him 
 killed? In that case she would, of course, be reticent on 
 the matter." 
 
 " Robison would not kill him. Nor would he shelter 
 Mrs. Ducane if she had done it. Ducane was too useful 
 to Robison. He wanted money and power, and I can 
 prove that Ducane was the channel through which he was 
 getting them. He had not sufficient education to get them 
 otherwise, but he had sufficient wit not to destroy the 
 source. In my opinion Ducane disappeared because his 
 fear of me was greater than Robison's power over him, 
 and he made Mrs. Ducane burn the implicating papers in 
 order that, when he was found or came back, he might 
 purchase immunity by betraying the company for himself." 
 
 " Is it not possible that Mrs. Ducane believed that she 
 was telling you the truth when she sent you to Lobstick? " 
 
 " No. Her actions since have convinced me of that." 
 
 " In what way? " 
 
 Dick was fighting for Jennifer's liberty and he did not 
 hesitate. 
 
 " I have several times tried to persuade her to leave 
 Ducane or to divorce him, and she has always repulsed me. 
 Her mind is centred on him, and she is waiting for him 
 to come back. I believe that he is living, and I have more 
 reason to wish to doubt that than you can have." 
 
 Tempest was watching him with bitten lips. Dick was 
 getting the sympathy for Jennifer, certainly. But at what 
 a cost! It could not be possible that he was laying his 
 inmost heart bare here in the court. He must be lying; 
 but he surely felt the position in which he was putting 
 himself. And then Tempest remembered, painfully. This
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 221 
 
 Dick had no scruples of shame nor honour, and he would 
 have no objections to telling lies, even on oath. 
 
 To Dick himself the psychology of the matter was in- 
 teresting. He was telling the absolute truth, which was 
 unusual, and it was doing more good than any carefully- 
 shaped lies could have done. He had turned Jennifer 
 into the persecuted and blameless wife, and himself and 
 Ducane into the sinners, and the results of this arrange- 
 ment would show very soon. But, because the postulated 
 reason for Jennifer's alleged destruction of Ducane lay in 
 her relations with Dick, he was kept in the witness-box 
 for the remainder of the afternoon; and how much he had 
 won he did not know until Robison should take his place 
 there, and how much harm he had done himself with her 
 he did not know either. But no cross-examining could ex- 
 tract from him more than he wished to say, and he gave 
 place to Robison at last in the knowledge that Jennifer's 
 cause was safe unless Robison chose to damn it. But 
 Robison chose to say nothing. Called to a higher tribunal 
 he was indifferent to the threats of an earthly one. He 
 would not tell the truth, but he would not lie either, and 
 Dick saw him go with something nearer gratitude to an 
 unknown God than he had thought possible. 
 
 The long days in the hot, close court-room made Jenni- 
 fer's little pale face smaller and paler than ever. But her 
 courage had not flagged, and she had not misunderstood 
 Dick's evidence. Much that he had said seemed painful 
 and unnecessary to her; but she did not doubt his wisdom 
 in saying it, even when she herself stood to be questioned 
 on what he had said. There was nothing to deny there, 
 for Dick had known better than to lie with her frank truth 
 to follow him. But his disclosures had turned the tide 
 of sympathy so powerfully in her favour that it could not 
 be stopped now. Of Emmett's trumped-up charge there 
 was practically nothing left. Jennifer had been shown to 
 have thwarted at all points the man with whom she was 
 supposed to be in love, and not the severest examination 
 could make her story differ in the essentials from Dick's. 
 She gave her answers clearly and directly; but she refused 
 to say more of Ducane but that he was, to the best of her 
 knowledge, alive and well.
 
 222 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Where would be the use of my helping him to get away 
 if I told of him now? " she asked naively; and Dick saw 
 more than one of the jury smile. 
 
 Her counsel made much of the point that, Ducane be- 
 ing a free agent at the time of his disappearance, Jennifer 
 had committed no crime in assisting him, nor in destroy- 
 ing his papers at his command. She denied most firmly 
 any knowledge concerning Ducane's connection with the 
 Canada Home-lot Extension Company. Ducane had told 
 her to burn all the papers in his escritoire, and she had 
 been doing it hastily when she was interrupted. Many of 
 them mentioned the Company, and she would have no 
 objection to giving the address if she knew it. But she 
 did not remember it, even if she had read it. She was 
 dismissed at last with a verdict of " Not proven," and a 
 heavy fine for contempt of court; and Dick, who had 
 hoped for something better, had venom on his tongue 
 when Tempest went to his room before dinner that 
 night. 
 
 " I can't think that Mrs. Ducane was lying, though I 
 thought you were/' said Tempest. " Did you try to make 
 her love you ? " 
 
 Dick was dressing after a bath. But he stopped to 
 laugh at Tempest. 
 
 " She isn't the first woman, and she won't be the last," 
 he said. " Need you look so solemn over it ? " 
 
 " I had not thought that you were a scoundrel," said 
 Tempest slowly. 
 
 " Oh, well ; " Dick shrugged his shoulders. " That little 
 pour passer le temps did her good on the whole. And it 
 didn't hurt me." 
 
 " I wonder if anything can hurt you now." 
 
 " Not much, I fancy. Not this, anyway. She gave me a 
 run for my money, though." 
 
 Tempest went out in disgust, and Dick frowned as he 
 hooked his collar. He had never loved Jennifer better 
 than now, and he had never been so afraid of her. All 
 which she had held sacred he had dragged into the light, 
 making her testify to it as well as himself. She had been 
 asked once if she loved him, and Dick's heart had stopped 
 with fear before the question was waived. For he knew
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 
 
 that she would have told the truth. But though fear for 
 her was over now there was much bitterness in him, or he 
 would not have answered Tempest so. He was coming 
 to believe that she would be more difficult to persuade than 
 he had even expected, and his face was hard with anxiety 
 when he went at last out of the dimly-lighted streets and 
 walked up to Jennifer's hotel. 
 
 Slicker opened the door of her private sitting-room when 
 he knocked on it. The strain had told on the boy severely; 
 but anger flamed into his face at the sight of Dick. He 
 would have shut the door if Dick's foot had not been in 
 the way. 
 
 " Is she there alone ? " said Dick. 
 
 " Yes. But you're not to see her, you cad." 
 
 Dick's hand brushed Slicker aside. 
 
 " Stay outside," he said only, and went in, shutting the 
 door behind him. 
 
 Slicker stood still on the mat with the colour dying 
 from his face. Boy though he yet was in experience and 
 understanding, he felt those charged forces in the man 
 with which he dared not meddle. Then he went away, a 
 little dazed, and with a curious feeling of awe. 
 
 The little hotel parlour was as unlike Jennifer's pretty 
 rooms at home as anything could be. But Dick saw noth- 
 ing but the white-gowned girl in the big chair by the win- 
 dow. She turned her head to watch him cross the room; 
 but neither spoke, and she did not lift the head from 
 where the bare arm propped it on the window-sill. The 
 night was very hot, and her face had no colour at all, 
 though there was a faint smile on her lips as she looked 
 at his scarlet uniform and at the gentle deference which 
 she knew would not hold him long. 
 
 " You were right when you said you would hurt me," 
 she said. 
 
 " And I was right when I said that would not end it. 
 You understood, or you would not be speaking to me now." 
 He sat on the window-sill with the dark of a closed shop 
 behind him. " Never mind all that now, Jennifer. It is 
 over. What pretty arms you have. I never saw them 
 uncovered before." 
 
 She drew them back hurriedly under the falling laces.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I have not given you the right to call me Jennifer," 
 she said. 
 
 " But you will." He paused, then said slowly : " If you 
 are too tired we will leave the matter for to-night. But 
 you cannot imagine that I am going to let it rest." 
 
 " I am not too tired. No." She shivered a little. " But 
 it can only hurt us." 
 
 " I don't fancy your suggested remedy would ease that. 
 Have you found it so simple to put the thing out of 
 your heart? " 
 
 " You know that I have not. But that doesn't alter the 
 question. We are not our own masters here. This has 
 been threshed out for us long ago through suffering and 
 passion and bitter remorse." 
 
 Her voice was low, and she looked past him to the sky. 
 In her loose white dress and her aureole of bright hair 
 she seemed almost unearthly, guarded from his dominant 
 eagerness by a strange sacredness which daunted and 
 puzzled him. 
 
 " I am not asking you to do wrong," he said. " God 
 forbid. But to divorce the man who has ill-treated you 
 and whom you do not love, and to marry the man who 
 loves you is common-sense only. To refuse to do it is the 
 wrong. Can't you see that? " 
 
 " I made no reservations when I married Harry. I can- 
 not make them now. I could not live in the same house 
 with him again, I think. But I must be free to help him 
 if ever he should need help. This is my duty. Not my 
 duty to myself only, nor to you, nor to him. We can't get 
 away from the fact that we belong to the great Brotherhood 
 of Life. Where you or I fail or sin future generations 
 pay for it." 
 
 " I don't understand. It is not as if you had chil- 
 dren " 
 
 " I didn't mean that. But it has taken such centuries 
 to work out the moral laws, and so we know they must 
 be true. We should hurt ourselves and more than our- 
 selves if we broke them." 
 
 " I cannot feel or believe that, Jennifer." 
 
 " But I can and do. And because you know this it is 
 for you to help me, not to hinder. It should be the pride
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 225 
 
 of your manhood to make this hard thing easy for us to 
 bear." 
 
 " I don't want to make it easy. I want to make it im- 
 possible. You are building a fetish out of a chimera, Jen- 
 nifer. We owe nothing to the past, nor to the future. We 
 owe all to ourselves only. And I am not going to spoil 
 your life and mine for the sake of a creation of the fancy. 
 This life is all we have, and it is madness not to make 
 the most of it. It is madness to lose a day an hour " 
 
 He caught her hands, speaking thickly, and his face was 
 lit and warm with eagerness. She met his eyes steadily. 
 
 "Does love not mean respect with you?" she asked. 
 
 The phrase struck him. He remembered that German 
 boy at Grey Wolf who had desired to " love all ladies 
 always." And he remembered his own rebuke. It was 
 her face had brought it from him then. It was her face 
 brought its memory now. He let her hands go and stood up. 
 
 " I beg your pardon if I have offended you," he said. 
 " But all this is only fencing, you know. You will have 
 to see the thing in a wider light. It is impossible that you 
 should seriously think of condemning us to such an equiv- 
 ocal position " 
 
 Through the dark of the hot room he walked back and 
 forth; he stood still; he came back to the window again: 
 arguing ever with patience, with passion, with flashes of 
 sarcasm or tenderness. His bitter humour got the upper 
 hand at last. 
 
 " Your religion is accountable for this, of course. You 
 have run after it until it has turned and rent you as all 
 extremes are certain to do. But in your natural pleasure at 
 self-sacrifice you appear to have forgotten me. I have not 
 offered myself up for demolition, and I can't see what 
 right you have to hand it out to me." 
 
 " It isn't religion. It is conscience." 
 
 " The same thing when they become abnormal." 
 
 " No. Conscience is it is God, I suppose. Religion 
 well, it is tied on to us with our bibs, and we leave it there 
 because it becomes a habit. And with lots of people it is 
 nothing more. God is more than that, you know. He is 
 sought first-hand by those who won't take a go-between. 
 Religion is often just the go-between. And when you sneer
 
 226 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 at religion that is the thing you mean. I am afraid you 
 don't understand anything about the other yet." 
 
 " I understand that you are the sweetest and truest soul 
 I have ever known." He came back; kneeling a knee on 
 the window-sill and leaning to her. " I will take you for 
 my religion and my conscience and my God if you will. 
 But I won't take any other. I don't want any other. Why 
 should I? If God made this world then He did not make 
 such a pure and beautiful thing that I should want to love 
 and worship Him because of it." 
 
 " But don't you see that it is you and unbelievers like 
 you who take the purity and beauty out of it? And then 
 you blame God." 
 
 " He should not have allowed the devil to be too strong 
 for us, then." 
 
 " It is you who have allowed that " 
 
 " Please don't begin a theological discussion. I am not 
 up in all the cant phrases I beg your pardon again, but 
 I wonder if you realise what you are doing with me. We 
 are not children, to be frightened by the bugbears of devils 
 or gods. We are simply man and woman, with our own 
 problems to meet and our own doubts to conquer. It is 
 natural that you should be afraid of this step at first. But 
 no religion, no philosophy, no metaphysics can prove to us 
 that there is a God or another world but this. Our nature 
 is our strongest and most relentless guide. Why shouldn't 
 we follow it? For we have no other." 
 
 " We have. Oh, we have." She put her hand on his 
 shoulder. " You can't do it, Dick. If you kill my belief 
 you kill me. It is me. I could not live without it not 
 even with you." 
 
 " My God if you'd only try it," he said. But before 
 her face his eager eyes dropped, and he sat still, biting 
 his lips and frowning at the dark wall beyond the window. 
 
 Jennifer twisted her hands together. She knew that he 
 was recognising acutely this hidden force that was ranged 
 against him, and that the whole of his manhood's assertive 
 will was in revolt at it. 
 
 "You are wilfully blinding yourself," he said at last. 
 " You don't realise that religion is and always has been 
 the most selfish thing conceivable. You are showing me 
 the brutality and mercilessness of religion now. You have
 
 "YOU UNDERSTAND" 227 
 
 taught me to hate it as I never did before, because it is 
 the thing which separates us. You have shown me the self- 
 centred satisfaction of those who worship it " 
 
 She put out her hands with a sudden cry. 
 
 " Go ! Oh, go ! You are hurting me too much ! " 
 
 He sprang up and stooped over her. 
 
 " I will come back to you," he said. " I shall keep on 
 coming back while I live, and I will wear down your resis- 
 tance, Jennifer. I will have you, if I die for it or if I 
 make you die for it. My work will keep me in the West 
 just now, and you will be in the East. But I shall come 
 to you again. I shall come." 
 
 He took her hands down from before her eyes. 
 
 " Your little gods won't make you happy," he said. 
 " We are men and women on this old earth, Jennifer, and 
 not fantastic spiritual anomalies. You want me, and you 
 will never stop wanting me. You know what I have done 
 to yourself and Ducane, and yet you cannot love me the 
 less. You know that I laugh at all the tenets which you 
 believe, and yet you cannot love me the less. This proves 
 that love is not a spiritual thing and that it is sheer imbe- 
 cility to put it on a spiritual plane. You are wrecking 
 both our lives for nothing nothing ! " 
 
 " It is often the nothings of earth which grow to the 
 everythings of Heaven," she said. 
 
 The white, brave sadness of her face halted the impa- 
 tient anger on his tongue. He lifted her hands, kissed 
 them, and laid them back on her lap. 
 
 " I have lived enough to know that we all blind our- 
 selves, and that no man has the right to judge his fellow," 
 he said. " You believe that you are right, you poor little 
 girl, and you are going to make us both suffer for your 
 belief. I believe that you are wrong, and I'll convince 
 you of it yet. A man takes his stand on reason and a 
 woman on sentiment. If I give way on some points you 
 must do the same. And I will not say good-bye to you, 
 for I mean to come back." 
 
 She watched him cross to the door and turn to look at 
 her. And she raised herself in the big chair. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said. But he shook his head with a 
 sudden, half-whimsical smile, and shut the door behind 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 " THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY " 
 
 THE mystery of the people of the world; the strangeness 
 of the many lives about him had always consoled Dick in 
 other days for the troubles that fell on him. It was his 
 nature to keep himself busy, bodily and mentally; and 
 when he came back to the old daily routine at Grey Wolf 
 and passed the empty house across the Lake in his patrols 
 he found the value of the work-habit which he had taught 
 himself. Work was the only leash which could hold his 
 temper just now, and he needed all that life could give 
 him. Day and night the district saw him prowling through 
 it; stalking faint trails of wrong-doers, examining into the 
 state of roads and crops and bridges, hearing petty details 
 of complaint and squabble in that alert silence which prom- 
 ised swift redress, and exercising prisoners with a bland 
 mercilessness which made men fear to come under the 
 harrow of his power. 
 
 Tempest went his own way these days. Since Dick's 
 rebuke to him the old friendship seemed to have slid off 
 the two, and each man walked his daily round, king in his 
 own right of jurisdiction, and neither giving nor asking 
 sympathy or understanding. Trouble dulled Tempest's 
 energies;' it quickened Dick's. And no love of woman nor 
 of himself could blurr the sharp edge of his calculating 
 mind. Before he went to Edmonton he had discovered that 
 flattery, gross, daring flattery was the simplest way in 
 which to manage Grange's Andree. To the heat of it she 
 would open the doors of her heart while Tempest's gentle 
 and reverent prayers only irritated or amused her. 
 
 Dick's clear mind had grasped this salient fact fully, 
 and with Jennifer's face sweet and grave-eyed in his mind, 
 he began to make private sketches and bold outlines of 
 Andree; planning his attack with restless eagerness, and 
 bringing at last to Moosta a strongly-finished girl-head 
 
 228
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 229 
 
 that was Grange's Andree glowing in her young wild 
 beauty. 
 
 Moosta was in the back passage with her arms full of 
 babies when Dick presented it to her; holding it away from 
 chubby fingers and reaching mouths and finally taking it 
 into the back parlour and pinning it on the wall between 
 a garish oleograph of the Madonna and a little guttering 
 lamp on the bracket below. Moosta demurred, being a 
 devout Roman Catholic just now, with five children going 
 to the Mission School. But Dick went away and left it 
 there, smiling in its rounded contours and deep warm 
 colours below the stiff, flat-faced Madonna. 
 
 Andree snatched the lamp up when she saw it, and looked 
 at it long and very close. Then she whipped round on 
 Moosta with parted lips that drew quick breaths, and 
 eyes that made the lamplight pale. 
 
 " Dieu ! " she cried. " That that not me! " 
 
 Moosta looked up with her mouth full of silk threads. 
 She was embroidering a mooseskin moccasin- front with 
 exquisite neatness. 
 
 "Tanse?" she said. "Aha. C'est vous." And 
 then she dropped her work. " Eh ! " she cried. " He is 
 ver' bon, cet pickshure, mais vous etes mechatwow plus 
 bonne." 
 
 Andree's colour ran up the smooth, glowing skin to the 
 dark curls that made blue shadows about her temples. She 
 turned to the painting again. 
 
 " He do that ! " she said, quick and low. " Ah c'est 
 vrai. He made me like so ! " 
 
 She had often seen herself as the distoted common mir- 
 rors of the houses she knew showed her to her own girl's 
 eyes. She had not before seen herself as a man saw her, 
 and that man the man of all others who had piqued her 
 by his careless indifference, and roused her hate by his 
 strength, and her interest by the stories men told of him. 
 This was a triumph, a dizzy burning triumph ; an unbeliev- 
 able surprise. She pulled the painting down; breathing 
 into it; sending the light of her eyes to meet those painted 
 ones; the laugh on her lips to those red lips curved by a 
 cunning hand. For the first time in the bald, raw life she 
 had lived she saw absolute human beauty; vital, wonder-
 
 230 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 ful, elusive. And that beauty was her own. She flung the 
 sketch aside and hurled herself on her knees before Moosta. 
 
 "Look!" she cried. "Look on me. Omisse with the 
 straight eyes. Am I so? Ah est-il that je suis is belle? 
 Moosta! Dites-moi! Vouis etes tapwa mynatun; mais 
 moi I am so! Ah! Tell me!" 
 
 She shook the placid fat Moosta until the silk threads 
 were half-swallowed, and Moosta gasped: 
 
 " Wah ! Wah ! Andree ! Feenish ! Vous mak' keep. 
 Eh? Aha; him say vous mooch plus preety." 
 
 " Nemoweya ! Ah, say that again, Moosta, and I'll love 
 you kakeka mena kakeka." 
 
 " Vhy you s'prise ? " Moosta rubbed her wide, flat nose. 
 "Wee all mak' see vous laike dat tous les jours." 
 
 Andree sprang up ; swaying, glowing, glorious. She was 
 drunk with joy in her own beauty. 
 
 " I did not know. I ' She stopped suddenly with 
 
 her deep eyes turned sideways like a listening animal and 
 her breast heaving quickly. Grange was speaking in the 
 passage, and both women knew the voice with a laugh in 
 it which answered. 
 
 " Ah ! " Andree whipped the moccasin from Moosta's 
 astonished hands, and sat herself down to work demurely. 
 
 " Dans les prisons des Nantes, 
 Dans les prisons des Nantes . . ." 
 
 she sang, sweet and low, setting careful scarlet stitches 
 into a growing bud on the deer-skin. 
 
 Grange giggled as he pushed the door wide. 
 
 " Here's the Corp'ril came along fur a game o' cards," 
 he said. " You take a hand, Andree ? You sure will ? " 
 
 Andree broke her song one half-moment, but she did not 
 raise her eyes. 
 
 " Too busy," she said sedately. 
 
 "But " began Moosta, finding her voice in her dis- 
 may, and then Andree's voice carolled out, high and clear: 
 
 " Lui y a-t-n prisonnier, gai, 
 Faluron, falurette, faluron, falurette." 
 
 Dick's voice came in with hers on the last line: 
 " Faluron, falurette, donde."
 
 He crossed the room, noting the painting on the table 
 and the colour that climbed to Andree's hair. 
 
 " That's pretty," he said, indicating the bud under the 
 slim brown fingers. " He'll be a lucky man who gets 
 those, Andree." 
 
 Moosta's English always failed her before these men of 
 the red coats and the direct eyes. She plunged at inco- 
 herent explanation; ended in a squeak of Cree despair, and 
 then obeyed Grange's order to bring glasses and a bottle. 
 Grange was proud through every honest inch of him at 
 Dick's presence for the first time in the back-parlour, and 
 he was content to smoke in silence, until his guest chose 
 to remember him again. 
 
 " Won't you tell me who they're for, Andree ? " said 
 Dick. 
 
 Andree looked up; saw his eyes; saw the painting on 
 the table, and flung restraint off in a breath. 
 
 "Ah!" she cried. "Say it! Is that like me?" 
 
 " No. You are lovelier than that, Andree. Much love- 
 lier." 
 
 " So-o " It was long-drawn wonder and delight. 
 
 She looked at him. " When men did call me pretty I did 
 not know it was all that pretty," she said. 
 
 Dick bit the smile off on his lips. 
 
 " That is why you can hurt us all so much, Andree," he 
 said. 
 
 " So-o," she said again, and her hands fell idle on her 
 lap and her big eyes burned as she stared across the room. 
 
 Dick looked at her with amused comprehension, seeing 
 the vanity which swayed her. And at that moment there 
 was nothing else in Grange's Andree. He took up the moc- 
 casin, touching her warm hands as he did it. 
 
 " If I paint more pictures of you may I have these?" 
 he said. " I think I don't want you to make them for 
 another fellow." 
 
 The scarlet blazed in her olive skin again. 
 
 " You paint me over some more ? In my new dress ? " 
 
 "Perhaps. You finish those moccasins for me?" 
 
 Possibly Andree had forgotten that the moccasins were 
 Moosta's. Possibly it would not have affected her if she 
 had remembered. A smile curved her lips.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Perhaps I say nemoweya, but not nemoweya nia/' she 
 said. 
 
 Dick knew well the distinction between those two 
 " Noes." 
 
 " But you will leave out even the nemoweya next time, 
 won't you, Andree ? " he asked, and smiled as she sprang 
 up to get the cards in sudden confusion. 
 
 His eyes followed her through the little dark room. She 
 really was a beauty; so amazingly full of colour and 
 movement. He had enjoyed painting that little picture of 
 her from memory. He would enjoy much more painting 
 from the model. There certainly was some excuse for 
 Tempest. Then he put Tempest out of his mind. It was 
 hardly the time to find excuses for Tempest on this point. 
 
 For ten days Andree worked on the moccasins, silencing 
 Moosta's mild objections by promises that she would buy 
 her more silk blue and purple and magenta silks, and 
 lots of little white beads to go round the edge of every- 
 thing, some day. Then, one afternoon, she carried them 
 up to the low hill behind Grey Wolf when she went to pick 
 lowbush cranberries, and put the last stitches in them with 
 her dreaming eyes glancing down, now and again, on the 
 ugly little dull village below. 
 
 She was more excited about that picture than she had 
 ever been in her life. Like a second Narcissus she loved 
 her own beauty better than she loved anyone else, and the 
 thought that Dick might make some more of those delight- 
 ful colours and curves which were herself intoxicated her. 
 She filled her bowl, and then she stitched the long tie- 
 thongs into place, and scraps of French songs came and 
 went on her lips. She was utterly happy ; forgetful of all 
 but the delicious, excited feeling that held her, -and the 
 day had life enough to fit her mood. Swallows were mak- 
 ing steely-blue flashes across the warm, golden light where 
 they chased the glancing moths. Butterflies trembled in 
 the tall grass-stalks where the wind went dreamily, and 
 in the scattered balsams vireo and fly-catcher were dip- 
 ping and calling. 
 
 Dick came over the crest of the hill, whistling. He 
 came near ; stopped, and looked down. In her yellow gown 
 and the yellow light, with the soft wind in her short curls
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 233 
 
 and shadow and sun across her face, Grange's Andree was 
 something to stir the most phlegmatic blood. And Dick 
 had never been phlegmatic. Andree held out the moccasins. 
 
 "I did make fccnish pour vous," she said; and a sud- 
 den impulse brought Dick down beside her to push away 
 the curls that made blue veins on her temples and hid the 
 dimple in her cheek. 
 
 It was a full half-hour before he rose and went down 
 the hill with long, swinging strides. And his eyes were 
 uneasy. For he did not care to remember all that he had 
 done and said in that half-hour. 
 
 To-morrow the yearly Sessions were to be held in Grey 
 Wolf, and the one street of it was choked with passing life. 
 In the dust a half-dozen north-bred huskies were fighting; 
 the smell of bananas and tar and hot leather and groceries 
 hung heavily round the -Hudson Bay Store. Two Indian 
 women squatted outside the Store with round-eyed babies 
 on the backs, and within a score of bucks were buying 
 ammunition and tobacco. 
 
 Dick heard Leigh's voice raised in fluent Cree expos- 
 tulation, and he knew that the men were bargaining for 
 debt on the furs of the coming winter. He swung past 
 with a shrug. Most of those Indians were bankrupt now. 
 They would be more bankrupt by spring, and then would 
 begin trouble with the Hudson Bay and Revillons; star- 
 vation perhaps, and theft. 
 
 All these things and many more would come in Dick's 
 way later on. They were the warp and woof of the North- 
 West. They were the day's work and the grim night's 
 anxiety. 
 
 Tempest met him outside the barracks. 
 
 " An Indian has reported a Galician sick and alone in 
 a shack along the trail to Stony Point," he said. " I can't 
 go, because of the Judge, and Kennedy's not back. If you 
 go at once you can be back in time for breakfast, Dick. 
 And I'm afraid I'll have to send you." 
 
 Dfck was in no mood for twelve hours and more of lonely 
 forest. Since he came back from Edmonton he had been 
 in no mood for twelve hours of himself. 
 
 " Damn the Galician," he said. " We could do with a 
 few less of him."
 
 234 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest pushed up the brim of his Stetson, looking at 
 Dick with more friendliness than usual in his grave eyes. 
 
 " You are not very gay yourself/' he said. " Feel fit 
 to go?" 
 
 " Oh, Lord, yes. And that's more than you are, by the 
 look of you, old man." 
 
 Tempest's face softened. 
 
 " I haven't been good company lately," he said. " But I 
 don't want to make you pay for it. A man doesn't care 
 to alienate one of the few friends he has affection for." 
 
 Dick looked at the ground. No ; a man did not care 
 to do it, but it was probably going to be done very shortly. 
 
 " We'll both feel better when this heat's over. It cer- 
 tainly was a snorter in the court-house this morning. And 
 it will be worse to-morrow, very likely. I'll take a snack 
 with me and go, then. Shall I take Flanks or the pie- 
 bald?" 
 
 "Better have Flanks. Kennedy had the pony most of 
 yesterday. Bring the man in if necessary. And you can't 
 waste time, you know. There is work to put through 
 before the cases start in the morning." 
 
 Dick nodded and went in to hurry Poley over the provid- 
 ing of eatables for him. His pocket-flask he filled himself. 
 Since he came back from Edmonton it had required to be 
 filled more often than any case of assistance on the patrols 
 seemed to warrant. Then he harnessed up the big chestnut 
 into the buckboard; took such things as guesswork and 
 knowledge suggested for the aid of the sick man, and 
 plunged from the blazing heat of afternoon into the cool 
 greens of the forest. The Galician might be suffering with 
 anything from smallpox to angina pectoris or broken limbs. 
 That did not trouble Dick. It was all in the day's work, 
 just as the knowledge that a king-bolt or a spring, or a 
 shaft might break on this rough trail of corduroy, deep 
 pot-holes and tree-butts was all in the day's work. Chance 
 and danger were fed to him with his daily meals, and, like 
 many another man, he found their sauce the principal 
 thing which made his food worth while. 
 
 In all directions the birds were home-coming. Their 
 calls and twitters and flurry of quick wings knit up the 
 long aisles into runs and chords of sweet, eager sound.
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY 5 235 
 
 Scents blew along the trail to Dick's face ; damp and clean 
 and piney. Golden light dredged through the black needles 
 of the jack -pines and the wide-spread spruces, and pow- 
 dered the slender white of birch and cotton-wood with yel- 
 low dust. And, hour by hour, the beat of hoofs and the 
 jarring of the rig could do more than faintly blurr the sur- 
 face of the deep, warm silence that lay like Peace itself 
 upon the earth. 
 
 The chestnut swung along with his awkward, tireless 
 gait ; obedient to the light hand of the man whom he knew 
 for his master ; and Dick sat still, with his lean face expres- 
 sionless and his eyes staring out, unblinking, below the 
 heavy brows. He was thinking of a comparison in Ruskin's 
 " Ethics of the Dust " ; a comparison of the awful, hope- 
 less difference between the hyaline block which is pure, 
 untouchable in its integrity; which unhesitatingly repulses 
 everything evil, and of its brother block; weak, immoral, 
 accepting corruption, unable to deny the insiduous power 
 of corroding fluids. To the lay eye those two blocks looked 
 alike, even as he and Tempest had looked alike 
 years ago. Life had used various acids to test the 
 two men. But Tempest only had won out. Grange's An- 
 dree might break his heart and his work, but neither she 
 nor anything else could make him evil. Dick of his own 
 free will had taken tests which had left their scars and 
 their rotten places, and which had eaten out of him the 
 power to stand where he would have chosen to stand 1 
 now. 
 
 Fully he saw this, as a man may bring himself unflinch- 
 ingly to look on himself. And still he drove through the 
 calling musical forest with that concentrated look on his 
 face. Ahead came faintly the smell of cooking-fires; of 
 green wood smoke and fresh-grilled bacon and coffee. 
 Round a sharp elbow in the trail showed a clearing sunk 
 among the dark pines and a knot of covered wagons like 
 huge brown beetles asleep. Where the flames pulsed up 
 women moved and children's laughter echoed, sweet and 
 shrill. A man slouched forward big and sunburnt, leaving 
 a trail of tobacco-smoke blue on the still air. 
 
 Dick pulled up. He knew these for settlers trekking in 
 with their wives and children to the Peace River country;
 
 2536 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 and he knew that they had left Manitoba when the last 
 snows yet patched the earth, and that the leaves of fall 
 would be orange and red on the long, silent forest trails 
 before they homed at last to the new, unhandled places 
 that waited them. The man's hands showed callosities 
 along the palm. He and his mates had worked their way 
 up these many hundred miles by splitting wood for the 
 river-steamers; trenching ground for a farmer; cutting a 
 much-needed trail with the aid of the Mounted Police. And 
 the green summer moved over their heads, and their cattle 
 fattened on the lush grasses, and their children grew brown 
 and strong as they went, untroubled, trusting in their gods, 
 to an unknown future. 
 
 " We heered there was apt to be a river somewheres," 
 said the man, and touched his thick-haired head in vague 
 salute. " You could likely tell us, sir. Would we want to 
 raft our freight over? " 
 
 " There are a creek or two close by. You can cross 
 those very easily," said Dick. " You'll have to raft over 
 the Peace, of course. But you won't be there for a good 
 while, I imagine." 
 
 " We've rafted two a'ready. Durned slow work. What's 
 that, missus ? " 
 
 A young, bright-eyed woman with a baby in her arms 
 spoke at his ear. 
 
 " Ask the gentleman won't he have supper, Jerry. It's 
 waitin'." 
 
 " No, thanks." Dick looked at the two. They were the 
 kind of importations Randal would have approved. " I'll 
 get something where I'm going. That's a remarkably 
 young settler you've got there." 
 
 " Born on the trail." The man handed up the pink and 
 white bundle with pride. " The missus she would have 
 him christened in Grey Wolf yes'day. Guess we won't 
 find no parsons where we're going." 
 
 " You'll have one monthly like the bills in cities. But 
 there are no doctors or nurses or hospitals." Dick looked 
 at the woman. "If your children get sick, you'll have to 
 cure them yourself," he said. 
 
 " Jerry can," said the young wife, and her face glowed. 
 " He kin do most all things, I guess." And Dick's last
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 237 
 
 sight as he drove on was of the two strolling back, close 
 together, to the red fires and the brown wagons and the 
 dark forest which made their home. 
 
 The forest had been Dick's home so many times. She 
 was the breath of the North-West; the door of Life; the 
 lover who called men; flattered them; played with them, 
 and who stood against them in her austerity the long 
 winter through with face changed and aloof and uncon- 
 cerned. Dick loved her best in her latter moods, when he 
 met her as he had ever done, with set teeth and fingers 
 crooked to tear from her that which was necessary for his 
 bare life. He loved her then because of the pain she gave 
 him; because her very sternness made him more of a man; 
 because she paid him in self-respect for all she took from 
 him. And self-respect was not the usual coin of Dick's 
 exchange. 
 
 The sun dropped big and crimson behind the dark pine- 
 trees ranks. The bird-songs frayed into tender silence, and 
 the pink flush died out of the sky and the blue shadows 
 darkened and thickened. Where pot-holes and tree-boles 
 made alike black blots on the trail and the buckboard 
 bumped out of one to bump over the other, Dick's keen 
 eyes saw the little low log cabin half-hid among the sway- 
 ing blue-grass just where the lip of the forest fell away 
 to the open downs. Dick hitched the chestnut to the 
 broken snake-fence; brushed through the tall grass to the 
 door, and pushed it wide. A cool scent of hemlock boughs 
 and water came to his heated face. Then something moved 
 in the dusky shadows ; took a slush-light from beside the 
 stove, and showed as a woman, wrinkled and worn, with 
 a white shawl on the slender, straight shoulders. Dick 
 stepped back, embarrassed and amazed. 
 
 " I I beg your pardon," he said. " I was told isn't 
 there a Galician sick in this shack? I was told he was 
 alone." 
 
 She answered him in French; the old-world French of 
 Normany and Touraine. 
 
 " There is a Frenchman here my husband. He was 
 seeking work, and he fell ill." 
 
 " The Indian said he was a Galician. I hope he is not 
 very sick, madame? "
 
 238 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I thank you, monsieur. He is very tired." She held 
 the light toward the rough bunk, and Dick stooped over 
 it, feeling for the pulse in the knotted, sinewy wrist. The 
 dignity in the withered old face and the slow, refined 
 tongue had over-set him for the moment, and the weak 
 passage of the blood through the old thin body on the 
 bunk told him more than he was quite ready to put into 
 words. For his own young vigorous life and his knowl- 
 edge gave him the truth without hesitation. 
 
 He pulled his flask out and lifted the half-unconscious 
 man. Anything was better than inaction with that grave, 
 sweet face looking out of the shadows. 
 
 " He has lived a long and a difficult life, madame," he 
 said civiTly. 
 
 " And he was not fitted for it," she said. " Mary, the 
 mother of all men, will give this man his rest." 
 
 Dick shot one glance at her. 
 
 " Then you know it, madame ? " he said. " I I was 
 afraid " 
 
 She smiled just a little, holding the slush-light near. 
 
 " Love has quicker eyes than the eyes of a stranger, 
 monsieur," she said; and Dick, half-abashed, laid the grey 
 head back on the grass-stuffed pillow, and took the light 
 from her hand. 
 
 " Let me put it aside," he said. " It is not needed. I 
 do not think he will suffer, monsieur, your husband." 
 
 "Bien," she said softly as the sigh of a breeze, and 
 sat on the bunk-side holding the chilling, withered hand 
 between her own. 
 
 Dick trod gently to the window and waited there, astride 
 of a box. He felt the hush of her great acceptance of the 
 inevitable closing down on him. Out of the storms and 
 the sordid things that were breaking his own life he had 
 come twice to-day into the beauty and the purity and the 
 wisdom of love: those two in the forest with the child be- 
 tween them, strong and glad, beginning a new life to- 
 gether; these two in poverty and age and death, parting 
 in the dark with a stranger as witness. He sat very still 
 with his head in his hands, and beyond the open window 
 the breath of the living night went by. 
 
 The man on the bed stirred, muttering. Then the old
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 1 239 
 
 woman felt strong hands under her arms, and Dick lifted 
 her away. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said, and raised the dying man, hold- 
 ing him deftly towards the incoming wind. And, slow and 
 more slow, through the following hour, the last fight was 
 fought; weakly, and very nearly in silence, for the man 
 was worn by years. At last Dick laid him down again. 
 
 " He has gone in peace, madame," he said, and walked 
 to the door and stayed there until in a little she came to 
 him. 
 
 The night was grave and pale with stars where the wan- 
 dering wind blew the grass on the low-sloped hills. Night- 
 hawks were calling, and their thin " peent peent " slid, 
 fine as a thread, along the large stillness. The forest 
 stood motionless, a black wedge with no end to it, and 
 Dick turned his eyes from it to the little indistinct shape 
 at his side. 
 
 " It is that you win much gratitude, monsieur, you men 
 of the Mounted Police," she said, and her voice was lower 
 and very steady. 
 
 " I have done no more than my duty, madame." 
 
 " Then of that common word you do make a beautiful 
 thing," she answered, and Dick tuned on her in sudden 
 bitterness. 
 
 " Do not offer me gratitude/' he said. " I did not come 
 here in pity He broke off, tried to shape an apology, 
 and felt her withered hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " You have done no more than your work, then," she 
 said. " And a man's work is himself. I have lived long 
 enough with a man to know them. But the one ennobles 
 the other, monsieur." 
 
 " Not always." Dick spoke dryly. " We can shame our 
 work, and it can shame us." 
 
 " And yet you can rise above shame nobly you men," 
 she said, as though remembering. 
 
 Dick moved with a sudden jerk. 
 
 "You think that?" she said. "I congratulate you on 
 your your imagination, madame." 
 
 She looked past him to the forest where in many thou- 
 sand little round nests the warm eggs lay close to the 
 mother's breast; where in many burrows the sharp-eared
 
 240 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 i 
 
 vixen crouched, guarding her young ; where the great puls- 
 ing life and love of the universe beat the deathless tune in 
 the blood of a myriad hearts. And something of the eternal 
 fellowship of the world spoke on her lips. 
 
 " It is the age for struggle/' she said. " The age for 
 fight. The young cry their souls out to gain what they 
 desire and the taste of those drops is very bitter to the 
 tongue. And the pride of the struggle is more than they 
 will forego. And yet, for us there are compensations, mon- 
 sieur. Like little children we creep home and say, ' Our 
 God does understand all things. For He is bigger than 
 our creeds ! ' ' 
 
 " God is only another name for creed any creed. The 
 creed of the Koran or the Eddas or the Zenda-vesta all 
 creeds. And God is no more, madame." 
 
 " A creed is something made and accepted by our finite 
 intelligence. How dare you or the world judge an infinite 
 intelligence by that ? " 
 
 Dick was silent. This old woman with the toil-worn 
 hands and the cotton dress and the speech of courtly 
 France was only one of the many anomalies which had 
 come under his hand in this new ever-changing Canada. 
 But she had stirred him. He wanted to say more, and 
 he held his lips locked, fearing lest he should say too 
 much. In a little she spoke again. 
 
 " I have kept you long. And perhaps you come from far. 
 I am deeply indebted to your courtesy, monsieur, and you 
 shall tell me what is now your desire for me and for 
 him." 
 
 " I have to get back at once, I'm afraid," said Dick. 
 "If you care to come with me, I can fasten the shack 
 safely until the afternoon. If not I will come or send 
 for you then." 
 
 " I will stay until then. But you have had no rest 
 no food. If you " 
 
 " Thank you ; I can't wait." Dick struck a match, and 
 in the blue spurt of light he looked at his watch. " I can 
 only just make it," he said. " I have work to do to-day 
 this morning." 
 
 ' May the good God prosper you in it," she said gravely, 
 and Dick laughed.
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 241 
 
 " Gad, he could be better employed," he said. And then 
 he suddenly stooped and kissed her hand. 
 
 " It's for women such as you that men have died and 
 will die," he said. " Because you believe in us, madame." 
 
 The she heard his spurred feet go quickly through the 
 grass to the fence, and the sharp tone of his voice as he 
 backed the chestnut and sprang into the buckboard. She 
 watched for his salute as the horse jumped forward in 
 the traces, and then she turned back into the hush of the 
 shack and sank on her stiff old knees by the bunk. 
 
 " The dear Lord have mercy on that lad," she said. 
 " For it seems plain to me that he stands at the cross- 
 roads of his life." 
 
 It was after this that Dick began the little gallery of 
 sketches and paintings and vivid charcoal outlines of 
 Grange's Andree which were to make the eyes of men 
 burn with dry tears and their heart-beats quicken long 
 after the beautiful warm flesh which had been a woman 
 was gone away from human eyes for ever. Something 
 which she did not understand held Andree from speaking 
 to Tempest of these meetings, and something which all men 
 understood held anyone else from telling him of the easel 
 set up in the little back-parlour at Grange's and of the 
 work that went on there. Andree was tired of Tempest. 
 Nothing which he said or did could flatter her as that 
 quick-handed, lazy-eyed man flattered when he sat among 
 his tubes and brushes and made her laugh at her laughing 
 self out of the canvas; but it was not in her nature to 
 let go of any living thing which gave her such adoration 
 as Tempest gave. 
 
 Dick had sufficient eonscience to avoid Tempest and 
 Slicker when he was able, and Slicker, who had come back 
 to Grey Wolf to straighten such of Ducane's affairs as he 
 could, helped him there. Slicker was lonely when Jen- 
 nifer had gone East to her mother and the old home ; he 
 found no comfort in Tempest's grave silences, and he 
 hated Dick with a virulent hate. The heat of the long 
 summer sapped his strength more than a little, and with 
 that began the sapping of his conscience, until it seemed 
 more than likely that Slicker would take Ogilvie's position 
 as remittance-man of Grey Wolf if something were not
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 done. Hints or suggestions from Leigh or Bond or even 
 Tempest only confirmed defiance in him, and then Dick 
 took matters into his own hands on one burning day in late 
 fall when the smoke from the forest fires cama down and 
 blanketed Grey Wolf with a thick pungency which brought 
 an acrid smart to the eyes and a breathlessness to the 
 throat. 
 
 Slicker was in the bar with a red-headed freighter who 
 had just driven his team over Halliday's Hill, and who had 
 asked Slicker to drink with him. Slicker did not like the 
 freighter on further acquaintance, and he sat with him at 
 a little table in the corner and tried to think of an excuse 
 to go away from the flow of vulgar talk. 
 
 Suddenly the knot of breeds which Jimmy was serving 
 by the door split to let Dick through, followed by a little 
 alert florid man whom Slicker knew for the fire-ranger of 
 Grey Wolf district. Many of the tables were full, for over 
 a dozen teams had come in from the South. Dick gave one 
 sharp glance from end to end; picked his man without 
 hesitation, and walked over to Slicker's corner. He leaned 
 his hands on the table, and stooped over, speaking suavely 
 to the red-headed man. 
 
 " Mr. Pery," he said. " You camped at Halliday's Rift 
 two nights ago, and, by some curious oversight, you forgot 
 to put your fire out when you went on. As you have never 
 done such a thing before, of course, it may interest you to 
 know that it is burning yet. And so is Halliday's oat- 
 crop, and all the south end of his section, and possibly 
 his home-lot as well. Do you happen to smell wood- 
 smoke ? " 
 
 Pery sprang up. He had a virulent tongue; but under 
 Dick's eyes the bluster fizzled out like fire beneath the 
 hose. Slicker felt a pang of envy. He believed himself 
 as much of a man as Dick if not more. But he could 
 not have silenced the freighter to listen to such words as 
 Dick spoke now. 
 
 " You had better be careful, Mr. Pery. I imagine you 
 know the fine for carelessness of this sort; but if you don't 
 we shall be happy to enlighten you when Sergeant Tem- 
 pest hears your case. Your kind offer to go out with Mr. 
 Carruthers and the rest of us to help Halliday will be an
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY" 243 
 
 extenuating circumstance, of course. What is it, Car- 
 ruthers ? " 
 
 He wheeled as the fire-ranger spoke at his elbow. 
 
 " The hotel-man what's his name ? Grange ? Well, 
 Grange reckons he can get a half-dozen together. And 
 there's you and myself and these two ? " 
 
 He spoke hurriedly, putting a half-question into the 
 words. Dick saw refusal on both faces, and a little smile 
 ran into his eyes. He liked arranging matters so that 
 men should force themselves to do the thing they dis- 
 liked. 
 
 ' Mr. Warriner won't go. There might be some danger. 
 I don't know if the same reason applies to this other 
 gentleman " 
 
 " That settled those two," said Carruthers, a few min- 
 utes later. " You have rather brutal methods, you know, 
 and the boy looks a bit delicate for the work. But we'll 
 want everyone we can get. I'm dead afraid Halliday will 
 lose everything he has and Plunkett may do the same. 
 Here are Grange's haul eight. That's better than he 
 promised." 
 
 The smoke curled among the boles of the trees as the 
 men rode South at a slinging gallop. It rose in the long 
 tree-galleries like incense in some dark, still cathedral. In 
 boggy places where the damp drew it low it lapped along 
 the ground like the grey waves of a shoreless sea. On the 
 rim of a rocky ridge where flames forked out of the billow 
 below Carruthers reined up, glancing round with his red- 
 dened eyes. 
 
 " Is there any man can get us through by a short cut 
 to Halliday 's ? " he asked. " We can't go down there 
 now." 
 
 " I can." Dick pushed forward. " There's a possible 
 trail through a coulee, and across a muskeg. But if any 
 man falls out he may not get found again." 
 
 " That's so. Close up, gentlemen." Carruthers reined 
 in behind Dick. " Kick her into it," he said, and with a 
 thunder of hooves the little army swung to the right along 
 the hilltop. 
 
 Slicker was riding a pony of Ducane's, and when the 
 unstable muskeg came underfoot in the drifting smoke
 
 244. THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 something of the craven spirit of its master seemed to 
 possess it and it endeavoured to lie down. Slicker got off 
 and explained his own desires with the whip-butt, and 
 Grange helped him. But before the pony had made his 
 choice of the two evils Grange spoke, and his usual giggle 
 was high and weak. 
 
 " I guess they've cut it," he said. 
 
 Slicker looked round. The muskeg was like a room with 
 four irregular grey walls. There were neither doors nor 
 windows to that room, nor any sound in it but the far-off 
 sound of the windy fire running in the trees. He turned 
 his startled blue eyes on Grange's inefficient little face, 
 and curbed the words on his tongue. 
 
 " Well, we're all right. The muskeg won't burn." 
 
 " But we can't git out. An' the smoke may come over. 
 An' we got no food an' no nothing." 
 
 " Dick will come back for us," said Slicker. And then 
 his heart said it again, with a sudden shock of surprise. 
 He believed that he hated and mistrusted Dick. He knew 
 that he had shown Dick all the insolence in his power. 
 And yet he knew quite certainly that this man who had 
 betrayed Jennifer's confidence; who was playing a double 
 game with Tempest; who never upheld the honour of the 
 Law he served one whit more than he had to he knew 
 that this man would come back through the fire to find 
 them. Why he knew he could not explain; and because 
 this vexed him he unsaddled the pony and invited it to 
 lie down, and hammered it again with the whip-butt be- 
 cause it wouldn't. 
 
 The trail into Halliday's Rift was an evil one to the 
 men who followed Dick that day. East and west the fire 
 was eating into the forest with fierce, swift jaws; snap- 
 ping at tall trees and passing on with reddened dripping 
 fangs. Down open galleries the smoke was thinned by 
 the clear shimmer of heat, and where little fires ran rapidly 
 in the undergrowth came crackling noises that sounded like 
 detached grace-notes on the huge roaring body of sound. 
 The smoke blew across them; blotting out sense and sound. 
 It lifted, showing spouts of flame against the tall canopy 
 of black. And then they stumbled on burnt and broken 
 timber, hot and tangled, and flaming yet here and there;
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 245 
 
 but promising a way through where the fire would not 
 come, because it had already worked its will there. 
 
 It was a way through, with men like Carruthers and 
 Leigh and Dick to make that way. But it was done prin- 
 cipally on foot and altogether in torment. The smoulder- 
 ing earth burnt their boots and caused the horses to rear 
 and snort. Charred logs were white-hot to the touch, and 
 acrid thick smoke tormented their labouring chests. But 
 they won through it to the width of fresh-ploughed land 
 beyond, and here D.ick spoke a consecutive sentence for 
 the first time in two hours. 
 
 " Good man, Halliday," he said. " I should think he 
 had saved the house. We'll be out of it across this." 
 
 And then, like men passing out of Purgatory with its 
 marks upon them, they rode up to the house. On the east 
 the furrows had belted it in to safety; but down in the 
 oatfield flames were running with the crackling of thorns 
 under a pot, and below the pouring smoke the fighting-line 
 of little figures swayed back and forth, taking a little here 
 to lose it elsewhere. Dick spoke again as the men flocked 
 round a tub of water by the kitchen door; sluicing throats 
 and faces, and gasping with relief and with the sting of 
 the water on their burns. 
 
 " Where's Slicker ? " he said sharply. " And Grange ? " 
 
 The men looked at each other. Smeared, blackened, 
 with blood-shot eyes and drawn faces they were hideous 
 enough. But they turned from the more hideous fear 
 which each read in his neighbour's eyes. Dick swung 
 himself back to the saddle. 
 
 " I hope you'll have luck with Halliday's oats," he said. 
 " Come up, you old devil." 
 
 His big gelding staggered, and Leigh caught at the 
 bridle. 
 
 " What are you going to do, Heriot ? " he said. 
 
 "Oh just going for a ride," said Dick lightly; and 
 he jerked his bridle free and disappeared into the smoke 
 that rolled above the plough-line. 
 
 " There goes a man," said Leigh, and rubbed his eyes. 
 " But I wouldn't quite like to name the figures of the 
 chances he's taking of finding them." 
 
 " He's taking more chances than that," said Carruthers.
 
 246 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Well, I guess we'd best go and do what lie brought us 
 for, anyway." 
 
 Beyond the plough-land and the burnt timber such safety 
 as there was left Dick, and he charged into the columned 
 distances where the fire threaded about to loop him in. 
 Every fibre of him was quick with the knowledge that he 
 must save Slicker. Jennifer loved Slicker, and it was 
 through Dick that he was here, and that thought stung 
 sharper than the little sparks upon his hands. The fate 
 of Grange did not trouble him particularly. He had not 
 very much reverence for human life, and Grange would 
 have to die some day, anyhow. He would have gone after 
 Grange, had the man been alone, because such matters 
 were scheduled in his mind as the natural thing. But a 
 little bit of Grange, such as his charred back-teeth or his 
 knife, would have satisfied Dick very nearly. Slicker was 
 different. He had to bring Slicker out unharmed or to stay 
 in himself; but he was not sure if the choice would be 
 given him. 
 
 And yet there was a half-wild delight to him in the 
 danger; in the thunder of the nearing army which shook 
 the forest; in the belching smoke and the rockets of flame 
 that shot the sky, and in the shrieking and the whistling 
 and the almost human screams. Birds flew by, low and 
 darting. One brushed his cheek, and fell dead in his hand. 
 It smelt of burnt flesh and feathers. All the undergrowth 
 was full of the rush and the hurry and the squealing of 
 little animals, and a skunk, singed naked as a young rabbit, 
 lay in the trail. Far-off a vixen was yelping in short, 
 agonised barks. Behind him something was whining. 
 Ahead something cried. He did not know that both were 
 the flames running in the saskatoons and cranberries. 
 
 So far he had kept very much to the trail by which he 
 had come. But Grange and Slicker would not be here. 
 Somewhere they would be racing before the fire, unless 
 they were in the muskeg. Dick's whole heart clung to 
 the hope that they were in the muskeg, and he rode on, 
 weaving his way through the smoke-blinded trails, more 
 by instinct than sight. 
 
 Down the crossed trails tall trees that stood apart were 
 like tortured Indians with their scalp-locks streaming.
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 247 
 
 
 
 Grey winding-sheets of smoke wrapped them, and of the 
 out dun clouds a column of fire fell presently, leaving a 
 scarlet streak across the sight. Red flames ran like merry 
 monkeys up the swinging moss-beard of an ancient spruce; 
 twitched little branches off and flung them on Dick's head. 
 Flames crept unseen up the stairway of a hollow trunk, 
 and waved triumphant banners as the wild bees rolled out 
 in a terrified swarm or the squirrels rushed and tumbled 
 to their death below. And everywhere the forest moaned 
 and cried, and fought the coming death, and bowed and 
 fell before it. In the air; from the sky; up from the 
 tormented earth, the man recognised the cry of the help- 
 less against the devourer; of nature against the hideously 
 unnatural ; of life against death. Branches cracked and 
 flew off with the report of pistols. Tall trees pitched 
 sideways with a human shriek, bearing others down ; and 
 the fire leapt on the ruin with the chuckling hurry of the 
 despoilers of the slain. 
 
 A man who knew less of horses than Dick did could 
 never have forced the terrified gelding down those trails 
 where he plunged and reared and struggled against the bit 
 that was growing hot in his mouth. Heat seared the eye- 
 balls and parched the lips ; shooting flames snatched and 
 bit, and smoke drove into the labouring lungs. The geld- 
 ing pitched suddenly; and before Dick found his feet 
 again the glazing eyes and shivering outstretched body told 
 him all that he needed to know. He stooped, wrenching 
 off his spurs in two quick movements. 
 
 " But I've only one boot-sole left," he said, and turned 
 and crashed into the brush with never a look behind. The 
 dying horse had come to the end of the passage, even as 
 he himself would come some day. But it had done its 
 work first. If he brought so good a record he would be 
 content. 
 
 It was Slicker, smoking his fifth cigarette, and still 
 trying to cheer Grange, who saw something loom and 
 gather shape and stagger near in the rift. He ran for- 
 ward; caught Dick's shoulder, and felt the cloth crisp 
 and melt under his hand. But sudden strangling, unex- 
 pected sobs kept him from any words at all. Dick did not 
 heed. Stopped in his blind reeling progress, he sat down
 
 248 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 promptly. Then he laid himself flat, feeling the cool 
 spongy mosses against the naked parts of his smarting 
 
 body. 
 
 Later, Dick rode back into Grey Wolf on Slicker's pony ; 
 and, once the familiar trail was reached,, Grange raced 
 home on his raking bay mare to his work and to Moosta. 
 But where the one man rode with his burnt shoulder stiffen- 
 ing under the singed shirt, and his foot throbbing where 
 the boot-sole was charred off, and where the other man 
 walked, silent and with long light steps, there was little 
 excitement or speech. Slicker raised his head at last. 
 
 " I guess you know I hate you," he said bluntly. " Why 
 don't you hate me ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I recognise that you have the better right, 
 Slicker." 
 
 " Well if you hadn't been such a cur to Jennifer " 
 
 "Do you mind if she is hurt or not? " 
 
 " Do I mind? Why she's always been everything to 
 me. She's like a sister and a mother, and she's the best 
 chum what are you looking like that for? " 
 
 " I was appreciating the way in which you have been 
 proving your words lately, Slicker." 
 
 Slicker flushed hotly. He trudged on; and presently 
 he said: 
 
 " You always were a sneering beast." 
 
 " I know. But I do not expend my powers on my neigh- 
 bours only, I assure you." 
 
 "What's a fellow to do?" Slicker spoke sulkily. "I 
 won't go into my uncle's business in Toronto. He's always 
 at me about it and I won't do it." 
 
 " You want to get your neck under some yoke, though 
 I am the last man to preach obedience to you. Why not 
 try our game? It has some elements of interest." 
 
 " Go into the Police ? " Slicker stopped short with his 
 blue eyes wide. 
 
 " Exactly. If you could manage to think while you 
 were moving thank you. I would rather like to get back 
 to Grey Wolf before dark." 
 
 It was long before Slicker spoke again. Then he said: 
 
 "Do you advise it?" 
 
 " Do I do what ? Oh the Police, you mean ? My dear
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 1 249 
 
 fellow, no. I never advise a man to do anything. It is a 
 most injudicious and unnecessary way of making enemies. 
 But if you speak to Tempest I have no doubt that he will 
 advise you. He has a soul above the sordidness of per- 
 sonal results." 
 
 On the edge of the long ugly street with Grey Wolf 
 clinging to the sides of it Slicker hesitated, jerking his 
 words out. 
 
 " I called you a beast, and you are. But you're a brave 
 beast. I concede you that. I hate you because you you 
 don't seem to recognise what a man naturally owes a 
 woman. But I thank you for coming after me." 
 
 " Ah. And now that you have paid your debts you can 
 go on hating me with a clear conscience. I think I would 
 prefer that you did, so long as you realise that you forfeit 
 that right so soon as you place yourself in the same cate- 
 gory with myself. You are heading for it, you know." 
 
 " Well, I I guess I'll likely speak to Tempest to- 
 morrow," said Slicker, and he did it; disturbing Tempest 
 where he worked at his office table, and plunging into the 
 subject impetuously. 
 
 " My lungs are O. K.," he said. " There was no disease, 
 you know. Only a weakness. De Choiseaux says any 
 doctor would pass me." 
 
 Tempest thrust aside his papers and gave his attention 
 reluctantly. 
 
 " Well, you should have a pretty fair idea of what it 
 means by now," he said. " You're not blind." 
 
 " You should have a better. Dick told me to dress by 
 what you said." 
 
 "Ah." Tempest smiled. "Did he? Well you're a 
 teetotaler, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Xo. I've been drinking quite a little bit lately. I was 
 more than half-seas over the other night." Slicker looked 
 at him with his blue eyes darkening. " I want some kind 
 of life that'll make a man of me, Tempest," he. said. 
 
 Tempest sat still for a space with his jaw in his hand. 
 Then he said: 
 
 "Do you think that would help you?" 
 
 " Why I reckon it should. Don't you ? " 
 
 Tempest turned and looked at him squarely.
 
 250 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " You've seen one little corner of Western life from the 
 inside, Slicker," he said. " You know the two big tempta- 
 tions a man has to meet for himself or for others. He 
 is no more fit or able to meet them because he has a uniform 
 on his back. That's the mistake that gets us so many 
 wasters in the Force. A man has got to be a man before 
 he goes into the R. N. W. M. P., or I guess he's not par- 
 ticularly likely to become one afterwards. There is so 
 much which he can hide beneath his authority if he has a 
 mind to. And that is a temptation in itself." 
 
 " I don't want to drink or or doing anything I 
 shouldn't, Tempest. I am sure I could keep straight if it 
 was worth while." 
 
 " It is always worth while. But I see your argument. 
 We are made of such poor stuff that we must have a special 
 motive " he turned suddenly, and his eyes softened. 
 " No," he said. " That's a lie. We are made of such good 
 stuff that we can do most things if we have a motive at 
 all. But I'm not going to help you into our Service if 
 your only motive is to try to run away from temptation. 
 You wouldn't be doing it, anyway. You'd likely be run- 
 ning in," 
 
 " It's not exactly a temptation yet. I could easily give 
 it up if I had something special to interest me." 
 
 "Sure? Well, I don't want to discourage you. We 
 need all the men we can get, and we need the finer kind 
 of men like yourself. There's work in plenty for them. 
 But a drunken life and a sinful life go easily together, 
 Slicker. There's no use burking that truth. You'll have 
 to know it and a good deal worse if you choose to be 
 one of us. You'll see very many sordid things, and very 
 many hideous things, and a few very glorious things. And 
 you'll have your full share of temptations. There are 
 enough of those for every man, no matter what he is 
 made of." 
 
 " I know that. But I reckon I want to try it, Tem- 
 pest." 
 
 Then, for God's sake, keep straight." Tempest's voice 
 sharpened it sharpened more easily now than it used to 
 do. " The Force isn't a nursery for men who can't handle 
 themselves and who expect the discipline to do it for them.
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 251 
 
 And it isn't a stalking-horse for the men who want to do 
 evil without being found out." He stood up, laying his 
 hand on the boy's shoulder. " I'll send in your name if 
 you like. And for many reasons I'll be glad to do it. But 
 remember this, Slicker. Our uniform isn't a shield against 
 temptation, and it can be a cloak for sin. The man him- 
 self has got to mean as much as the uniform, or the thing's 
 a mockery a damned mockery." He stopped with a swift 
 stab of conscience. In how far was he upholding these 
 tenets which he taught which he had always taught and 
 always practised until now ? " We have all got our own 
 rows to hoe, Slicker," he went on. " And it isn't easy to 
 hoe them well. But I believe you'll do your best." 
 
 " I'll try." Slicker's young face was grave and flushed, 
 and his blue eyes were anxious. " I I couldn't say much 
 to Dick; he's such a sneering beast. But I do recognise 
 that it it means a good deal in many ways to wear the 
 uniform. And I do want to make good, Tempest." 
 
 " That's right, old chap. Heaven send you do. Now I 
 must turn you out, for I'm busy. Come round to-night and 
 give me particulars. I think it is more than likely that 
 we'll be proud of you later on, you know." 
 
 " Tliank you, Tempest." Slicker flushed with pleasure. 
 " You are a good sort." And he went out in a glow of 
 friendship and pity for the man who was " having such 
 a rotten time with that little devil Andree." He passed 
 Grange's bar with his chin up, and he went for a long 
 walk in the forest, concocting a letter in which he would 
 explain it all to Jennifer. But the exact connection of the 
 " sneering beast " with this matter which was so exciting 
 him seemed to escape him, although it did not escape Jen- 
 nifer when she read the letter. 
 
 Through the fall and the early winter life went forward 
 as it ever did in Grey Wolf. A few new clerks came and 
 went in the Stores. A prospector drowned himself from 
 a canoe in the Lake, and the young ice broke beneath two 
 sledfulls of freight and necessitated court-cases before any- 
 one would pay the damage. Hotchkiss was publicly con- 
 victed and sent to the cells for a month, on account of a 
 specially-prolonged torture of Mrs. Hotchkiss, and Dick 
 varied the monotony of that month for him by all the
 
 252 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 refinements of unease which discipline allowed. The 
 trackers had come and gone. The yearly Treaty party had 
 passed through from some vague place on the map, and 
 they too had gone. Even the birds had left Grey Wolf 
 before the hunters went to the chilling woods for their 
 long season of silence and labour. Sleighs took the place 
 of wheels, and furs of light coats and uniforms. Tempest 
 had several long journeys on special investigation business, 
 and Dick had much outline work, with or without Ken- 
 nedy's help. Twice he had written to Jennifer; once she 
 had answered just a few sweet, true, simple lines, like 
 herself, and Dick carried them in his breast-pocket with the 
 little picture he had made of her. And, when time allowed 
 him, he painted Andree. 
 
 He had meant to paint a few pictures of her only. To 
 rouse her vanity to a living force and then persuade her 
 to break with Tempest completely. He knew that nothing 
 short of her actual refusal to speak to him or touch him 
 would cure Tempest. How deeply the man loved her he 
 hardly knew. But how terribly her coquetries and her 
 indifference and her occasional half-yieldings were affect- 
 ing him Dick knew well. It was time to stop this thing. 
 He should have stopped it long ago. And yet he did not. 
 An explanation with Tempest would mean a discontinu- 
 ance of those hours which were a sheer delight to the 
 artist in him, and, though this he guessed but vaguely, to 
 more than the artist. 
 
 Dick had that force of spirit which dashed colour and 
 heat on all things which he chose to handle. He had the 
 insight which is brutal in its clarity of interpretation, and 
 he had the sick and restless soul which can never run 
 straight to any goal. All these things made a very good 
 medium through which to paint Grange's Andree, and 
 Grange himself began to take pride in the filling portfolio 
 that stood in the corner of the little back-parlour. That 
 girl-head with the smooth round arms and shoulders came 
 to be a joy to more than Dick. He turned her into an 
 Indian, with hair sleeked down, and olive limbs straight 
 and tall. He made a Greek girl of her, draping her with 
 sheets from Moosta's box. He painted her with hair and 
 dress blown back, hauling on a team of husky dogs brought
 
 "THE FORCE ISN'T A NURSERY' 253 
 
 south by a freighter. He sketched her until he knew every 
 trick of her better than ever he had known Jennifer. Jt 
 was all a pleasure to himself; a half-acid, tormenting pleas- 
 ure, because he knew that it must end very soon, and what 
 it might be for Andree herself he neither knew nor cared. 
 She would do anything he told her to do, and when he 
 forbade her to speak to or to look at Tempest again she 
 would obey. 
 
 But the days went on and he did not do it. They went 
 on and Tempest did not know of it. For it is only natural 
 that the person most concerned in a matter of this sort is 
 the one kept longest in ignorance. But at last, just after 
 Christmas, the day came for Tempest to know. And it 
 was Miss Chubb, innocently forgetful, who told him.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 " IL M'AIME, JE vous DIS " 
 
 Miss CHUBB was kneading bread on the morning when 
 Tempest went over to the Mission on some business and 
 stayed a while in the kitchen to talk. Miss Chubb usually 
 expected it, and produced cake, or apples, or a cup of tea 
 as an offering. And Tempest usually got good medicine 
 out of her real common-sense and cheerful outlook in her 
 cramped life. This morning he had something rather spe- 
 cial to tell her, for the confirmation of his Inspectorship 
 had come up by the last mails, and there would probably 
 be big changes for him before long. 'He explained this to 
 Miss Chubb, sitting back against the kitchen shelf and 
 watching her thin hands glancing and turning in the 
 tin pan. 
 
 Miss Chubb stopped her work abruptly, staring at Tem- 
 pest. There was a smudge of flour on her sandy eye- 
 brow, and it gave the suggestion of a terrier with its ears 
 cocked. 
 
 " You don't say ! " she said. " Well, I do call that 
 fierce." 
 
 " That is not the usual manner in which to convey con- 
 gratulations," suggested Tempest; but he laughed as Miss 
 Chubb went to work again. 
 
 " Why maybe not. But we're not to be congratulated. 
 They didn't make you Inspector to leave you in this little 
 hole, did they?" 
 
 " I can't tell you. It is not likely . I shall be sent 
 somewhere else, I'm " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, but Miss Chubb knew that the 
 end of the sentence would be " I'm afraid." She set her 
 pale lips together. For she knew, too, why Tempest would 
 be afraid to leave Grey Wolf. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " Grey Wolf isn't big enough to 
 stand such style. They'll send you expeditioning some 
 
 254
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 255 
 
 place or cleaning up a post that's let its standard down." 
 She laughed, half-nervously. " You have the name for 
 being a real moral influence where you go." 
 
 Tempest's answering laugh was constrained. 
 
 " I didn't come over here to be abused, Miss Chubb," 
 he said. 
 
 " Why " Miss Chubb proceeded to set out the 
 
 bread-pans with a celerity born of much practice. They 
 did not seem to aid her in her completion of the sen- 
 tence, and she turned to the back door as three black- 
 eyed, black-haired, mahogany-skinned heads thrust them- 
 selves in, whimpering. Then she slammed a pan down in 
 sudden desperation. 
 
 " I wish there were no Saturdays in the week. I cer- 
 tainly do! What has got you children this morning? 
 Some of you have been under my feet all day. What's 
 wrong, Annie? Jane, did you make Pauline cry any 
 more ? " 
 
 The children sidled in, with fingers in mouths and eyes 
 glancing through the elf-locks which Miss Chubb had 
 brushed and plaited into neatness a few hours since. From 
 their whispers, punctuated by covert peeps at Tempest, the 
 fact was elicited that David Mikwas had fallen out of 
 the swing on top of Pauline. Miss Chubb examined 
 bruises; sent the two elder children out again, and gave 
 Pauline a dab of dough to play with. Then she returned 
 to her work with a sigh that seemed to come straight 
 through her thin body from the toes. 
 
 " Mr. Barnes always goes off for the whole day, Sat- 
 urdays," she said. " I don't blame him. I should if I 
 was teaching the alphabet and simple division all week. 
 But those children do choose to have all their accidents 
 on Saturdays, and Miss Hemming isn't much use with 
 them. Pauline's been left here all summer, too, poor little 
 mite. That father of hers ought to do something for her, 
 Sergeant. I I mean " 
 
 " N'ever mind." Tempest laughed. " It's too ew yet, 
 isn't it? Job Kesikaw is her father, Barnes told me. A 
 clever trapper, and he must be making a good living. 
 Doesn't he pay anything for Pauline's up-keep?" 
 
 " Never a penny. And the way he treated Florestine
 
 256 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 was crueL You knew he was married to Pauline's mother 
 first? Well, he was. A good trapper, you call him? I 
 call him a bad lot." 
 
 She slapped the dough into one pan after the other, 
 and set them aside to rise. There was not time for 
 pause in this Mission life of the West. 
 
 " I can't make him pay, you know, Miss Chubb." Tem- 
 pest glanced down at the little brown ball whose chubby 
 fingers were rapidly making the white dough as brown. 
 " But if I come across him I'll see what I can do. On 
 the Reserve, is he ? " 
 
 " Why, I suppose." Miss Chubb scraped the pan with 
 a noisy knife. " He came to see Pauline yesterday, and 
 got a good square meal for nothing. These Indians know 
 how to time their meal-hours. And then he carried off a 
 hunk of pie in his hat. 
 
 Tempest laughed and stood up. 
 
 " I will certainly remind him of that when I see him. 
 Here are some visitors for your bale-room, Miss Chubb. 
 Why it looks like Grange's wife; but I don't know who's 
 driving her -" 
 
 " Oh, dear." Miss Chubb rubbed vigorously at her 
 flour-caked arms. " Thanks be we probably won't wear 
 clothes in Heaven, or I suppose someone* would be set to 
 the distribution job. Yes; it's Moosta. And she'll buy 
 one pinafore, and talk for an hour about those wonderful 
 pictures of Andree." 
 
 "Pictures of Andree?" 
 
 "Why " Miss Chubb looked at him. Then she 
 
 went white. " It's nothing," she said." " Mr. Heriot has 
 been sketching her, as he does everyone else, you know." 
 
 " Oh," said Tempest indifferently. " I see. I just 
 hadn't thought of it." 
 
 He made his good-bye cheerfully, and Miss Chubb never 
 guessed at the suspicion and the fierce jealously which 
 quickened into concrete fear at her words. But she looked 
 after him as the tinkling sleigh slid over the white ground, 
 and her eyes were tender and pitying. 
 
 " There's a good man spoiled," she said. " Unless Dick 
 Heriot has put a spoke in his wheel. And I don't know if 
 that will mend matters much."
 
 IL M'AIME, JE VOUS BIS" 257 
 
 That night Tempest found occasion to go into Grange's 
 back-parlour for the first time. Moosta only was there, 
 among her babies; and, as usual, her English and her 
 comprehension fled before Tempest. But he looked at 
 that face which hung in its dark beauty below the Ma- 
 donna ; and Moosta, in her pride, dragged Dick's port- 
 folio from the corner, and spread it before him. 
 
 "Him s'pose Andree tres jolie/' she said. "Goot, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Very good," assented Tempest, and laid his hands 
 upon those bold, merciless paintings with their alluring 
 dashes of colour and their suggestive tragedies. 
 
 And then he went home, and he did not sleep at all. 
 Dick had interpreted Andree's beauty as even Tempest 
 had never realised it. There were faults, plenty of them, 
 in the workmanship; but the power was undeniable. And 
 Dick had done more, much more. He had shown out the 
 animal side of her terribly, callously, and yet with that 
 strange charm which made men love Andree even when 
 they recoiled from her. Those pictures were clever, cruelly 
 clever. Dick had never done such good work before, and 
 he would not do it again. For not again would he have 
 such a model or such a reason. Tempest threshed from 
 side to side of his bed, burning with a righteous anger 
 and grief. 
 
 Dick was his friend: his friend. And Andree was the 
 woman he loved. And it was Dick who was taking Andree 
 away from him. Dick who had perhaps been doing it all 
 these months. Dick, who had reviled her, laughed at her, 
 urged Tempest to shake himself free of her. Dick, who 
 had held her up to contempt as he now held her up to 
 the unlawful admiration of any man who happened to 
 stray into Grange's back-parlour. Tempest shivered, guess- 
 ing for how many eyes Moosta might have dragged out 
 that portfolio with her placid grins and her " Goot, eh ? " 
 To Tempest in his reverence the thing was an indecency, 
 a profanity, an outrage. His fury against Dick became a 
 live thing through that night; but he said no word to the 
 man because the thought of the woman over-rode all else 
 in his heart. He must get Andree away from this life 
 now, at once. By bribery, by stratagem, by persuasion
 
 258 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 any method would do as long as it took her from Grey 
 Wolf. 
 
 It happened in the next afternoon that Dick found the 
 fat German who had bought Robison's land in the bar, 
 and he stayed so long talking to him of possibilities con- 
 cerning the Canada Home-lot Extension Company, which, 
 as Dick warmly hoped, were now finding themselves baf- 
 fled along this line of extension, that he had no time to 
 spare for Andree. And it was the first day he had been 
 in the hotel that week, too, for he had been chasing a 
 defaulting freighter along the Moon-Dance trail. He went 
 out at last by the back passage, and there Andree stood 
 waiting for him; half-defiant, half-piteous. He took her 
 face between his hands, and her strange, lawless beauty 
 unsteadied him as it had done more than once or twice 
 of late. 
 
 " I will not have you come and not come to me, Dick," 
 she said. " You must speak with me. You must." 
 
 " Do you think I let a girl say must to me, Andree ? " 
 He laughed a little, but he did not move his eyes from 
 her face. " What have you got that red thing round your 
 head for? You look like a Bacchante or a bit like the 
 Fornarina." 
 
 Andree did not know what they were. But she knew 
 how to meet the unwilling admiration in Dick's eyes. 
 Very softly she drew the lids shut with her fingers. Then 
 she said: 
 
 " Your looking does go through me. And I do not 
 understand. And your eyes do hurt, some days. And 
 some days Tempest does make his eyes hurt me too. 
 Why? " 
 
 Dick's opportunities offered often enough. But he 
 would not take them. He would not take this one. 
 
 " How should I know ? Let me open my eyes and see 
 if they'll hurt you this time. Now, what do they say to 
 you ? " 
 
 He was half-laughing, and yet idly curious. And he 
 was not sure that he wanted those eyes interpreted fully 
 just now. 
 
 Andree looked, drawing her delicate brows into a line. 
 Then she pulled his face forward.
 
 259 
 
 " Ah Dick " she said, and met his lips with her 
 
 warm ones. 
 
 He had kissed her a hundred times before; carelessly, 
 or in thoughtless amusement. But the swift passion in 
 those clinging lips thrilled him as anything that Andree 
 said or did had never thrilled him before. He put his 
 hands on her shoulders and kissed her back, twice. Then 
 he let her go, and went down to the barracks with the 
 memory of that first kiss tingling his blood yet. 
 
 Andree flung on her fur cap and her coat, and went out. 
 And as she passed the bar Jimmy reached an arm to catch 
 her waist. 
 
 " Haven't seen you to-day, Andree," he said. 
 "What " 
 
 " Ah diable ! " said Andree, through her teeth, and she 
 boxed his ear with a swinging blow, and ran out. 
 
 Jimmy rubbed his ear, looking after her ruefully. 
 
 " Lord, she's a handful," he said. " I wouldn't want 
 to be the man she chose to settle down wi'." 
 
 Andree fled down the street and along the forest-trail 
 with her eyes bright, and her blood racing in her veins. 
 The keen, sharp air brought the brilliance to her cheeks 
 and quickened her breath, and some vague excitement was 
 driving her. She did not account for it; did not try. She 
 just ran for the joy of running, and the joy of living; 
 skimming over the tramped frozen surface, fleetly and 
 surely as a hare. Then the gladness left her face suddenly, 
 and she stopped, shrugging her shoulders. For Tempest 
 had turned the corner of the trail, and he came to her 
 swiftly. But there was a shiver of superstition in his 
 heart. It was here he had first found Grange's Andree a 
 year ago. Was it here that he was to lose her? He spoke 
 of other things first, to steady himself. Then again he 
 asked her to marry him as he had done so many times 
 before. 
 
 " And I can give you so much now that I am Inspector," 
 he added. " So much that you would enjoy having." 
 
 He knew better now than to plead to Andree for love. 
 That happiness was not for him yet; perhaps not at all. 
 But all his tenderness, all his manhood was struggling for 
 the right to protect and cherish Grange's Andree. She
 
 260 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 pulled her hand from his petulantly, and for the first time 
 there was no shy fear of him in her voice. That kiss of 
 Dick's had lit in her something which Tempest could not 
 quench. She did not know it consciously. She was far too 
 stupid for that. But instinct told her without hesitation or 
 surprise. 
 
 " I do not want to marry you/' she said. 
 
 " But I can give you so much, dear. Think ! A carriage. 
 And pretty dresses. And servants to do as you tell them." 
 
 She pouted, looking away from his tense, earnest face. 
 Neither could see the tragedy of that wooing. To the girl 
 it was merely a tiresome interlude which yet pleased her 
 vanity. To the man it was the swing in the balance of the 
 soul he loved best. 
 
 " I I do not want servants," she said. " I would rather 
 have Dick to paint me." 
 
 For all Tempest's care his voice took a changed note. 
 
 " You won't have Dick long. He will soon find someone 
 else to paint. And then what will you do ? " 
 
 " He no fin' anozzer si belle." Andree flashed round on 
 him. " He say so. Him say me best. Him love me, an' 
 I love him." 
 
 She had no intention of being brutal. She spoke the 
 thing as she believed it, simply and directly. But for a 
 space the man at her side could not answer. Then he said, 
 slowly : 
 
 " Does that mean that you are going to marry him ? " 
 
 She spread her hands out. 
 
 "What matter?" she said. "I suppose. But I do not 
 care for marry. He want me an' I want him. That 
 "nough." 
 
 " You are sure of this, Andree?" 
 
 She did not notice anything in the low, steady voice. 
 
 " Mais certainment," she said. " I do love him." 
 
 " No ! No, you don't. You love me. Me. You want 
 to come to me not to him. Andree ! Andee ! " 
 
 He was holding her by both her arms, and his white face 
 was very near. Unguessed-at defiance rose in her. She 
 held her head back." 
 
 " I love Dick," she cried. " I love Dick ! I love Dick ! " 
 
 He held her, searching the fire in her face and eyes. And
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 261 
 
 he believed it. The immortal thing was there. Born but 
 to die in Andree, perhaps. But it was there. He let her 
 go. 
 
 " I see you do," he said slowly. " I see you do." 
 
 He looked down the white trail whither she had come 
 to him twice. 
 
 " Andree," he cried sharply. " Are you sure that he 
 cares for you ? " 
 
 And then the absurdity of the question struck him. How 
 could Grange's Andree know the heart of a man? How 
 could she know Dick's heart when Tempest, friend of his 
 youth and companion of his manhood, did not know it? 
 But Andree had no doubts. 
 
 She looked at him with bright cheeks and sparkling eyes. 
 Her words had seemed to drive home to her a truth which 
 she had not known. She was exulting in the discovey of 
 something new; something which belonged to her to her 
 very self. 
 
 " Oui," she said violently. " C'est vrai. II m'aime, je 
 vous did. Ah je lui connais." 
 
 For a moment more Tempest looked at her in silence. 
 In the dull track she looked bright and vivid almost as a 
 flame. But he could not ask again for that which Nature 
 and not Andree had denied him. He would never ask for 
 it any more. It was not to be for him to shield her from 
 the dangers which crowded round her careless feet. He 
 could do nothing for her. Nothing. And she needed guid- 
 ance as few creatures of God's earth needed it. And then, 
 for the last time, he took her hand and kissed it. He had 
 never kissed her face. 
 
 " God guard you, Andree," he said, and left her. And 
 along the winter trail she ran and ran, intoxicated with 
 her unreasoning joy. 
 
 Dick opened the front door of the barracks to Tempest, 
 and his voice was quick and eager. 
 
 " Watson is starting to-night instead of to-morrow morn- 
 ing," he said. " Can we get those permit-papers filed to 
 send out with him ? " 
 
 Through the open kitchen and up the passage the red 
 of the winter sunset flooded up behind him, striking his 
 outline tall and black and strong. His voice was strong,
 
 262 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 and the brown hand shut on the papers was strong. Tem- 
 pest looked at him, feeling the vigour and virility in him, 
 and in one blinding flash, realisation leapt to him. It was 
 Dick who had done this thing to him. Dick, his friend, 
 who had done it knowingly, secretly, wilfully. 
 
 He went giddy for a moment, and put his hand on the 
 wall. Then he thrust past, speaking thickly. 
 
 " No," he said. " Leave them." And he walked into 
 the office, and turned the key on himself. 
 
 The yellow and egg-shell blue went out of the sky. Dick 
 went upstairs, whistling, to pack his kit for a three-days' 
 trip to Lower Landing. Light drew back from the zenith, 
 leaving it naked to the stars, and across the river the dark 
 pine-forest settled into night. 
 
 But the night of the soul was on Tempest in the little 
 bare, cold office where 'he sat still, staring at the wall. All 
 round him were the maps, the blue books, the filed memo- 
 randa, the pencils, pens and rulers of his work. He had 
 come back to that work as Dick would have gone in like 
 case to the forest. Come back, blindly, unconsciously, that 
 it might help him through with his pain; that work which 
 had once meant most of all to him ; that work which he had 
 forsaken for a personal and private love, and which had its 
 grip on all his fibres still. It reproached him now; cruelly 
 and bitterly. It mocked at him, asking what life had given 
 him in place of it. A friend? Aye; a friend who had 
 faced death with him, and had now delivered him to worse 
 than death. A woman to love? Yes, and his right to love 
 her was taken from him, and his prayer that he might 
 guard her denied. 
 
 Twice Poley came to the door, intimating the advisabil- 
 ity of meals. But Tempest had one answer only for him. 
 
 " I cannot be disturbed. I am busy," he said, and went 
 on sitting motionless in his chair and staring at the hazy 
 maps on the wall. Later he heard Dick and Kennedy 
 going to bed in the room at the head of the stairs. Dick 
 was in a wild and reckless mood, and Kennedy's bellowing 
 laugh broke loose in strangled sputters more than once. 
 Then night and stillness dropped on Grey Wolf, and still 
 Tempest sat in his chair, staring at the wall. 
 
 A man had once said of Tempest that he had reduced
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 263 
 
 religion and philosophy to 2 satisfactory working basis by 
 fusing in himself the physical and spiritual elements until 
 the whole was a sound leaven. This was somewhat true, 
 and because of it Tempest suffered rather more than an 
 ordinary man might do. For he could not blindly blame 
 the universe and his God and the other man, and so excul- 
 pate himself. Like one of an earlier day he had set out 
 to build a tower to Heaven and had digged a pit for his 
 own feet instead. He had betrayed his work even as Dick 
 had betrayed him, and he dared not call Dick the most 
 guilty. 
 
 Beside him on the desk lay an unfinished report. It 
 should have gone down with to-day's mail, even as those 
 other papers 'should have gone. On the floor under the 
 window were an unopened pile of official envelopes and 
 three text-books with the pages uncut. Down at Pitcher 
 Portage Randal was waiting to see him in regard to some 
 trouble with the breeds there. He had been waiting more 
 than a month. These were a handful of things only. Tem- 
 pest knew the multitude that bore witness against him. 
 
 Very still he sat, and faced the array of them as they 
 trod past him through the night. And faced also the mer- 
 ciless, never-ending problem of life. Why should duty and 
 desire clash for ever? Why should spirit and flesh be 
 constantly at war? Why should a man's knowledge of his 
 own sin not render him more merciful towards the sins of 
 others? Tempest knew well the need for fight in the hu- 
 man soul. He knew that stagnation is a bitterer, because 
 a more final, thing than the beating out of a heart in foam 
 upon the rocks. But he knew also that a man's duty lies 
 neither on the rocks nor in the backwater, but down the 
 steady, strenuous, sanely direct stream of Life. 
 
 Tempest had dropped into a backwater to please him- 
 self with his private loves and desires. And now he was 
 on the rocks. He knew it, and because the pain in him 
 would not let him be he stayed there, bruising his spirit 
 and beating it with rods. For he could not forgive Dick; 
 he could not let Andree go, and he could not take up his 
 life again. And he understood that, as a man, as an im- 
 mortal soul, as the one firm human link between Time and 
 Eternity, he must do all three.
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 The lamp on the desk burned low and went out, leaving 
 an evil smell of smoke and kerosine. Down the side street 
 among the naked cotton-woods a starved Indian dog was 
 yelping to the sky his qualifications for a canine heaven 
 through his eternal purging away of all the fleshly joys. 
 Insensibly that dog, emblem of his race, obtruded himself 
 on Tempest's thought. Unfed, cursed and kicked the 
 summer through; strapped into the traces all the winter; 
 harness-galled, sore-footed, strained by the dragging of 
 interminable sledges, it yet had the unflagging heart which 
 did not fail, the warm tongue for its master's hand, the 
 ready and obedient ear for his voice. Tempest bowed his 
 head down in his hands and thought that matter out. In 
 some way it made his own conduct seem less excusable, 
 less righteous. 
 
 Through long hours of struggle and wordless prayer 
 Tempest won back to himself his belief in mankind. Dick 
 had not betrayed him. He had been called by Nature even 
 as Tempest himself, and the strain in the man's eyes and 
 voice, and the thinner lines of his big body bore witness 
 that he had recognised Tempest's prior right and had at- 
 tempted to yield to it. It was Tempest who had sinned in 
 doubting his friend. It was Tempest who had judged an- 
 other man unheard. It was Tempest who had no right, no 
 choice. Tempest who must tread the barren trail of duty, 
 leaving the younger man free to love. 
 
 He sprang up, walking the room with his light rapid 
 steps. This thing had gone beyond him. The sacrifice 
 was his to make, whether he would or no. It only re- 
 mained for him to make it manfully, ungrudgingly, gal- 
 lantly, believing that when the great day of understanding 
 came he would be glad of it. 
 
 But he loved Andree well, and the other man was his 
 friend. And he was human as all strong men of flesh and 
 blood and temper are human. Morning caught him walk- 
 ing still, with his fight half-fought and the future yet dim 
 and cold before him. For he loved Andree. He loved her 
 at this moment better than his God; and it was his friend 
 who had taken her from him. 
 
 For Tempest the next day was filled with the ordinary 
 routine of the post. There was the inspection of the bar-
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 265 
 
 racks, of the stables, of the prisoners. There were com- 
 plaints to listen to from one and rebukes to be adminis- 
 tered to another. There was a consultation with Poley 
 concerning the amount of food consumed in the cells and 
 in the mess-room; there were orders to give to Kennedy 
 and to Dick. And there were the dull hours of clerical 
 work; checking accounts, formulating reports; examining 
 receipts and bills from the Hudson Bay on orders drawn 
 in favour of some Indian perhaps six months back and 
 six hundred miles away. These latter often necessitated 
 the turning up of old diaries and note-books, and usually 
 Tempest called in Dick to aid him here. 
 
 But he could not bear those keen eyes and that assertive 
 presence to-day. He sent Dick out to investigate the com- 
 plaint of a settler who had missed two sacks of oats from 
 his barn, and he ground his way through his labours alone, 
 with Kennedy doing his prisoner-patrol in the back-yard, 
 and Poley whistling unmusically as he clumsily handled 
 his pans and kettles in the kitchen. 
 
 Poley was of the breed of whom it is said that they 
 " come from the Devil knows where, and are bound for 
 the same place." Some under-tug of his life had beached 
 him to Grey Wolf, and a curious grumbling love for Tem- 
 pest had kept him there. He rolled up the passage now, 
 and hammered on Tempest's door with his foot, his hands 
 being otherwise occupied. Tempest halted his pen on a 
 long column of figures to bid him enter, and Poley ap- 
 peared, balancing a bowl of steaming soup on a square 
 lump of bread. He had not treated Tempest with added 
 deference since his promotion because, having predicted it 
 for so long, he naturally took much of the credit of its oc- 
 currence to himself. 
 
 " Ye had no supper las' night," he said, and put the 
 bowl down on the table. " Ner yer didn't sleep any, I 
 guess. Where are yer at, Inspector? That sort o' game 
 kin put a man away quicker'n anything. Now, you go 
 right ahead an' git outsider that, for I'll bet yer breakfus' 
 ain't lef yer wi' much to yer." 
 
 Tempest looked up at the red, rough old face, and the 
 rheumy blue eyes. A long, lonely life had not soured the 
 milk of human kindness in Poley, and this knowledge hap-
 
 266 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 pened to be the very thing needful for Tempest just now. 
 
 He accepted both the votive and the hidden offerings 
 gratefuly, and he did not pour the soup from the window 
 nor scatter the bread to the few hungry birds until Po- 
 ley's harsh piping whistle was raised in the kitchen quar- 
 ters again. And when he settled back to his work the 
 cloud on his face was lightened. Although it had only 
 made a yellow-ochre patch in the snow outside, Poley's 
 soup had strengthened Tempest's heart quite as fully as 
 the old man ever intended it to strengthen his stomach. 
 
 It was still evening, with a red sun dropping through a 
 clear sky when Dick came into make his report. He was 
 cold and invigorated and cheerful, and he struck, more 
 strongly than usual, the life-note which Tempest felt to be 
 slackening in himself. And yet in him it had once been 
 the strongest. 
 
 Dick gave his report succinctly, standing tall against 
 the window-light. 
 
 "Morgan missed those sacks yesterday morning," he 
 said. " But of course he thought to-day time enough to 
 let us know, after they had churned the snow up all round 
 in order to obliterate all they might want to find out. For- 
 tunately they hadn't gone beyond the place where they 
 water the horses, and I tracked my man through there, and 
 followed up to that Cree camp at Dog Point. There I 
 found the corner of a new burnt sack being chewed by a 
 gidde, and an old horse belonging to Double-Toed Pigeon 
 which looked as if he had lately been assisting at a blow- 
 out. They didn't want to tell me anything about it." He 
 paused a moment. " The man is Job Kesikaw down at 
 the Reserve." 
 
 " Oh, well, I was wanting to see the man myself." A 
 sudden impulse came over Tempest; a sudden warmth 
 towards the man opposite. " I'll go down with you after 
 supper," he said. " It's full moon. Tell Poley he can put 
 it forward a little, but not too much, and I'll have mine 
 here to save time. But I have to see Holland first. He 
 was complaining about the man who is renting his river- 
 lot" 
 
 Dick gave the order to Poley, and flung himself into the 
 big chair in the mess-room to doze and warm himself until
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 267 
 
 supper came in. Something in Tempest's voice made him 
 uneasy, and brought up sternly in his mind again the 
 knowledge which he had been avoiding with all his strength. 
 He faced that knowledge to-night in his usual clear-sight- 
 edness, and it made him wince. 
 
 He had gone into this game with Andree in the primal 
 direct motive of taking her from Tempest since he could 
 not take Tempest from her. He had lost sight of that 
 motive long since. His primal idea now was to amuse 
 himself. He did not love Andree. Jennifer had all his 
 heart, and she always would have it. But Andree's beauty 
 attracted him, and her wild spirit struck a flame from the 
 like thing in himself. He did not love Andree, but he was 
 losing Jennifer for her. She was dulling memory of Jen- 
 nifer's pure high thoughts and words. He had not writ- 
 ten to Jennifer lately, and well he knew why. And An- 
 dree was losing him Tempest. She was destroying in him 
 the power to say to Tempest, " I did this for you alone." 
 She was destroying in him the power to help Tempest 
 along that road which he should travel, and, by so doing, 
 it might be that Tempest would never take that road. He 
 knew Tempest's nature so well. That fine, nervous, excit- 
 able temperament could be so easily broken by certain 
 things ; so easily battered down on its knees. Dick did not 
 believe that Tempest would ever go lower than his knees. 
 But he would stay there, bowing his head in his repent- 
 ance. He would take the lower place for ever, when Na- 
 ture and the world ordained him for the higher. 
 
 And Dick was daily stripping from himself the right to 
 help Tempest to take that higher place. He was doing 
 more. He was prolonging the torment which he had set 
 out to end. Any time in the last three months he could 
 have brought this to a crisis for Tempest. Any time be- 
 fore the last month perhaps the last six weeks, he could 
 have said honestly to Tempest, " I am doing this for you." 
 He could not say that now. He was afraid to tell Tem- 
 pest now, because there were no honest words which he 
 could use. He was dishonourable; a traitor to his friend, 
 and he knew it. And yet self had sapped the will in him 
 for so long that he coiild not resist it. Jennifer and Tem- 
 pest meant many thousand times more to him than An-
 
 268 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 tlnr's kisses. But he would not forego those kisses. Al- 
 most he felt that he could not. He did not blind himself 
 here. He had deliberately slacked in himself the forces 
 which would have fought for him against temptation, and 
 now he had to suffer for it. And he did suffer. He had 
 been so eager to do what seemed to him one of the real un- 
 selfish things of his life, for he had known that he might 
 lose Tempest's friendship through it. He had known that 
 Jennifer might hear garbled tales. 
 
 Well, he would lose Tempest's friendship when Tem- 
 pest found out. And Jennifer might hear tales and he 
 could not deny them. He smiled in that bitter humour 
 which seldom forsook him. He had tried to play the hon- 
 est man; the unselfish friend. In his hands it had turned 
 to this already, and what it might turn to in the future he 
 did not care to think. But, as had happened to him so 
 many times in his life, he had seen the good all the way 
 through, and had done the wrong. 
 
 Poley came in clattering with the lamp and the tray, 
 and Dick got up and went to his room. Kennedy was 
 there, writing a letter with stiff, cold fingers. He looked 
 up with his ruddy boyish face perplexed. 
 
 " How do you spell niece? " he asked. 
 
 Dick gave the information. Then he looked at the lad. 
 Kennedy was such a frank-hearted, honest fellow, and he 
 hoped that none of the hottest fires of life would ever sear 
 him. 
 
 "Whose niece is she, Kennedy?" he asked. But Ken- 
 nedy's brow was calm. 
 
 " My own," he said. " I've got a married sister. I sent 
 the kiddie a Christmas present from her Uncle Jack. My, 
 I just know how her eyes'll stick out when she gets it." 
 
 Dick left him chewing his pen-handle and chuckling, 
 and ran down again. From his own room Tempest heard 
 him pass along the passage, and he halted a moment in the 
 putting on of his riding gear. His eyes were dark with 
 the struggle that had grown more fierce in Dick's pres- 
 ence. He had not won out yet. For all his knowledge, all 
 his training, all his belief, all his strength he had not yet 
 won the staying point. Because the staying point needs 
 such infinitely deeper anchorage than the arriving point,
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 269 
 
 by reason of the constant ebb and flow of a man's will. 
 
 The night was silver-white where a full moon flooded 
 the earth, and the keen crystal air seemed to prickle like 
 champagne. Over the hard snow along these beaten trails 
 the horses swung easily, and the men rode side by side, 
 speaking little. For each man his own thoughts were full 
 enough company. On the edge of the moonlight the first 
 shacks of the Reserve showed, low and darkly. Naked 
 scrub and undergrowth made scratchy shadows to the very 
 doors, and like shadows too, a handful of Indian dogs 
 flicked out, leaping and barking and rolling in the snow. 
 A sore-withered pony raised its head; then returned to its 
 investigations among the bare twigs, and where a red fire 
 darkened the forest to ink a few women moved with the 
 light trembling on their black hair and eyes and dull stuff 
 dresses. For, to the partially civilised Indian woman, 
 bright colours are a reproach. They make her appear 
 " too Indian." 
 
 Not many men stayed on the Reserve through the win- 
 ter. But Christmas had brought some of them in, and 
 among those Dick expected to find Job Kesikaw. They 
 halted by the woman, and Clouds-of-Sunrise glanced up 
 from her work of spitting moose-meat on sharp sticks for 
 the roasting, and her broad, high-boned face was lit with 
 humour. 
 
 " Had no meat for t'e veek," she said. " I vas s'pose 
 some men come eat it up for us ! " 
 
 " Why," said Dick, " what have Peter and Mike and 
 Eusta been doing? All at the hunting, eh? And wouldn't 
 Eusta take you this time ? " 
 
 Clouds-of-Morning had been at the Mission School long 
 enough to understand more English than she spoke. She, 
 giggling, looking on the other women who stood about in 
 beaming approval. 
 
 " All to hunt," she said. " Akonaqui kill him." 
 
 She pointed from a girl with the lean, eager face of a 
 hunter to the moose-meat, and the women grunted their 
 acquiescence, watching the white men with the giggles 
 and rallying coquetry of a company of school-girls. 
 
 " Our man's not here," said Tempest underbreath, and 
 Dick nodded.
 
 270 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " We'll find him at Sebompa's, I expect/' he said, and 
 they rode on; taking the narrow twisting trails through 
 the white woods with accurate knowledge of their intrica- 
 cies; hearing Indian talk that carried far through the si- 
 lence, and seeing, all about, the winking lights of the fires 
 outside the shacks and tepees. In a trail they passed an 
 old Indian, bent double, and stumbling over the snow by 
 help of a stick. His tall son strode beside him, dragging 
 a hand-sled, and both greeted the Policemen with the 
 frankness of men who know their friends. Tempest halted, 
 speaking in his broken Cree-French. 
 
 " Is Tommy Joseph hunting this season, Selok ? " he 
 asked, and the old man groaned, swaying his shaggy head 
 until the white hair covered his face. 
 
 The son looked his disapproval. Tommy Joseph was 
 own brother to him, but that was no reason why his father 
 should show emotion. 
 
 " Him seeck away to Chipewyan," he said. " Go die 
 soon, me t'ink." 
 
 "What made him sick?" asked Tempest, and the old 
 man groaned again. 
 
 " Him chase Job Kesikaw in canoe. Git in brule upset. 
 Too col'. Seek in 'tomach. Goo'bye." 
 
 " Where is Job Kesikaw ? " asked Dick idly. 
 
 "No can tell. Some place roun' 'bout." The young 
 man spread his hands to the universe. " No talk wit* 
 heem." 
 
 Lights grew closer as they followed that winding trail. 
 In all that great Reserve, where each of the wild men can 
 live his own wild life unmolested if he so desire, there were 
 some who desired the contact of their fellows; making a 
 scattered village, built without method or meaning of any 
 sort, along the throat of a coulee where little running 
 streams gave water in the summer and the high walls made 
 a natural corral for the horses. Out of the dark, away 
 from the distant blinking lights that spelt homes, Dick 
 and Tempest rode up the coulee where the knots of shacks 
 and tepees thickened; where the half-savage dogs swarmed 
 noisily around them, and the camp-fires were big and lurid, 
 shooting tongues of flame against the sky. 
 
 Men were here in numbers; smoking lazily about the*
 
 "IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 271 
 
 fires, or working until the busy women round the pots and 
 spits, where meat sizzled, should call them to feed. Chil- 
 dren ran about clad in furs or in thick long-trousered or 
 long-frocked garments from Miss Chubb's bale-room. One 
 fat yellow-brown urchin, in a skin shirt and scanty 
 drawers, anchored by one suspender, stood sheer in the 
 firelight and spat at them. A hand of correction reached 
 out of the dark, and withdrew him bodily, and after-sounds 
 told that reproof had not stopped there. The men of the 
 North-West Mounted Police understood that they were 
 herewith greeted as friends. 
 
 On the Grey Wolf Reserve were chiefly Crees and Bea- 
 vers who accepted the white man's protection and took 
 Treaty payments to prove it. But there were some breeds 
 also who had reverted to the call of the Indian blood which 
 was in them, and it was among the latter that Job Kesikaw 
 was rated. In the eternally-shifting crowds along the 
 river-ways Dick and Tempest had probably seen Job more 
 than once; but he was one of the weed-rack of earth, drift- 
 ing ever. 
 
 " And I've never located him yet," said Dick to his brain, 
 and ran his quick eye round the half-seen groups. " And 
 fancy the description I've got from old The-Back-of-To- 
 morrow won't help me at all." 
 
 He went over that description internally. It suggested 
 Job as a stocky, clumsy man of middle height; bull-necked 
 and bull-strong; sinewed like a wolf, and with the eyes 
 of a wolf; dark as the earth where the moss grows, and 
 cunning, and greasily fat. 
 
 There were at least ten men within sight who filled that 
 picture, line on line. One was lacing the corded sinews 
 through a half-made snowshoe with his heavy face intent 
 on the crossing of each mesh. Two more, on their knees 
 by the fire, were charring lengths of pliant green wood 
 into the angles of sled-runners. Yet another sliced raw 
 moose-hide into slender strips for tie or snowshoe thongs. 
 Sheer in the fire-glow a young muscular breed was pegging 
 out the skin of a wolverine on a flat board. He grinned at 
 Dick in swift delight. 
 
 " Huh ! You Carcajou," he said. " You no git you man 
 kill, is it not?"
 
 372 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick recognised this reference to Robison whom a se- 
 vere attack of pneumonia had so far salvaged from the 
 gallows. He slid out of the saddle, and shook hands with 
 the breed cheerfully. 
 
 " Aha/' he said. " Him gone sick. But by-an'-bye him 
 get well again. Then they punish him down in Fort Sas- 
 katchewan, Beaver Tail." 
 
 He was looking on the other men as he spoke, and across 
 the face of him who sliced the moose-hide he saw fear flicker 
 and darken. An almost imperceptible motion of his hand 
 brought Tempest to the ground also, and then Dick went 
 on with his salutations. 
 
 Many of the men were known to him, and he shook 
 hands with each, asking the names of those he did not 
 know. The breeds were laughing, entering into the game 
 with the joyousness of children, and at the cooking-fires 
 where the smell of meat was thick and warm, women 
 halted in their labours, watching the two clean-run white 
 men in their close uniforms with admiring curiosity. 
 
 Dick stopped before the man whose hands were red and 
 greasy with the hide. 
 
 " I guess I'm the friend of all here," he said, and held 
 his hand out. " But I don't know your name, my friend." 
 
 Someone piped it out. And then Job Kesikaw, thrust- 
 ing out his paw reluctantly, felt himself seized in a sud- 
 den trap-like grip, and heard the new note in Dick's 
 voice. 
 
 " I want you, Job Kesikaw," he said, and Job sprang 
 back, jerking free with the full weight of his body. 
 
 Dick's grasp was strong, but the greasy hand slid from 
 it. Job turned and dived into the darkness, whipping up 
 his rifle as he fled. And into the dark, close on his heels, 
 leapt Dick and Tempest. 
 
 " Wah ! Wah ! " said Beaver Tail, astonished and inter- 
 ested. The men around him grunted; looked at each other 
 doubtfully for a little space, and then fell to their work 
 again. 
 
 Principally they were amazed at the audacity of Job in 
 defying the Big Law. Partly they were amused and con- 
 temptuous; and partly, in virtuous knowledge of their own 
 presumably clean sheets, they arraigned him mercilessly in
 
 ^IL M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 273 
 
 that he had brought himself under the terror of that law. 
 
 " Him done some dam follishness, me s'pose," said 
 Beaver Tail, laying the pegged skin aside. " Huh ! What 
 him want run from Carcajou, anyway? T'ink him no 
 catch ? Huh ! " 
 
 " Huh ! " said the chorus of derision out of the dark, and 
 appeared to lose outward interest in the fate of Job. 
 
 Ahead of the two men, through the forest, Job's prog- 
 ress seemed to make the dark roar with sound. Sticks 
 snapped, and crashed; branches whipped back as the great 
 body hurled itself through them and the white men fol- 
 lowed; catching the slashing twigs across their faces; 
 stabbed by a broken stick; stumbling, jumping, climbing, 
 pushing ever through the tangling growth, burst apart by 
 the man ahead, and clogged by the soft snow. 
 
 Job was evilly fat and short of wind. The white men 
 were muscle-hard and lean with the strenuous work of the 
 summer. Job heard them gaining, and in a clearing where 
 the white moon light was sharp on the white ground, he 
 halted, turned, and flung his rifle up. Dick heard the 
 bullet whistle as he ducked, still running. He heard the 
 trigger click again ; and then Tempest's weight bore on him, 
 swinging him aside, and Tempest fired, even in the moment 
 when he fell. 
 
 Dick had no time to understand that Tempest had pos- 
 sibly given one life to save the other. He scrambled up, 
 feeling the sandy snow grit in his ungloved hands, and 
 rushed in on Job without taking breath. Job's trigger- 
 arm swung loose from the elbow, and Dick was glad. He 
 looked on the big man sitting in the snow and crying like a 
 frightened baby, and then he looked on the other man ly- 
 ing still in the moonlight. 
 
 " I fancy you'll wait till I'm ready to strap that," he 
 said, and ran over to Tempest's side. 
 
 How or when he knew it he could not tell. But he un- 
 derstood why Tempest had taken the bullet which should 
 have been his. Tempest knew this thing which Dick had 
 done to him ; and because Dick had exacted the sacrifice of 
 his love, Tempest, following Biblical methods, had offered 
 his life also. Not even in the first moment did he do Tem- 
 pest the dishonour of thinking that he had sought a way
 
 274 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 for himself out of this trouble. He knew the spirit of the 
 man too well for that. And he knew also that, if Tempest 
 lived, the thing which he had to say to him was going to be 
 infinitely more terrible than he had expected it to be. 
 
 There was blood on Tempest's face and in his hair. 
 Dick wiped it off and found the bullet-graze on the temple 
 which had stunned him. He sat back with a breath of re- 
 lief and pulled out his flask. It was empty, as it had 
 been too many times of late, and Dick felt the burn of 
 shame as he tilted it. Tempest had no flask, and so Dick 
 flung snow over the still face; softening it first by the 
 warmth of his hands. Presently Tempest shivered, feel- 
 ing the icy air strike into him. Across the snow Job was 
 wailing and shuddering with chattering teeth. Then Tem- 
 pest sat up with Dick's aid; sick and giddy, and stupidly 
 feeling the blood than ran on his face. He seemed fully 
 as ashamed as Dick himself of the thing which he had 
 done; and, by consent, both ignored causes and spoke 
 only of effects as Dick washed the skin round the wound 
 and bound it up with torn handkerchiefs. He had to use 
 a piece of his shirt when he came to Job, and the man 
 wept aloud at the stout and effective tournoquet, and at the 
 winding of the broken limb into a hastily-stripped cradle 
 of birch-bark. 
 
 " I guess you've lost enough blood to cool that courage 
 of yours," remarked Dick, dragging him up to his feet. 
 " Now, show us the way back to camp. You should know 
 these trails better than I do." 
 
 Both Dick's patients were staggering with weakness 
 when they reached the camp, and it was an hour later when 
 they took the trail to Grey Wolf; Tempest riding a little 
 behind, silent, and somewhat giddy still, and Dick two 
 yards ahead, with Job Kesikaw on the lame Indian pony 
 at his knee. The moon was gone, but, for the first time in 
 several months, the Northern Lights pulsed in the sky, 
 in long direct streamers, lividly-blue and pure. They 
 hung the forest-trees with a dim, unearthly sheen, and in 
 the light of it Dick saw the night animals pass and pass 
 again, without sound. There was little pleasure to Dick 
 in that ride home. He was thinking grimly of what would 
 have to be said on the morrow. But over Tempest a curi-
 
 "IJ, M'AIME, JE VOUS DIS " 275 
 
 ous hush and a deep content had descended. He could 
 forgive now. He could forgive, because he had given 
 Dick's life back to him, and in so doing he had given him 
 all else. 
 
 Cheerfully, with eyes bright and head up, he rode home. 
 For all his strength and love he was fitting himself to 
 bring that offering which the other man having demanded 
 and obtained of him must throw away.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 '' THE THIEF ON THE LEFT " 
 
 DICK!" 
 
 Tempest called from his bed-room ; the little room behind 
 the little sitting room which Dick had seldom entered. But 
 Dick came to the door now, standing still, with his lips 
 drawn into a peculiar smile. 
 
 " Well ? " he said, and Tempest turned from the dressing- 
 table. 
 
 " Come in, and shut the door, old man/' he said. And 
 Dick came in. His chance to explain this matter, con- 
 vincingly and pleasantly, was for now. 
 
 Except for a square of black plaster above the sun- 
 burnt line across his temple, Tempest showed no signs 
 of last night's happenings. His voice was warm and 
 strong, and his eyes smiled. 
 
 " You've had a busy day," he said. " But I haven't 
 been idle, either. About half a dozen fellows have come 
 in for moral support of some kind." 
 
 " Yes ? You will always find plenty who will tie up to 
 you for repairs." 
 
 " Except you." Tempest shifted the brushes on the 
 dressing-table slowly. " You've gone your own pernicious 
 way, you old sinner, while if you'd had the honesty to 
 speak to me, there'd have been no need for all this." 
 
 Even the cynicism ingrained in him could not help Dick 
 just now. He loved Tempest too well. 
 
 " I had forgotten that men expected honesty from me," 
 he said. " What is it? " 
 
 " Andree has told me," said Tempest quietly. " That 
 was enough. And I saw those paintings of yours if I had 
 needed more proof. I would have wished you hadn't done 
 them. But you probably didn't guess that they would be 
 made public. She's not mine to give up, now. But I want 
 you to know that if she was I could give her up to you, 
 
 276
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 277 
 
 Dick. Only for God's sake take care of her, for she 
 doesn't know the meaning of life yet." 
 
 His voice was low and steady. The ring of it told Dick 
 that Tempest had turned his face to the heights again, and 
 that it was for himself to call the man back into a hell 
 which he did not care to think of. 
 
 " You've put up a good fight," said Tempest, and he 
 suddenly lifted his eyes and smiled. " Don't think I 
 haven't noticed what you've looked like lately. But na- 
 ture has been too strong for you both and all a man in my 
 position can do is to give way gracefully. I hope I can 
 do that. I've got my work and I've got my friend. So 
 you can go into action with a clear conscience, old man," 
 he added, and held his hand out. 
 
 Dick did not take it. He backed away with his face 
 white. 
 
 " You're all wrong," he said slowly. " I don't want 
 her." 
 
 Tempest's eyes were shining and over his whole body 
 glowed that something which made Dick remember the 
 idiotic girl and the Sun-treader. 
 
 " There's no need of lies between you and I, Dick," he 
 said gently. 
 
 " It is not a lie." Dick moistened his lips and flung 
 out the words savagely. " She was ruining your life and 
 she had to come out of it. So I took her out of it. You'll 
 never get her again. But I don't want her. I never did 
 want her. But she was ruining you." 
 
 The bald brutality of each word struck him as he spoke 
 it. But the thing had to be said, and no words conceived 
 by man could soften it. And therefore he did not try. 
 Tempest looked at him. His face was blank, like that of 
 a man in sleep. 
 
 " Will you please say that again all of it? " he said 
 slowly. 
 
 Dick said it again. He said it in the same words 
 because they seemed to ring in the air yet. And 
 besides, there were no others. Tempest gave a little 
 sigh. His hand strayed among the brushes on the 
 dressing-table. 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't understand," he said. " There's no
 
 278 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 need for this. I have told you that I don't mean to be a 
 barrier to your marriage." 
 
 " I am not going to marry her/' said Dick. 
 
 The life came back to Tempest's face in one white ter- 
 rible flash. 
 
 " What do you mean by that?" he said. 
 
 " What I say. She is not fit for you. I told you so 
 long ago. Now I have proved it." 
 
 " Proved it? " 
 
 " She is nothing," said Dick. " I could do what I 
 liked with her. So could any man who took the trouble 
 to flatter her. She is just that!" 
 
 He snapped his fingers, looking straight at the man op- 
 posite. This was not at all the way in which he had meant 
 to speak. But softer words were too foreign to him. 
 They would not come. 
 
 " You say you have proved it." Tempest's mind tra- 
 velled slowly through this blinding fire. " How have you 
 proved it? " 
 
 " Before God, Tempest " 
 
 "Leave God out. How have you proved it? " 
 
 " I have flattered her. That was bait enough to take her 
 from you. She never loved you, and she doesn't love me. 
 She loves nothing but her own selfish body she hasn't got 
 a soul." 
 
 " You said you could do what you liked with her. What 
 have you liked to do ? " 
 
 The tone was perfectly level, but there was a thread in 
 it which thrilled Dick. Had he saved this soul for which 
 he had soiled his own, or were they both going down pres- 
 ently together into the night? 
 
 " I have kissed her," said Dick. " That is all. I didn't 
 care to do more or I could have done it." 
 
 " You didn't care to do more." Tempest looked away 
 at the glass; did not seem to recognise the face reflected 
 there, and looked away again. " Why did you not care 
 to do more? " he asked. 
 
 Dick's self-control was breaking. 
 
 ' Because I'm not such a brute as you try to make me 
 out," he said. " I meant to save you. That's why."
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT " 279 
 
 " To save me ? " Tempest's laugh was a queer little 
 catch in the throat. " To save me ! " 
 
 " She has broken up other men before she ever saw you, 
 and she will keep on doing it. Once you're free of her 
 and see her as other men see her " 
 
 " You mean as men like you have caused other men to 
 see her! " 
 
 The white flame leapt out in Tempest's voice for an in- 
 stant. Then it died. Dick breathed unevenly. Tempest 
 said: 
 
 " What had she done to you? " 
 
 " I tell you she was spoiling your " 
 
 " That was my affair. What had the child done to you 
 that you should do this to her? " 
 
 The ring of pain in the words turned Dick weak for a 
 breath. This man was treading where he could never fol- 
 low. The insult to himself; the cold brutality of deed and 
 word ; the reason which now seemed no more than imperti- 
 nent interference Tempest had passed them all by in his 
 protecting thought for Andree. 
 
 " I have done nothing to her." Dick's voice was low. 
 " One could not hurt her except physically." 
 
 For a little space Tempest was silent. But Dick felt 
 the force gathering behind that silence. He looked at the 
 photographs of Tempest's mother and sisters on the wall, 
 and at the picture of Tempest's old home in Ontario where 
 he had spent so many holidays in his boyhood. 
 
 " She loves you," said Tempest at last. " Won't you 
 take that into account, and remember her needs ? " 
 
 " Your own love has blinded you there, Tempest. She 
 does not love me. She is incapable of love. And she does 
 not matter. It is only you who matter." 
 
 " She loves you. And you have taken the guarding of 
 her life out of my hands into your own. There is no god 
 nor devil can make you anything but responsible for that. 
 At the first I think she could have cared but perhaps 
 you were at work even then. What are you going to do 
 about it now ? " 
 
 Dick moistened his lips. Fury, such as was common to 
 most men occasionally, which could expend itself in word
 
 280 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 and movement, was an infinitely lesser thing than this ter- 
 rible stillness. 
 
 " I am not going to do anything. There is nothing to 
 do. I have done too much, and I am not here to excuse 
 myself. But it was necessary " 
 
 " She has no one. And she loves you. Do you think I 
 could mistake there? Won't you have mercy on her be- 
 cause of that? " 
 
 He was pleading for a soul dearer to him than his own. 
 Dick knew it; and knew too how that proud self which 
 Tempest was now trampling in the dust would wake pres- 
 ently to recognise its hurt. 
 
 " I can have no more mercy on her than to leave her 
 alone. I give you my word that I will do that. But I 
 can't do more. If I could make you understand that it had 
 to be done you were ruining your life " 
 
 Tempest's face was rigid, even to the eyes. 
 
 " What is that to you ? " he said. " You who ruined 
 your own life long ago? What has my life to do with you? 
 How dared you interfere with my life? " 
 
 " Because I cared for you " 
 
 " You liar ! " Tempest's low level tones did not change. 
 " You did it because you cared for your own amusement. 
 You did it because, as I was your friend, you knew that 
 you could have your fun and I would never suspect. You 
 did it because you do not know how to live an honest and 
 honourable life. And then you shield yourself behind me. 
 What has my life to do with you? I am responsible to my 
 God for it not to you." 
 
 He stood very still, with his hand on the table, and his 
 eyes never left Dick's face. Dick was whiter than Tem- 
 pest, because there was no anger in him to harden him; 
 only a deep grief for himself and for this man. 
 
 " Your life means a great deal to me, Tempest. And 
 to Canada " 
 
 "Ah? To Canada also?" The little sneer was not 
 like Tempest. " That is complimentary, perhaps, but not 
 convincing." 
 
 " Upon my honour " 
 
 " Again complimentary, but not convincing," said Tem- 
 pest.
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT " 281 
 
 This stung Dick into action. He moved forward a 
 step, and the colour came back to his face. 
 
 " Whether you like or don't like/' he said, " you shall 
 hear me now. You shall hear what I've got to say, and, 
 by God, you won't forget it. For I'm speaking truth, and 
 you will know it's truth. I have never taken the stand 
 among men that you have. I did not want to, if I could 
 have done it. But you have chosen to stand where you 
 do stand in the eyes of the world. You have chosen to be 
 known in the Force and far beyond it as a man whose 
 judgment and whose word and whose advice should be 
 trusted. You have chosen that men should know your 
 opinions and should know that you walked by them. You 
 were not afraid of being judged. Perhaps you sometimes 
 invited judgment. Can you deny that?" 
 
 Tempest did not attempt to. His face had not changed. 
 
 " And do you see what you are doing now ? You who 
 allowed yourself to be considered as an example? Do you 
 see what you have done now that you have put your name 
 in the mouth of every man as the name of one who is 
 eager and willing to sink all his ideals, all the weight 
 of his influence, all his power for the gratification of what 
 he knows to be the lower the lowest part of his nature." 
 
 Tempest's lips moved, but no sound came from them. 
 His face was changing now. 
 
 " You do know it ! " Dick hurled the words at him. 
 " And you shall surely know what you have done. You 
 are committing one of the deadliest of sins, because you 
 can't fall without dragging down all those whom you have 
 allowed to believe in you. You can't fall without defiling 
 all that truth and honour and virtue which you have chosen 
 to make yourself the exponent of. You chose to take a 
 high place I don't say you were not fit for it. You were. 
 But you can't leave that place without disgrace to more 
 than yourself. You have chosen to wield a great influence, 
 and now you are choosing to betray it. You say you are 
 responsible to your God. What is your God going to say 
 about it? The virtues that you are making a bonfire of 
 are popularly supposed to belong to Him in the first place, 
 aren't they? " 
 
 He stopped, but Tempest made no sound, no movement.
 
 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 He was not looking at Dick now. His eves went straight 
 part to the window, but Dick knew that he was looking at 
 fci^^lf A wave of remorse swept over Dick. He was 
 never hart by the roughest handling. But Tempest was 
 of such different material. 
 
 " Tempest " 
 
 Tempest's glance brushed across his for a moment. 
 There was no expression in it. 
 
 " You can go," he said. 
 
 "Tempest, for God's sake don't " 
 
 " Leave God out," said Tempest. " I told you that be- 
 fore. And go. I told you that too." 
 
 Dick went. He was scarcely through the door when he 
 heard Tempest spring to it and lock it. And then there 
 came no other sound at all, although he listened for a long, 
 long while. 
 
 Tempest had dropped into a chair, folding his arms on 
 the back, and his face was hidden on his arm. Xo part 
 of him seemed alive but his brain, and that was making 
 rivid blazing realities which seemed to fill up earth and 
 sky. It was true. All that Dick had said to him was 
 true. He had that influence. He was wielding it daily. 
 He could not lose it. What was he doing with it? God 
 in Heaven, what was he doing with it? What was he do- 
 ing with that gospel of work and religion and duty which 
 he had called men to hear him preach ? What was he do- 
 ing with it he who stood for the high standard which he 
 had set; for the moral and physical power by which men 
 knew him: he who had not hesitated to stand in his own 
 small corner for Canada herself? 
 
 He knew what he was doing with it. Xow that Dick 
 had told him he knew, and the sweat came out on his body 
 as he recognised it. In so far as the human can do it he 
 was making a mock of God Himself. He Tempest ! And 
 now God and love and truth had made a mock of him. 
 He cowered lower over his chair, and he stayed there, 
 scarcely moving, until the sounds of day came into the 
 world beyond the door again. 
 
 That night was an uneasy one for Dick also. He rose 
 early and went down to the yard where a half-packed sled 
 Stood with the dog-harness slung across ft. Silently he
 
 "THE THIEF OX THE LETT" 
 
 hauled his little tent from where it hung in the wood-shed 
 and beat and folded it into shape for packing. There was 
 a stern-chase on a week-old trail before him, and he was 
 glad of it. From all the troubles of his life heretofore he 
 had been able to escape down the windy trails of the world. 
 But this time he would not leave all which he had done 
 behind him. 
 
 The sure, sturdy note of winter was sounding along the 
 land when he and the young breed pulled oat that day, 
 heading straight into space, with only a few tangled clues 
 to guide them. The keen air tingled the blood of the 
 forest-men; making them restless with the fret of it; test- 
 less for the cry of the trapped yniyn^l and for the snow- 
 laid trails and the bite of the forest on their faces. The 
 young breed opened his nostrils to the snow-tang as he 
 swung along, and his bright eyes roved. Even as to the 
 other man these wild rimless woods were his home; and 
 he laughed and swore cheerfully as he fed the thawed fish 
 to the dogs for their evening meal, and came back to the 
 fire, grinning still, and rubbing his hands. 
 
 " Yoila," he said gaily. " Mais dat vilain Poley kip 
 dem sharp set. Dey do wolf deir viande." 
 
 " Nothing works well when it is too fat. I shall have 
 to thin you down, Passpartout, I think." 
 
 " Done ! It is to laugh mak' me fat." He threw out 
 a great bellow from his chest. " No one can help dat," 
 he said. 
 
 " Don't try," advised Dick. " Everything in this world 
 really is funny, isn't it? Even those things which a ~mn 
 might not think could be funny." 
 
 " Eh, bien ! Good enough. Dere is tonjours de fun an* 
 dere is tou jours de nouvelle. When a man tire of one ting, 
 dere is de nex' place to trap, an' de nex' girl to like, an' de 
 nex' man to hit if so he wan' to hit. Dere is plenty tout 
 le temps." 
 
 "Ah! That is a very good philosophy, Passepartout." 
 Dick looked up at the bulky grinning young fellow in the 
 firelight. " All things are new so long as the man hhnnrif 
 is new. But what happens when he gets stale?" 
 
 " Je na sais pas. Him like bad fish, I s'pose. Feed 
 him to de dog."
 
 284 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 "Oh! Feed him to the dog?" Dick revolved this in 
 silence for a minute. " I fancy you have hit a greater 
 truth than you think, Passpartout. Throw some more 
 wood on, and rake those smoking branches in. And then 
 you can go to sleep as soon as you like." 
 
 Passpartout retired into his wolf-skin robe even as Dick 
 retired into his thoughts and smoked. And those thoughts 
 were not entirely bitter. He was too much of a born 
 tramp, a born rover, not to feel the exhilaration of his 
 surroundings; of the widespread brooding hush of the 
 forest ; the heavy dark branches against the stars ; the crisp, 
 white snow about him and the smell of the resinous burning 
 wood. He had turned many pages of Life's book in his 
 time, and he was not tired of turning them yet. The im- 
 possibility of turning more, even though they had all been 
 for evil, would have been the only thing which could 
 have really broken the restless heart in him. 
 
 Almost at the moment when he gave that stunning blow 
 to Tempest it had interested him to find out how the man 
 would stand under it. It had interested him to find that he 
 himself could speak so clearly and convincingly on a mat- 
 ter which had no personal meaning for him except in so 
 far as it affected Tempest. It interested him now to won- 
 der if there was any truth in Tempest's idea that Andree 
 loved him, and it interested him quite a good deal to won- 
 der what he should do if there was. To examine and ob- 
 serve and dissect everything, even his own soul and the 
 souls of those he loved best this was what had come to 
 him out of his desire to see life clearly. But because he 
 had to examine them all through the lens of his own mind 
 what he saw was necessarily distorted. 
 
 His very love and reverence for Jennifer were spoiled 
 by the belief that she would give way in the end. Her 
 creeds would not be proof against her love, any more than 
 Tempest's had been. By and by she would let his hand 
 break the thing which she said was herself the self he 
 loved. And fiercely though he wanted her now, how did 
 he know that he would always want her? Change was the 
 only thing which never tired him; the new was the only 
 mate he always met with gladness ; the elusive and the un-
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 285 
 
 certain were the only loves he had ever wanted to hold 
 and kiss. This wild creed which he had taught himself 
 had done him no good. But he could not fling it aside. It 
 did not seem possible now that Tempest could ever give 
 way to a newer friend; Jennifer to a newer love. And yet 
 such things had been his experience all through life. Con- 
 stancy is more an ingrained habit than a natural virtue, and 
 Dick had never cultivated habits. 
 
 He kicked the fire together, and re-lit his pipe. Oki- 
 mow, lying near his feet r looked up, then buried his nose 
 in his paws again witf a snort of comfort. That half- 
 smile in the man's eyes had meant nothing to him. Be- 
 cause he had no soul he could not laugh at the fears and 
 aspirations of that soul. 
 
 And yet Dick was not altogether indifferent concerning 
 the uniform he wore and the country which he served. After 
 all, it was the land which had bred him ; the land which his 
 gay, daring forefathers had won for him, paying lightly 
 and unregretfully with the price of their lives. And this 
 work which he was doing would have appealed to them too. 
 This work of guarding a young and empty land into which 
 alien races were constantly pouring: races which knew 
 strange gods and practised strange customs; races which 
 became naturalised by a swift system which they under- 
 stood in the letter only, and which accepted responsibilities 
 which they many times had neither the wit nor the knowl- 
 edge to understand. 
 
 He realised quite certainly that it was for the men born 
 of Canada to help her aliens through with their unhandy fin- 
 gering of a life that was new and strange. And, in chief, it 
 was for those men on whom had been laid the charge of 
 bearing the law of the English across and across the soli- 
 tudes ; sowing the loneliness thick with it, so that, wher- 
 ever the feet of the new-come wanderer might tread, there 
 he should find it waiting him. Waiting on the river sands 
 where the prospector bores for oil among the spores of 
 the wolf and the bear. Waiting on the blowing blue- joint 
 grass-lands where the coyote wakes the far hollow echoes, 
 and in the settler's little log shack the business of life and 
 of death goes forward. Waiting for the communities
 
 286 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 which bunch together on the selections, and weaning them 
 from their unlawful ways, so that they should not breed 
 up plague-spots to inoculate East and West. 
 
 And it waits for the lonely Indian, that law; guarding 
 him along his silent trails; for the breed, weakened and 
 demoralised by his contact with the white man who recog- 
 nises no duty towards his brother; for the new lives yet 
 to be: the strange, wonderful medley of lives out of which 
 is to be fused the still untabulated race which will produce 
 the Canadian of the future. It waits for them all; held 
 grimly, firmly in its place by the untiring hands and the 
 unflagging souls of the few, the very few, who prove 
 worthy of their trust until the end. 
 
 Dick felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought that he had 
 given Tempest back to that service. For, as he had not 
 broken Tempest outwardly, so he could not believe that 
 he had broken him inwardly. At seeing the bare future 
 before him another man might fling himself into despairing 
 sin. But not Tempest. The training of a whole life could 
 not fail when once the man's eyes were open. It surely 
 could not fail. But even as he said it Dick felt the doubt 
 come. Dared man say that anything was sure? And if it 
 was, what made it so? Not the shifting sand of man's 
 own heart; not the vagrant wind-puffs of his desires; not 
 the trembling marsh-flames of his beliefs. Then, since 
 there was nothing beyond or above man, it followed that 
 nothing was sure. Tempest might fall into a deeper pit 
 than that from which Dick had pulled him. Jennifer 
 might give the lips which she had denied him to another 
 man. For, since man's stability was the author and the 
 core of all the virtues, how could he, a man, say that they 
 were sure? 
 
 Dry powdery flakes of snow drifted down through the 
 dark canopy, hissing softly on the fire, and Dick rolled 
 into his tent, forgetting past certainties and future possi- 
 bilities in sleep. And after that he thrnst, day by 'day, 
 further into the forest which made a mighty sounding- 
 board for the least noise, and a mighty haven for his rest- 
 less spirit. It was a long chase and a hard one, and seven 
 weeks and over had gone by before he brought his man 
 back; a little leaner, perhaps, a little harder in the muscles,
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 287 
 
 and a very great deal lighter of heart. For the straight, 
 honest work had done for him what it is intended to do 
 for all men, it had drawn the restless evil out of him and 
 it had given him back sanity and peace and an honest 
 contentment. He was strong enough now to stand up to 
 the battle that life might hold for him at Grey Wolf. He 
 was strong enough to meet its temptations. 
 
 He told himself that even if Andree had not forgotten 
 him for a newer lover she could not trouble him now. 
 Even if Tempest had not forgiven he could yield Tempest 
 obedience and love again. The great hand of discipline, 
 hourly bodily discipline, had been heavy on him through 
 these six weeks, and he felt the benefit of it. He found 
 a merry satisfaction in being ruled by his own choice; this 
 man who could not rule himself. 
 
 Tempest heard them coming down the street one after- 
 noon, with Passpartout singing at the top of his sturdy 
 lungs that tenderest and best-known little love-song of the 
 voyageur-men, and he leaned from the window, listening. 
 
 " A la claire fontaine, 
 M'en allant promener, 
 J'ai trouver 1' eau si belle 
 Que je me suis baigne," 
 
 sang Passpartout, ending with a wild " H-r-r-r-mp," as 
 he swung his dogs into the yard. Dick followed with the 
 handsome, sullen Greek beside him. The man had evi- 
 dently shown fight, for he was handcuffed to a strap on 
 Dick's belt. Tempest smiled as Dick halted the Greek in 
 the yard and spoke to him with that half-idle levity which 
 nevertheless masked a sharp cunning equal to that of his 
 namesake, the wolverine. The Greek was not fully awake 
 to it yet, for he made an abortive attempt to escape; and 
 then Tempest saw how, quick as light, Dick caught the 
 man by the elbows, ran him across the yard, and twisted 
 him into a cell. After that he pulled down his tunic, and 
 Tempest saw him nod and laugh as Kennedy came out and 
 spoke to him. 
 
 Tempest drew back nervously. Dick would be coming 
 in to make his report directly. He was coming now, and
 
 288 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest's heart beat unevenly as Dick followed his knock 
 into the room, and gave his report succinctly, coldly erect 
 and official as Tempest himself. There was a little pause 
 when he had done. There was a moment when both men 
 desired to break the barrier down. But the moment 
 passed ; killed by the strength of that desire, and Dick went 
 out, leaving Tempest to settle back to his work. 
 
 These seven weeks had been harder for Tempest than 
 for Dick. But they had done him good, too. No word of 
 removal had come for him yet; and here, where he had fal- 
 len, he had to take his stand again with all the spirit and 
 the force that were left to him. Meals in Grange's big 
 dining-room with Andree to wait on him were one of the 
 hardest things to face. Yet he faced them from the first, 
 showing himself no more mercy than Dick had shown him. 
 But the eager glow on Andree's skin when Dick's name 
 was spoken was a thing which he could not steel himself 
 against. He knew that she was counting the hours when 
 this new-found love of hers could claim its own. And he 
 knew, too, that it would be known all along the rivers that 
 Dick had taken Andree from him, and that the speculations 
 would be many regarding what the inspector would do. 
 This last was torment to his sensitive soul, and at first 
 he winced from every new pair of eyes that met his. But 
 that also was conquered as time went by. 
 
 And then he began to realise what he owed the man who 
 had turned him back to his duty again ; who, even in this 
 suffering and struggle, had given him back a peace which 
 he had missed during those months when he ceased to 
 struggle. He recognised that he had had no right to im- 
 pute an unworthy motive to this thing which Dick had 
 done. Dick was too weak in many ways and too strong 
 in others. He had been ill-judged, cruel, selfish; but he 
 was not a liar. With Tempest's help it might happen that 
 this matter would not fall so heavily on Andree as he had 
 feared. Love can be overcome ; was he not learning that 
 for himself? And the old friendship could be retained, if 
 God willed. 
 
 When Dick had left him he sat for a little, looking on 
 the papers which Dick had brought. The very ring of the 
 man's step, the very sound of his voice had been pain.
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 289 
 
 But there was love mixed with the pain. Bonds formed 
 in early heat of manhood are not easily broken, and those 
 bonds had been many once. He smiled, taking up his pen. 
 He was dining with the Leigh's to-night; but when he 
 came back he would speak to Dick, and he believed that 
 there was something in Dick's eyes which told that he 
 would be glad of what Tempest had to say. 
 
 Dick went to sleep in the big chair in the mess-room that 
 night, and he waked to the sound of soft sobbing and the 
 feel of something wet on his hands and face. Drowsily he 
 opened his eyes, and as he did so Grange's Andree ceased 
 her tears and kisses where she knelt at his knee, and gath- 
 ered up his right hand against her breast. 
 
 " Dick," she said. " Dick." 
 
 Just that, and her voice was very low. But Dick, look- 
 ing into those wet wild-animal eyes of hers, knew that 
 Tempest had spoken truth. By some mockery of the Devil 
 he himself had brought to Andree the gift of a soul that 
 she might love him with it. For the moment he did not 
 move. He watched her as she knelt there with her face 
 upturned and her curls gathered into the nape of her neck, 
 and he wondered idly what Tempest and some other men 
 would have given to see that light in Andree's eyes. Her 
 fur coat and cap lay on the floor, and the glow of the out- 
 side cold was on her skin. She drew his hand across her 
 heart, and her voice shook a little. 
 
 " I did think it would stop, moi," she said. " It was si 
 longtemps to wait." 
 
 He did not move his eyes from her. He knew too much 
 to doubt the look in her eyes or the leap of her heart under 
 his hand. There was bitterness and there was anger in 
 the faint smile on his lips. This was not fair. Why 
 should this girl who might have loved plenty of men, 
 Heaven knew, choose him? He was not even flattered. 
 The thing had been too simple. He was injured. Fate 
 seldom neglected to make him pay promptly for his sins 
 and this had not been all his own fault. He sat up, push- 
 ing her gently back. 
 
 " Come, Andree," he said. " You have no right here, 
 you know." 
 
 " Comment done ! " said Andree, and laughed softly. " I
 
 290 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 have the right to come to you." She brought her warm, 
 brilliant-tinted face close. "Make not coquette contre 
 moi to-night, Eick," she said. " Leave that so small thing 
 for a woman." 
 
 Dick winced involuntarily. This thing which he would 
 have to do was so pitiably small that it was going to take 
 him all his powers to go through with it. For Grange's 
 Andree would not be bound by any of the ordinary con- 
 ventions which rule women. She was leaning on him, 
 laughing, and holding his hand against her with those 
 two long slender ones of hers. And her dark eyes held the 
 light of all the stars. 
 
 " I did kiss you and kiss you till I did kiss you awake," 
 she said gleefully. " I did never think it so nice to kiss 
 before except Moosta's babies. But you are much more 
 better than Moosta's babies, Dick." 
 
 Dick would have known how to meet other women in 
 like case. It was possible that he had had practise. But 
 he was unsure with Grange's Andree. 
 
 " Thank you, Andree. But you must not kiss me any 
 more." 
 
 " Pourquoi ? " 
 
 " Because well, because we have finished the game we 
 were playing, my dear. It was just un petit brin de cour, 
 Andree. Didn't you know that? " 
 
 She hated him to use French to her. It reminded her 
 of her breedlike limitation, and he knew it. 
 
 " A flirtation/' she said slowly. " A flirtation. Bien ! 
 C'est bon assez. Kiss me, Dick." 
 
 She put her lips up, but he did not meet them. While 
 those kisses meant nothing to her he had not considered 
 that they mattered. He looked at her with his eyes dark, 
 and something woke in him that had not troubled him for 
 years. He fought it impatiently for a moment. Then he 
 obeyed it. 
 
 ' No," he said, and pushed "his chair back, and stood up. 
 " I shall never kiss you any more, Andree. Get up and go 
 home." 
 
 She came to her feet in one little movement, standing 
 still with her hands hanging. 
 
 " I do not understand," she said. " You did make my
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 291 
 
 pictures. And you did say 'je t'aime,' and you did kiss 
 me so many times." She paused, with her straight brows 
 knotted. She was moved beyond her English, and yet she 
 dimly felt that it brought her more to the level of the man. 
 " Since you did go I think I have perhaps not make very 
 happy. I feel I want you come back. I think of you tout 
 le all times. I not want to be touch. I slap Jimmy 
 when he put his arm round me. He say, ' Why you slap ? ' 
 I say, ' I not know/ It is you would know, I s'pose. 
 You make it so." 
 
 She stood very still, looking at him with innocent, ap- 
 pealing eyes. He walked through the little room rest- 
 lessly. Yes, he knew. But that did not seem likely to 
 simplify the matter in the very least. Then he turned to 
 her, making his first cowardly step of retreat. 
 
 " You must understand that it is not customary for a 
 girl to come and talk like this to a man, my dear," he said. 
 " It was faire jouer only. You have no right to think more 
 of it." 
 
 " But I have all the right," said Andree gravely. " I 
 feel it here in my coeur my my top 'tomick." 
 
 " Then I had no right to give you the right. Forget it." 
 
 " Mais what do that mean ? " 
 
 His face looked drawn and dark. The slight smile on 
 his lips was bitter. He hated himself for the part he must 
 play. And yet there was no way out but the one. If he 
 could rouse the wild animal fury in her it would be easier 
 to meet than this attitude which stirred his pity. But he 
 hesitated before open brutality to a woman. Then he said: 
 
 " It means that I am tired of you. It means that I have 
 treated you as you have treated plenty of men, Grange's 
 Andree." 
 
 " Then what make me feel so for you? " she asked. 
 
 " The Devil knows. He has had a fairly large share in 
 this business all through." 
 
 " But," cried Andree, in the tone of one suddenly awak- 
 ened. " But I want you. That make you want me be- 
 cause I want you." 
 
 'Not by chalks. How about Tempest?" 
 
 " But it is me me who want you," insisted Andree ; 
 and then Dick laughed, laying his arms on the back of
 
 292 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the big chair, and looking at her with tired, wise eyes. 
 
 " It takes a woman to get down to the personal view," he 
 said. " You're primitive, Andree. I always said so. But 
 I didn't guess at this when I started out. I would beg 
 your pardon; but I know better than to try to pay my 
 debts with a five-cent bit. Let it go at that. If I've hurt 
 you I assure you that you've got the goods on me right 
 now." 
 
 She drew a long breath through her teeth. 
 
 " Is it like when I would go from Tempest and I was 
 afraid? " she asked. 
 
 " Ab-solutely." 
 
 "And when Robison said about love, and I did nearly 
 hit him, and did not hit just because? " 
 
 " Oh, Lord. Yes ! " 
 
 "And and like when Ogil " 
 
 " Andree, I fancy you know enough. We are neither 
 making our maiden attempt, are we? Let up on me, An- 
 dree, and watch out for another fellow who's looking for 
 trouble. I give you the whole world so long as you leave 
 Tempest alone." 
 
 " But," said Andree convincingly, " it is not like any of 
 these, because it is I who love you. Do you see? " 
 
 Dick shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " If a man pays his debts fully here there is a reason- 
 able hope that he may go free hereafter," he said. " An- 
 dree, it is exactly like them all because I don't love you 
 any more than you loved them." 
 
 That went home. He saw her wince. But still she 
 could not believe. 
 
 " But qu'est-ce que I have done to you ? " she asked. 
 
 Dick knew that she had not the wit to follow a line of 
 reasoning out. She just sought the why as a beaten dog 
 might have done. But that did not ease matters. He 
 evaded direct answer. 
 
 " To-night you have done a good deal," he said. " I 
 give you my word that a man does not enjoy feeling as you 
 have made me feel to-night." 
 
 "But what have I done to you?" Suddenly she flung 
 herself into the chair-seat, reaching up her hands to his 
 shoulders. Her eyes were frightened, but wistful with
 
 "THE THIE ON THE LEFT >? 293 
 
 their great love. " What have I done to you ? " she said 
 again. " Tell me, et si vous fache centre moi I will undo 
 it." 
 
 " I am not angry. But you can't undo it, and neither 
 can I." 
 
 The cynical smile twitched his lips again. " The 
 trouble began when you were made a woman and I was 
 made a man, Andree." 
 
 " But I did not mean to be," she said, not understand- 
 ing. 
 
 " No." He looked at her with his eyes half-closed as 
 when he was painting her. " No ; it would have been bet- 
 ter not to be, wouldn't it? The Power which created you 
 will owe you a good deal at settling-up time, Grange's An- 
 dree." 
 
 " Ah ! " she said impatiently. " I do not understand. 
 Kiss me, Dick. You did not never wait so long before." 
 
 " You hit very straight for a woman, my dear girl. But 
 I am not going to kiss you any more, Andree, because, 
 having hurt you quite considerably I have to keep on hurt- 
 ing you in order to gain my self-respect. Does that sound 
 funny to you? It sounds equally funny to me. Very 
 nearly funny enough to make one laugh. But I can assure 
 you that it is according to the ordinary rules of the game." 
 
 " Dieu ! You make so much talk ! And I do not under- 
 stand." She pushed her face close to his. " Put your 
 hands on my face and kiss me, Dick. That I do under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Yes, you do, Heaven help you. We have made sure 
 of that." 
 
 He freed himself from her clutching hands and picked 
 up her cap and coat. 
 
 " Put these on and go home, Andree," he said. " It's 
 getting late." 
 
 She sprang upright in one bound; her hands gripped up, 
 her eyes blazing. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and turned to meet her. 
 
 " Now we are going to have it," he said. 
 
 A moment she stood so; battling with the great sobs 
 that were shaking her. Then she hurled herself forward 
 on her knees with her arms round him in what would
 
 294 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 have been melodrama in another woman but was pure 
 natural abandonment in Grange's Andree. 
 
 " Put your hand on to me/' she sobbed. " Put your 
 hand an' say you love me. Dick! Dick! Not to make 
 me go like this. Not to be cruel all in one togezzer. 
 Dick it make me kill some place inside." 
 
 Apart from the real pity and shame in him his natural 
 instinct for analysis was awake. He had not dreamed 
 that there was anything in the girl which could suffer like 
 this. She clung to him, hiding her face against him, and 
 she shook them both with her wild sobbing. He drew a 
 hard breath, standing quite still, and looking at this thing 
 as his mind showed it. 
 
 It was inevitable that he should break Andree here, be- 
 cause Andree stood for the primitive, the savage; for the 
 primal thing which has to be done away with before the 
 march of progress. She was the Canada of the unformed, 
 the undisciplined, the uncivilised. And, being so, she had 
 to make way for the needs and desires of the white man 
 who peoples the world in the place of the native-born. 
 For always, over the face of the earth, go the white men; 
 fulfilling their destiny; destroying the lesser within or 
 without the law ; taking that which they can never replace ; 
 but obeying, even as the lesser animal obeys, that great 
 merciless inscrutable Power which has made of the white 
 race rulers, founders, destroyers ; the builders-up of new 
 dynasties ; the devourers of the old. 
 
 Tempest stood for the new dynasty; for the race of the 
 future; for a link in the long chain wherewith the white 
 man buckles the earth to himself. And Andree stood for 
 the old dynasty; the thing which must die; the thing to be 
 trodden hard that the roots of the new-planted tree should 
 stand firm in it. This was the law of life; the law of 
 eternity. It was the ever-mutable. Now out of which the 
 Future is shaped. All mankind were governed alike by 
 that law. There was no escape. But, with those young 
 arms gripped about him, Dick did not feel competent to lay 
 the whole blame on the natural evolution of destiny. 
 
 Andree drew herself up against him; lifting her quiver- 
 ing lips. 
 
 " Not to love me, perhaps," she said. " But to let me
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 295 
 
 stay. To put your hand on me. Not to stand so. Dick, 
 make your eyes kind to me again." 
 
 He took her arms and lifted her away resolutely. 
 
 " My dear girl/' he said, " don't you think we've had 
 enough of this? You don't expect me to change my mind 
 once I've said a thing, do you? " 
 
 Then the savage roused in her. She charged him, with 
 head down and hands clawing and white teeth snapping. 
 The onslaught all but upset him, for he was unprepared, 
 and for a few moments he needed to put out all his strength 
 to master her. He had her by the wrists at last, and they 
 faced each other; tall, straight and breathless, with white 
 passionate faces and shut lips. Then, quite suddenly, 
 Andree laughed. 
 
 " Dieu," she said. " You are the strong man. I think 
 you might kill me." 
 
 " I wish I could," said Dick sincerely. Andree laughed 
 again. 
 
 " I did never have done like you do to me," she said. 
 " Even Robison he say, ' Cherie Andree. Bonne Andree/ 
 Mais vous ! Viola! C'est tout le meme devil in we two." 
 
 " Then you ought to know how to respect it. Will you 
 go home ? " 
 
 " Peste ! I do not know." She looked at him in frank 
 appreciation. At the brown, lean face hard-fleshed, well- 
 shaped, wind-tanned ; at the set of the lips and the slightly- 
 twitching thin nostrils ; at the level eyes whence the pity 
 was driven back. He was so entirely the man and the 
 master that the animal simplicity in her obeyed him with 
 actual pleasure in the obedience. 
 
 " Bien," she said, and glanced down at her wrists where 
 his grip drove the colour from her skin. " Bien," she said 
 again, and glanced up daringly to his face. " Kiss me 
 now, Dick, and I will go." 
 
 She brought her mouth near. Her breath was sweet and 
 milky as a cow's, and her red lips were parted like a 
 child's. The storm had passed for the moment, but elec- 
 tricity was in the air yet. Dick felt it. And felt as he 
 had felt before the intoxication of her beauty. And he 
 let his lips stoop down to hers. 
 
 And then she flung her arms round his neck and so held
 
 296 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 him. And he did not hear when Tempest, coming back 
 from the Leighs' evening party, walked down the passage, 
 and opened the mess-room door. It was Andree who heard 
 and saw and pulled free with a little cry. Dick did not 
 look at Tempest. He put the girl into her cap and coat; 
 pulled wide the outer door, and gave her good-night on 
 the step. Then he turned coolly back into the room, with 
 a simulation of indifference on him. His luck was surely 
 surpassing itself to-night. Tempest's head was bare. But 
 he still wore his fur coat, and his hands were gloved. 
 Dick wondered for a moment if the man would hit him. 
 But Tempest only said, very quietly: 
 
 "If she was not good enough for me, can it be possible 
 that you consider her good enough for yourself, my 
 friend ? " 
 
 The words bit like acid, but Dick did not wince. His 
 mouth drew down at the corners in the slight smile Tem- 
 pest had always hated to see. There was no defence for 
 this case, and he was not going to make any. Tempest's 
 face changed. His eyes blazed suddenly, and he drew 
 himself up to his full height: cold ringing steel, like the 
 sword of justice unsheathed. 
 
 " I hold you responsible for her," he said. " I hold you 
 responsible for her till the end of time." 
 
 Out of the miserable consciousness of his treachery Dick 
 answered him. 
 
 " By what right? " he asked, and the sneer twisted his 
 lips. 
 
 A moment more Tempest stood, unmoving. Then he 
 seemed to crumble and weaken. He put his hand up to 
 his face suddenly; turned, and stumbled out, and Dick 
 saw his shoulders heaving. The door shut, and Dick sought 
 in his pockets for his pipe; tried to fill it, and found that 
 his hands would not serve him. He stood still, staring 
 straight at the wall. There was no palliation for what he 
 had done, and not for an instant did he attempt to find 
 any. Vaguely, at the back of his head, two lines of some 
 profane song were ringing: 
 
 " And the thief on the left said never a word, 
 For the son of a gun had sand."
 
 "THE THIEF ON THE LEFT" 297 
 
 Dick had offered no weak excuses. He had accepted 
 his disgrace and stood up to it. But for the moment there 
 was no relief in that. He spoke slowly, drawing a deep 
 breath. 
 
 " He will never forgive himself for that," he said. " He 
 will never forgive himself because he let me see him cry- 
 ing."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I WANT THE WEST AGAIN " 
 
 " MOTHER," cried Jennifer. " Slicker has been talking 
 North- West all the afternoon, and I'm quite drunk with 
 it" 
 
 " My dear child," said Jennifer's mother gently. " Please 
 say inebriated;" and then Jennifer laughed, standing in 
 the middle of the room and pushing back her hair into 
 a ruddy glory round her bright face. 
 
 " What a darling you are," she said. " Isn't she, 
 Slicker? Mother mine, if I go West again you'll have 
 to come too " 
 
 " But you don't want to go West again, dear." 
 
 " But I do. I awfully do. You know I always would 
 begin everything at the beginning even a book. And 
 they are still beginning at the beginning out there. We'll 
 go back, and drive the trails in a democrat, and be tracked 
 in a York boat, and have half-breed servants who don't 
 know the English for ' Hurry up,' and for mercy's sake, 
 Slicker! There are visitors! Fly! Fly! I wouldn't 
 have anybody see you in that rig for a pension." 
 
 For the benefit of Jennifer's mother Slicker had robed 
 himself in full glory of mooseskin coat, blue shirt and moc- 
 casins. He stood his ground now, impudent and delighted. 
 
 " Land of Liberty ! " he said. " Give a fellow a show, 
 honey. I'll knock 'em in these better than in any store- 
 clothes ever sewn." 
 
 " Don't be vulgar." Jennifer was peeping through the 
 curtains. " Oh, it is Mrs. Barrymore and Angela. They 
 are darlings, and I wouldn't so much mind but Mrs. 
 Chichester is with them, and she's always looking for 
 something to be scandalised about. Will you go, Slicker? 
 Martha will be*" showing them in just in half a minute." 
 
 Slicker sat down. 
 
 " There's a meanness about you sometimes that I don't 
 298
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 299 
 
 like, Jennifer/' he remarked. " Why should you disap- 
 point Mrs. Chichester? We are all meant to make life 
 as pleasant as we can for others." 
 
 " If you think that you'll go. Oh it's too late." 
 
 She went forward with her charming, half-shy grace of 
 manner, and, quailing under the suppressed emotion of the 
 three ladies in the door, weakly introduced Slicker as " my 
 cousin. Just come from the North-West, you know." 
 
 It was the extremely pretty girl in the middle who dis- 
 concerted Slicker for at least five minutes, and Jennifer 
 was human enough to find spiteful delight in the knowl- 
 edge. But the little feminine flutter and stir and half- 
 finished sentences before seats and tea were provided gave 
 him his balanc again. Six weeks ago Slicker had left Grey 
 Wolf and come to Toronto to settle his business affairs with 
 his uncle before joining the Police. His uncle had been 
 displeased and had not troubled to conceal the fact. On 
 the whole, Slicker considered that he rather obtruded it. 
 Jennifer and her mother had been in New York, and 
 to-day was Slicker's first chance for full appreciation and 
 confidence. The advent of these three threatened to spoil 
 it, and Slicker was bent on revenging himself accordingly. 
 
 Jennifer began to tremble when she saw that he attached 
 himself unhesitatingly to Mrs. Chichester; bringing cake 
 and tea, closing a window against the draught, and finally 
 settling into the next chair with all the appearance of one 
 who intends to be a fixture. Mrs. Chichester pinned him 
 instantly under her lorgnette, and through Jennifer's con- 
 versation with the others she heard scraps of conversation 
 which did not ease her mind. 
 
 " Why, no," said Slicker, in evident answer to some 
 question. " I suppose I might rather call myself a mis- 
 sionary." 
 
 " Oh ! " Mrs. Chichester's voice was dubious. " I 
 thought missionaries were would not but I infer you 
 must follow the customs of the country ? " 
 
 " Oh, I hope not." The scandalised piety in Slicker's 
 tone would have done credit to Mrs. Chichester herself. 
 " Please don't mention the customs of the country, Mrs. 
 Chichester." 
 
 " Why you don't mean "
 
 300 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Both voices dropped, and through the unheard conver- 
 sation which followed Jennifer, as she told Slicker after- 
 wards, " simply grilled." She broke it at last by coming 
 across with her cup. 
 
 " I really must interrupt you," she said. " Mrs. Barry- 
 more wants to speak to you, Slicker, and you have monop- 
 olised Mrs. Chichester quite long enough. Mrs. Barry- 
 more is a member of the Woman's Auxiliary, Slicker. You 
 have helped unpack some of the bales of clothing which 
 they send out to the Anglican Missions, I know. I have 
 heard you speak of it at Grey Wolf." 
 
 Slicker's blue eyes met hers full. They looked star- 
 tlingly blue in the deep bronze of his face, and they looked 
 wickedly amused. He had read her ruse, and he was not 
 going to let her benefit by it. He rose promptly. 
 
 " I shall be delighted to give Mrs. Barrymore any infor- 
 mation she may require about the best kinds of things to 
 send up there," he said. 
 
 " Slicker," began Jennifer despairingly, and then Mrs. 
 Barrymore smiled across the room. 
 
 " You are a convert to mission work, then ? " she asked. 
 
 "Well, not exactly a convert." Slicker remembered 
 Miss Chubb's oft-repeated assertions that he would be the 
 death of her and that the circumstance was fierce. " I do 
 what little I can;" his voice was modest. "Sometimes I 
 ^help the deaconess sell things to the breeds and Indians. 
 A corporal in the M. P. and I are trying to marry off some 
 of the girls around Grey Wolf if only we could get some- 
 thing stylish on them to take the eye " 
 
 Jennifer's mother created a diversion for a few mo- 
 ments. But Slicker returned to the attack. He was enjoy- 
 ing himself better than he had expected, and the pretty 
 girl was evidently interested. 
 
 " You need to send up some real smart dashing clothes, 
 Mrs. Barrymore," he said. " I know what a breed girl 
 wants to make her look human. I've tried most of the 
 bale-room things on them " 
 
 " Oh ! " Mrs. Chichester shot the word out like a 
 bomb, and Slicker's calm voice continued: " on top of 
 their other clothes. They're not nice about a thing fitting 
 too quick. And if you pinch them in one place they
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 301 
 
 they make up for it in another. Find their level, as you 
 may say. But Dick and I would like to see them in 
 something stylish. Not neat, plain, serviceable garments, 
 such as you send, and not squishy things either. There's 
 one chiffon bonnet with rosebuds that I've tried on every 
 girl in the district and not one of 'em but would scare 
 a skunk in it. You have to study their requirements, 
 you know. There are half a dozen would make a good 
 stand in the matrimonial market if they were dressed to 
 kill." 
 
 " You appear to take a great interest in human nature," 
 began Mrs. Chichester acidly. 
 
 " Jn half of it;" Slicker's bow was as unimpeachable 
 as his voice. But Jennifer broke in ruthlessly. 
 
 " He doesn't really know anything about it, Mrs. Barry- 
 more. Miss Chubb never lets him into the bale-room if 
 she can help it. She told me once that he took more watch- 
 ing than a hen in the flower-garden. He dressed up to-day 
 to amuse us, and he is just trying to act the part." 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Chichester, didn't you read all about the 
 Missions and the Mounted Police in those articles Jenni- 
 fer wrote for one of the Toronto papers ? " 
 
 " Slicker ! I never wrote them. You know I didn't. 
 
 And if I had " Jennifer went red and white. She 
 
 had been too far inside that life to speak of it lightly. 
 
 " Well, of course, you don't know the whole of it, any- 
 way. A Mounted Policeman has to carry his life in his 
 hand, you know. His life in one hand and his revolver 
 in the other, and his reins between his teeth. That's why 
 they won't let you into the Force if you have false teeth. 
 Too much depends on their staying in. Mine are all right." 
 Slicker smiled to prove it. " And I am joining next month. 
 It's a tricky kind of life but I don't want to harrow you 
 by telling you too much about that sort of thing. We men 
 are accustomed to danger, you know." 
 
 Jennifer looked at him with interest. His manner was 
 certainly splendid. Even Mrs. Chichester was impressed, 
 and Angela Barrymore never took her eyes off him. 
 
 "Of course anyone who lives constantly in such condi- 
 tions cannot be exactly normal," vouchsafed Mrs. Chi- 
 chester, with the air of one granting a concession.
 
 302 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " But I guess you don't know anything about the con- 
 ditions yet. Did my cousin tell you of the river-steamers 
 where the cabins are so small that you have to go outside 
 to turn round, and the whole ship's company and passen- 
 gers wash in one basin in the alley- way? Or about the 
 shacks where the board-partitions are an inch apart, so 
 that it's best to go to bed in the dark." 
 
 "That will do, Slicker!" 
 
 " Now, honey ! Don't pretend you don't know. Who 
 pinned her things up all around the walls that night at 
 Sheridan's ? Think I didn't hear about it ? " 
 
 With the other ladies' cordial co-operation Jennifer 
 turned the conversation, and Slicker subsided into a corner 
 with Angela Barrymore. Neither seemed anxious to come 
 out of it when the move for departure was made; and 
 Slicker accompanied them all into the hall and waved his 
 good-byes from the step. When he came back Jennifer 
 was waiting for him. 
 
 " You you perfect little beast, Slicker," she cried. 
 "What made you do it?" 
 
 " Be easy, honey ; " the familiar term, caught from Dick, 
 stilled Jennifer's heart for a moment. " That old lady 
 with the three cock's-tails hasn't had such a time since 
 she doesn't know when. You'll hear all about it at half 
 a dozen afternoons. And think what kudos you'll get for 
 having seen it all." 
 
 " You didn't tell her anything about me, Slicker ? " 
 
 Slicker put his hand on her shoulder, looking down at 
 her. 
 
 " You didn't think that of me, honey? Not for one little 
 minute. That's right. Now, come and have a jaw over 
 the fire. Where's auntie ? " 
 
 " Someone came to see her on business." Jennifer let 
 herself down beside Slicker on the hearthrug, and flung on 
 a hickory-knot. " I just hate you for making fun of all 
 the splendid work people do for the missions," she said. 
 " And you were very rude about the W. A., too." 
 
 " She didn't mind, bless you. And I told Miss Barry- 
 more some plain truth." 
 
 "Oh, I hope it wasn't too plain, you wretch. You know 
 how you "
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 303 
 
 " Now, honey, don't waste time. I want to get down 
 to essentials. You're glad that I'm going into the Force? " 
 
 " Yes. Yes ; I think so. But it will take " 
 
 " I know, honey. I know it's not all ice-cream, sodas, 
 and limelight effects. I know it's not an easy life in any 
 one way. Tempest rubbed that into me salted it in. But 
 I have decided on it, and I will stick to it." 
 
 Jennifer was thinking of one man of the Royal North- 
 West Mounted Police, and of the want of ease his life 
 had given him. 
 
 "Did did anyone else advise it?" she asked. 
 
 " Well I told you what Dick Heriot said. But I didn't 
 tell you why. Anyway, it's a life where a man has to be 
 a man or get out. And that's attractive, you know." 
 
 " Oh, you boy ! Is that all ? " 
 
 " No." Slicker poked the fire until the sparks flew, and 
 he did not look at her. " No. I've been rotting since you 
 left, Jennifer. I had to take up something or follow 
 Ogilvie's trail." 
 
 " Slicker ! Oh, Slicker ! " Jennifer saw the boy face 
 and figure through a sudden mist of tears. " I never 
 thought of that for you." 
 
 " I never thought of it for myself. But it is in the air 
 up there, some way. You know how it is, Jennifer. Noth- 
 ing to do but hang around the hotel and smoke and yarn 
 and drink. And when you were gone well, I told you 
 Heriot pulled me up that day of the fire. He didn't say 
 much. But, my land, he makes a little go a long way. I 
 wish he wasn't really such a brute.'* 
 
 " Perhaps if you if you knew him better, dear." Jen- 
 nifer's words were uncertain here, but Slicker's answer was 
 not. 
 
 " D'you think I don't know him a hundred times better 
 than you do, honey? Even if I could forgive him for what 
 he did and said to you, I can't forgive him for what he's 
 doing to Tempest." 
 
 Jennifer made the fire up before she asked: 
 
 "What is he doing to Mr. Tempest? " 
 
 "Well you know how crazy poor old Tempest is over 
 Grange's Andree? Heriot is cutting him out there, lock, 
 stock and barrel. But he hasn't the honesty to let Tempest
 
 304 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 know, and the poor old beggar is as blind as a bat where 
 that girl is concerned. It's a beastly underhand trick to 
 play any man. I gave up calling Heriot Dick when I got 
 to the bottom of that." 
 
 " Oh, Slicker ! You don't know what you are talking 
 about. You never do. They were such friends " 
 
 " That's the reason," said Slicker gloomily. " Tempest 
 would never suspect. He's jealous of every other man, 
 but he trusts Heriot. It's a bad business, honey, and 
 Heriot's a bad lot. So's Andree. I can't see why fellows 
 make such a fuss over the girl. Did I tell you I saw Robi- 
 son when I came through Fort Saskatchewan? It was 
 just a few days before he was hung. He'd been sick, you 
 know, and that and the confinement had pulled him down. 
 His voice was as hollow as a bottle after Ogilvie had done 
 with it. But he didn't seem to worry any. ' How's An- 
 dree ? ' he asked, right away. ' Pretty as ever,' I said. 
 ' She's shaken Tempest, and isn't wearing the willow 
 over it either.' My ! you should have seen how that 
 brightened him up. Of course, I didn't tell him about 
 Dick. He never loved Dick, anyway." 
 
 " I suppose not. Poke that log back, Slicker. It's 
 smoking." 
 
 " I guess he just thinks of Andree, Andree all the time," 
 said Slicker, obeying. " I wish somebody had drowned that 
 girl when she was a kitten I mean, as old as a kitten. 
 She's done more harm than any one person has a right to, 
 and she isn't through yet, I guess. There are stacks more 
 fools left in the world. I suppose she is a beauty, though. 
 Heriot has made some glorious pictures of her, Forbes 
 says. He writes to me regularly. Rather a nice chap. 
 You remember him, honey ? " 
 
 Slicker continued his monologue, giving Jennifer time 
 to recover her poise. It was not long since she had had 
 a letter from Dick: one of those interesting, vivid sketches 
 of daily life at Grey Wolf which he knew so well how to 
 write. There had been no word of love in it. He had only 
 gained permission to write on condition that there should 
 be none. But neither had there been any word of Andree. 
 After all, why should there be? What had it to do with 
 Jennifer if Dick painted pictures of Andree, or if he
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 305 
 
 turned to Andree for comfort? What should it be to her 
 except a gladness; a relief that he was not going to spoil 
 his years waiting for what could not be? She did not think 
 of Tempest. There was not room for Tempest even as a 
 background when Dick filled the foreground of her 
 thoughts. Hastily her mind said that she did not believe 
 it, but that she hoped it. Surely it would be the best 
 thing that could happen. Then she returned to present 
 life to hear Slicker say: 
 
 " And so that's the end of that story." 
 
 " How very interesting, Slicker dear." Jennifer did not 
 hesitate long enough to be ashamed of her mendacity. 
 " Now tell me all about Grey Wolf." 
 
 "Well, I've just told you " 
 
 " Of course. I mean, tell me some more. I want to 
 know about Mr. Bond, who always brought me every new 
 wild-flower he found. And that funny old Poley at the 
 barracks, and Mrs. Leigh. And Son-of-Lightning. I am 
 so glad Mr. Leigh gave him that little shack in the Hudson 
 Bay yard, Slicker. I would have hated to think of him 
 lonely." 
 
 " You wouldn't be so glad if you were an employee of 
 the H. B., honey. He'll drive them all to drink if they 
 can't get the song out of him by a surgical operation or 
 something. My, he is a caution. Well, it's very nice 
 over here, but I'm glad I'm not going to stay, Jennifer. 
 There's no place like the West once one has lived in it." 
 
 " Oh, Slicker. I do feel that. I do. I want to go 
 back. Oh, I want to ! " 
 
 Her voice was sharp with sudden pain. It brought 
 Slicker's eyes on her. 
 
 " Why, honey ; you had such a bad time out there, I 
 never thought you'd want to go back." 
 
 " Well." Jennifer looked at the fire, speaking slowly. 
 " I shall hear something about Harry some day, dear ; and 
 it is easier waiting for it out there. Here it is a little 
 difficult just occasionally. You see, Harry has disappeared, 
 and and, of course, all sorts of stories about it came 
 East. Nearly everybody is perfectly sweet to me, but 
 there are a few like Mrs. Chichester I know she just 
 comes to see if she can find anything out "
 
 306 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Damn her," exploded Slicker. " No, I won't beg your 
 pardon, Jennifer. Lam the man of the family, and you 
 should have told me this before." 
 
 " Dear, there is really nothing to tell." Jennifer patted 
 the smooth, sunburnt cheek. " Perhaps I imagine it all. But 
 I don't feel that houses can ever take the place of trees and 
 lakes again. I want the West. Oh, I want the West." 
 
 Slicker did not know that Jennifer had left her heart 
 there. But he agreed. 
 
 " Go back, then, honey. You could get your old house 
 for a song any day. Hamilton's wife hates the place, and 
 Hamilton is a sheep. He does as he's told, and if ^ou 
 offered there'd be no trouble. But there's been a lot of 
 talk, you know." 
 
 " I know. But in what particular way ? " 
 
 " You know things were said about you and Heriot." 
 Slicker frowned at the fire. " / know it all for lies, of 
 course. But if you go back you may as well know it, 
 Jennifer there are some who'll say that you came to 
 hunt him up over this Andree business." 
 
 " Oh ! " Jennifer felt her face burn. " I never 
 
 thought " she said in a choked voice. " I never 
 
 thought of you didn't think I meant to go back, Slicker? 
 I couldn't go there ! " 
 
 Slicker slid his arm round her, drawing her head 
 against his shoulder. 
 
 " Honey, dear, did I do it clumsily? I'm so sorry. 
 What with brutes like Ducane and Heriot I guess you've 
 had enough of me. Best stay where you are with the 
 little auntie, and when I get a post I'll have you both up 
 to keep house for me, if it's any place short of Herschel 
 Island. I will only be at Regina three or four months, 
 you know, and I'll write and tell you every last thing 
 about it, honey." 
 
 He kept his word faithfully, and each week through 
 those months of snow and frost brought her a letter headed 
 " Regina Barracks ": a letter that was a medley of boyish 
 slang and manly thought and frank love for herself. There 
 were fervid descriptions of " our mess," and " my horse," 
 interlarded with tales of the " swank recruit " who " came 
 such a buster " in riding-school, and the " tiger of a drill-
 
 " I WANT THE WEST AGAIN " 307 
 
 sergeant who thinks he owns the universe with all the 
 ' h's ' left out of it." Once there was mention of a cor- 
 poral's love affair which came to an untimely end; and 
 then, through dissertations on love and girls, Slicker ended : 
 " I'm glad you're the kind of girl you are, honey. I'd have 
 had to disown you if you were like some that a fellow 
 runs across. By the way, what is that Miss Barrymore 
 like, really? You might remember me to her when you 
 see her, and ask her if she'd like some Indian moccasins. 
 She admired mine." 
 
 Jennifer put down the letter and laughed with her eyes 
 full. 
 
 " Oh, Slicker, Slicker," she said. " You're not going to 
 meet girls like Angela Barrymore for years to come, dear. 
 It will be the Mackenzie district and the Esquimaux for 
 you, perhaps; or a little selection full of third-grade 
 people. Or a place like Grey Wolf among the breeds 
 and Indians. For that's the way you've chosen for your 
 life-work, dear old Slicker." 
 
 When Christmas was past he wrote again ; blotted sheets 
 full of delight. " Just think, honey ; the C. O. told me the 
 other day that I'd probably be sent out before my time 
 was up. Patted me on the back mota (can't spell the 
 beast) and said I was a good boy, and I went and tum- 
 bled over myself in the Gym for a solid hour to work off 
 my bloated pride. Hope my boss will be more Tempest's 
 shape than Heriot's. And I hope it won't be too civilised. 
 I don't want to do the goose-step along the pavement of a 
 nasty proper little town. Guess I could keep down a 
 better job than that. And honey perhaps I'll come 
 across Ducane for myself. I won't shy off any in letting 
 him know what I think of him, I promise." 
 
 Jennifer folded that letter with tight lips. Slicker never 
 dared speak of Ducane to her face. And not to anyone 
 did she dare speak of him herself. He had made life too 
 hard ; too cruelly bitter. And for his sake it must be bitter 
 all her days. 
 
 It was long since Dick had written to her; longer still 
 since she had written to him. The news which Slicker had 
 brought tormented her night and day, and Dick's utter 
 silence put the seal of truth to it.
 
 308 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 She did not know that he was afraid to write because 
 the cloud which hung over him would surely have dark- 
 ened his words, and because he was ashamed to tell what 
 that cloud might be. 
 
 He avoided Andree because he feared her, and he 
 avoided Tempest for much the same reason. But his 
 feeing towards Tempest almost deepened into hate very 
 shortly; for Tempest had saved his honour by the very 
 thing which had caused Dick to lose his. Tempest had 
 taken hold of his work again. He had put personal inter- 
 ests from him, and flung himself into the wider, fuller 
 river of the life about him. Labour was his salvation as 
 it has been the salvation of many a man before him, and 
 because his only chance lay in giving his all to it, he 
 gave; lifelessly, sorrowfully, at first, but day by day with 
 strengthening fibres. The very tone of Grey Wolf began 
 to alter. It was known that the Inspector was " watching 
 out," here and there and everywhere else, and men braced 
 up under the flash of his eyes and the lash of his tongue 
 when Tempest went to sweep the refuse of the hidden 
 places out into the sunlight. 
 
 He challenged criticism and obvious retort everywhere, 
 but he did not get it. For if he did not spare others 
 neither did he spare himself, and his honesty there did 
 for him what nothing else could have done. But of the 
 real Tempest, the man of the glad ideals and the frank 
 friendships, there seemed nothing left; and Dick knew 
 why. He knew that Tempest could probably have for- 
 given and forgotten anything but that treachery; and 
 realisation of this haunted him, driving the sin of it home 
 to him past his attempted unconcern and impatient resent- 
 ment and his cynical knowledge that he was no worse than 
 many another. 
 
 Dick had saved Tempest at danger to himself, and that 
 danger grew, embittering him as time went by. Andree 
 alone made his life difficult and unpleasant, for she up- 
 braided and pleaded and coquetted and tormented him 
 whenever occasion arose. Once, catching him in the wood- 
 trail by the lake on a cold evening when the sinking sun 
 left a rose red bank along the indigo-blue clouds she 
 threatened him; and he, being cold and tired and hungry
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 309 
 
 from a long day's patrol, struck her across the clutching 
 hands with the little switch he carried. It was a light 
 blow, but it made her spring back, glaring like a wild cat. 
 
 " I hate you," she gasped. '* I hate you. I will keel 
 you. Some day I will make you keel." 
 
 " You are welcome to try." He shrugged his shoulders. 
 " I don't know that I want to prevent you. Will you 
 leave me alone now? " 
 
 " To be whipped," she said through her teeth. " Ah ! 
 To be whipped! I hate you." 
 
 " That's the most cheerful thing I've heard for a long 
 time," said Dick dryly. " Stick to it, my dear girl ; " and 
 he pushed past her and went back, leaving her standing 
 in the trail. 
 
 That night he tried for the fifth time to write to Jen- 
 nifer. But it was of no use. His own thoughts and his 
 own will had made of this matter a thing so sordid and 
 dishonourable that he could not put down in words for 
 her to read, and he could not write to her and not speak 
 of it. He was not even sorry for Andree now. He was 
 not even glad for Tempest. And at that moment he 
 heard Tempest in the passage speaking to Bond. 
 
 " Certainly," said Tempest. " You may depend on me. 
 I'll have it attended to at once." 
 
 Dick laughed a little, biting on his pipe-stem. It was 
 he who had ensured that Tempest should speak and act 
 so again. But where was his own reward? He had lost, 
 half -unfolded, the big case which was to have meant so 
 much to him. He had lost his friend; he had lost such 
 self-respect as he had, and life seemed a deadlock, with 
 little capacity for more pleasure or pain in it. Then, 
 because it is not in nature that a deadlock can continue 
 for very long, one morning when spring was near and the 
 first waveys flew north again, Tempest sent for him into 
 the office. There were some official letters on the desk, 
 and Tempest's manner was fully as official. 
 
 " I am ordered to make an investigatory patrol through 
 the uncharted land between Great Slave Lake and Fuller- 
 ton," he said. " Flora, fauna, geological conditions, inhab- 
 itants, and so on. I am to take three men with me, and 
 vour name is mentioned as one of the three. We leave as
 
 310 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 soon as the rivers are clear of ice, and will be gone eight 
 months or perhaps a year. These are my official instruc- 
 tions; but I am told to report if either of us are unfit 
 for the journey. It will be a rough one, and will need 
 picked men. Have you anything to say ? " 
 
 His eyes were colder and the lines of his face harder 
 than they used to be. But he had complete control of 
 himself, and Dick had never seen him without it since 
 that night which neither would forget. 
 
 " I am quite fit for the work," said Dick. He smiled 
 slightly. " Let us hope that the other two will provide 
 the social element." 
 
 " We will do the work. That is all which matters." 
 
 " You have always said so." 
 
 The delicate inflection of the sneer brought the blood 
 to Tempest's face. 
 
 " I owe you recognition for what you have done for 
 me," he said. " Do not think that I forget it or that 
 I forget your motive in doing it. Tell Kennedy that I 
 want to see him at once before he goes out." 
 
 For both men a new interest came into life after that. 
 The ordinary futile daily complaints seemed less irritating 
 now that there was a horizon of change to round them. 
 As always there was the freighter who had contracted 
 for ordinary wage in carting and who demanded more be- 
 cause unlooked-for conditions had arisen; there was the 
 breed who had sold his land and who could not under- 
 stand that he must not continue to live on it; there was 
 the Indian who had traded a half-dozen skins to Moore 
 and Holland, and who, on hearing that he could get a 
 better price elsewhere, required them back again; and 
 there were a thousand more of the needless, inevitable 
 things to be 1 got through as winter died under the breath 
 of spring and the ice went out, and colour and life came 
 throbbing back to the land. 
 
 And there was work to be done for this patrol also. 
 New and specially-tested Peterborough canoes were needed. 
 A good pair of field-glasses were indispensable; also a 
 camera; a strong and light outfit of cooking, surveying and 
 other equipments ; besides tinned foods and everything else 
 which could be compressed into the smallest compass.
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 311 
 
 Tempest had to take a journey to Winnipeg in connection 
 with these arrangements, and on his return he stayed an 
 hour with Randal at Pitcher Portage. Slackness of effort 
 and shortness of funds, combined with a divided interest 
 at headquarters, had held back the work on the telegraph- 
 line, and Randal still continued to live in his little shack 
 and to connect himself with the world by his little key on 
 the lonely river-rim of the Portage. 
 
 Randal was cooking his mid-day meal when Tempest 
 came to the door. The shack was as crowded and uncom- 
 fortable as it ever was ; but Tempest noticed a deep-worn 
 track straight from it to the tepee among the spruces, and 
 when he walked in he found a couple of half-Indian babies 
 sprawling with the dogs on the earth floor and chewing 
 strips of raw bacon. Randal pushed the living tangle of 
 content aside with his foot and hastened to sets beans and 
 bannock before Tempest, and Tempest smiled, remember- 
 ing. 
 
 " Got the better of yon at last, have they, Randal ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Randal reddened up his swarthy skin, and clattered 
 knives and forks with embarrassment. 
 
 " Why I guess they can't help it, the little " he 
 
 said. " Canadian-born they are, anyways." He jerked 
 his thumb at the smaller of the two where it lay on its 
 chest, sucking hard, and staring with round, unwinking 
 eyes. 
 
 " Near died this winter, she did," he remarked. " Croup 
 or colic or suthin', an' them domned parents didn't know 
 what to do no more'n nuthin'. So I up an' het a biler 
 o' water an' shoves her inter it. Tell her she looked cute 
 settin' there like a little brown squ'r'l, an' hangin' onter 
 me finger like grim death fer a nigger. So she pulled 
 around, an' she a-took a shine ter me, someways. Like 
 she was wonderin' what I'd be like s'posin' I was tried 
 out fer good. Git away out o' this, Abosti. Git! You 
 won't find no bootlaces ter chew here." 
 
 He lifted the little solemn armful, and Tempest chucked 
 it under the round, brown chin. 
 
 " That's right, Randal," he said cheerfully. " After all, 
 they are going to be our colonists, you know. We must
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 make the best stuff we can out of them. She's not likely 
 to be one of those hysterical nuisances who are always in 
 the doctor's hands, anyway." 
 
 " Not much ! Hoe her own row all right, won't yer, 
 girlie? Sure, sir. I'll attend about them messages right 
 away." 
 
 Tempest rode on into Grey Wolf with his eyes softened. 
 Randal's life was cruelly circumscribed; terribly lonely. 
 But he had found the compensation. Was Tempest so 
 much a lesser man than Randal that he could not also 
 find the compensation? 
 
 Early in the next month came the last night at Grey 
 Wolf, and Tempest walked for long under the cotton- 
 woods, seeing the lights which he would not know any 
 more blink out along the dimming street. For it was not 
 likely that he would ever come back to Grey Wolf, and 
 it was not likely that after to-morrow he would ever again 
 see Grange's Andree. The whole of him was shrinking 
 from the future which would possibly be Andree's. He 
 seldom spoke to her now, and he seldom spoke to Dick. 
 He could ask no questions there. He could only fear. 
 He could only hate with a bitter helplessness the man 
 whom Andree loved. And he could do nothing more. He 
 with his hands tied, and the great silent North waiting to 
 swallow him. 
 
 For long he walked under the cotton-woods, and 
 then, sharply, leaping through his brain came the 
 thought: 
 
 " She was a good woman and young enough to under- 
 stand. Perhaps she would look after Andree." 
 
 He wheeled; went swiftly into his office, and wrote one 
 of his direct, clearly-put letters to Jennifer. 
 
 Dick also wrote to Jennifer that evening. He had 
 meant to go without it, but in his packing he had come 
 on the little millboard painting of her which he had 
 always carried until shame made him put it away. In 
 the little bunk-room he stood still, staring down on the 
 bright face in the candlelight, and his eyes were grim. For 
 the difference between the centre of effort and the centre 
 of lateral direction was too great in Dick. He needed a 
 hand on the tiller, and Fate had denied him the only two
 
 I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 313 
 
 hands which he would have allowed there. Or was it his 
 own reckless temper which had denied him? 
 
 Suddenly Kennedy came clattering upstairs cheerfully, 
 and Dick thrust the picture back in his breast and finished 
 his packing. But before he slept he wrote a few brief 
 lines to Jennifer. 
 
 That letter went East by the same mail as Tempest's ; 
 but when they lay in her lap together Jennifer opened 
 Tempest's first. And after that she picked up the sheet 
 and the torn envelope and the other envelope with that 
 familiar black writing, and carried them all up to her 
 room and locked the door on herself. Twice over she read 
 Tempest's letter. Its quiet, curbed language told very 
 little; not much more than Slicker had told. But it made 
 her fear to open that other letter. Her pulses beat until 
 they stifled her, and her eyes were blurred. She knew, 
 with a sharpness, with a terrible sureness, that Dick meant 
 more to her than anything than anyone. And was this 
 written to say that she did not mean anything to him 
 any more? She set her teeth in her lip, ripped the envel- 
 ope, and pulled out the big sheet with its strong black 
 writing. There were only a few lines in the middle of 
 it. 
 
 " I go North in the morning for perhaps a year. I 
 have tried to pull a man out of the mud and got further 
 in myself than I expected. You will understand that this 
 was likely to happen to me. And understand that you are 
 in my life and my heart and my very soul. I could not 
 tear you out though I tried until the world's end, Jen- 
 nifer." 
 
 The heavy twist of his initials finished it, and Jennifer 
 stared at it with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. She 
 had no right to be glad. But she was glad; frankly, glo- 
 riously glad. This good-bye of his on the edge of one of 
 those long plunges into the unknown held none of the 
 suave, idle words with which he could cover his thoughts 
 so well. It was a flagrant disobedience of her commands. 
 It was a daring defiance of all which Tempest's letter 
 told. It gave no explanation, no apology, no penitence.
 
 314 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 She had no right to be glad. She should have been 
 angry, for he flung his words at her, challenging her to 
 love him the less for all his misdeeds and his failures and 
 his selfishness. And instead she laughed a little; knowing 
 that she could not, and knowing, too, the glory of that 
 renunciaition which forbade them ever to tell each other 
 these things face to face. 
 
 That night, kneeling by her mother's bed in the dark, 
 Jennifer spoke of her desire to go back to Grey Wolf. 
 She could not tell the reason. But she knew that the duty 
 which Dick owed to Grange's Andree and which Tempest, 
 without laying undue stress, had clearly lined, was hers 
 to discharge. How deep that obligation might be she did 
 not know. Why she resented it so little she did not know. 
 But she did know that little lonely Grey Wolf by the far- 
 away northern river called her as no other place on earth 
 had ever called her. Of all this she said nothing to her 
 mother, but there was much understood between the two 
 which even the tenderest love must leave unsaid. The elder 
 woman laid her widowed hand on the young hand which 
 was so infinitely worse than widowed. 
 
 " This may be too hard for you, Jennifer," she said. 
 "And for more than you. Have you thought of that?" 
 
 " Yes, dear. But I must go. Over there I shall hear 
 little things. And I can't do without them. They are all 
 that is left in my life." 
 
 The mother was silent. She had neither right nor 
 power to venture here. It was beyond her control, be- 
 yond her understanding. Her daughter had won her way 
 down strange paths where neither love nor guarding could 
 hedge her in. But one thing she knew, and she spoke it. 
 
 " If you do go I will go with you, Jennifer." 
 
 "Oh, mother of mine, would you? Truly, would you? 
 But you might get your dear aristocratic nose frost-bitten 
 in the winter. And there are so few of the comforts you're 
 accustomed to." 
 
 " You are the principal comfort which I'm accustomed 
 to. I can do without the other things, but not without 
 you, darling." 
 
 Jennifer put her lips to the fine old face. 
 
 " I don't want to be selfish," she said. " But I shall
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 315 
 
 blow the roof off something if I have to stay here much 
 longer. And you'll love the Indian babies, mother mine. 
 I'll steal one in a moss-bag for you. Mrs. Grange has 
 got so many that she'd never miss two or three." 
 
 She mentioned Moosta's name easily, but she could not 
 speak of Andree. Her mother could neither help nor 
 understand there. She could not be expected to. For 
 Jennifer's own need she had found the solution to the 
 thing which had troubled her. Dick had redeemed Tem- 
 pest at the cost of some dishonour to himself, and possibly 
 some well-deserved shame, and he had been man enough 
 not to ask forgiveness where it was not likely to be ac- 
 corded. But, because Grange's Andree was also a woman 
 who loved him and who could never come near him in 
 life, Jennifer felt a thrill of joy and thankfulness that 
 it should be for her to give comfort here and to untie 
 the threads that Dick's careless hands had knotted. 
 
 She dreamed that night of the ways whereby that life 
 which the great North was absorbing should cross tracks 
 with her own again. The stray word of a breed who had 
 passed him on the rivers. Indians coming in with the 
 winter furs, who knew the trails he went. A factor, or 
 a missionary, perhaps, at whose house he had stayed. 
 Letters brought by the steamer and written long months 
 before. The wide brooding majesty of the North closed 
 round her, and those long, calm days on the Athabaska 
 were clear to Jennifer as she fell asleep; and in place of 
 the rattling cars she heard again the water parting at the 
 prow, and instead of the flaring light across the street 
 she saw the moon-reflection, deep and serene and glorious, 
 in the bosom of the drowsing river. 
 
 Three telegrams and two letters secured the old house 
 on the Lake to Jennifer again, and in the midst of her 
 packing came another letter from Slicker, written from 
 Saskatoon. He enclosed, for Jennifer's benefit, young 
 Forbes' description of the leaving of the Long Patrol from 
 Grey Wolf and Grange's Andree's part in the matter. 
 
 "I guess it was a pretty shady thing for Dick to chuck 
 her away as he did," commented Slicker. " Of course, 
 Andree is the limit, all right. But it must have been a 
 shindy, as you'll see from what Lin Forbes says.
 
 316 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " ' They'd been keeping their mouth shut with both 
 hands as to date and time of leaving,' wrote young Forbes. 
 ' But it leaked out somehow; and when we all got down 
 to the steamer Andree was waltzing around like a crazy 
 thing. She froze on to Dick gave him a devil of a tiine 
 And there was Tempest standing on the wharf and waiting. 
 I tell you it was pretty sick to see. I don't guess he ever 
 meant more than a bit of fooling. That's Dick, you know. 
 He has an eye for every pretty girl, and Andree is uncom- 
 monly pretty, though she has gone off a bit lately. But 
 he got served for it. She was all out. Let him have it 
 good and strong. He made the best of it, I guess. Just 
 laughed, and kissed her in front of us all, and told her not 
 to be a little fool. Then the boat backed off, and there 
 was Andree running over her ankles into the water, and 
 crying out, " Dick ! Dick ! " But he'll never come back 
 to her. He knows a trick worth two of that. But he wiped 
 Tempest's eye over the business, and I reckon Tempest 
 has too much grit to forgive him easily. Those two are 
 about as friendly as a couple of wolf-bred huskies these 
 days.' 
 
 " I guess there'll be something doing before they part 
 company," added Slicker. " Dick '11 be sorry for his devil- 
 try before he's done. Of course she was ruining Tempest, 
 and this has straightened him up again. But I don't 
 imagine Dick went into it just for that. He isn't built 
 of the stuff they make martyrs out of." 
 
 Because all human nature is irrational Jennifer did not 
 attempt to explain to herself why she felt more pity than 
 anger over this. Dick might have treated her as he had 
 treated Andree, and she could have forgiven him ; not only 
 because the elements of submission and self-renunciation 
 are very strong in the nature of most women, but because, 
 seeing all things through the glass of her own clear heart, 
 she believed that the man must suffer the more keenly of 
 the two. A little while she stood, with her dainty clothes 
 strowed round her on floor and bed and in the open boxes. 
 Simple they were, but one and all bore just that nameless, 
 elusive charm which was Jennifer's own: that charm which 
 made a man, standing on the deck of a little^rteamer that
 
 chug-chugged its way down the Great Slave River, forget 
 all that he had done and would not do, and hold the 
 memory of her before him, hour by silent hour, drawing 
 his strength for the future therefrom. 
 
 There were comments which it was better that Jennifer 
 should not hear when she came again to Grey Wolf. But 
 because she had guessed at them, and met them in her 
 heart long since, she did not quail at them now. Son-of- 
 Lightning was re-installed in his shack behind the kitchen, 
 and his tuneless singing warmed Jennifer's spirit, although 
 it made her mother laugh until she cried, and then 
 say: 
 
 " You must make him exercise his voice at regular hours 
 only, Jennifer. Hours when I go walking or driving. He 
 will kill me dead if I have to hear him more than once 
 a week." 
 
 " I could never make him understand all that, dear," 
 said Jennifer. " But I might explain that it would be 
 a terrible thing for him to damage his throat by over- 
 exertion if Clara is any good as a medium." 
 
 Clara was the breed provided by Mrs. Leigh in place 
 of the original Louisa. She lived in the kitchen and drove 
 the staid Toronto servant to despair five times a day. 
 " But," as Jennifer said, " she kept Susan from being 
 lonely, and even something to worry one is better than 
 isolation." 
 
 Leigh had also stocked up the necessary horses and pigs 
 and the necessary hired man. Moosta's last baby but one 
 was borrowed for a week, " just to help settle them in," 
 according to Jennifer's plea; and then Jennifer took breath 
 and looked round on the dear familiar world out of which 
 the dearest and most familiar elements had dropped. 
 Moosta's baby was the deep-laid plan whereby she hoped 
 to trap Andree. For she knew that if Grange's Andree 
 cared for any things on earth those things were Grange's 
 babies. And this proved true. In the beginning of the 
 second week Andree stopped Jennifer outside the Hudson 
 Bay Store and spoke to her. 
 
 " Are you meaning to keep Moosta's Rosario all the 
 time ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 Jennifer Ipoked at her with a quickening heart-beat.
 
 318 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 This was the girl who, if talk told truth, loved Dick even 
 as Jennifer loved him, and by a better right. 
 
 " Why, no," she said hastily. " Did you want him back, 
 Andree? " 
 
 " I gave him his name," said Andree. " Saw it in a 
 book. It does seem like the back-parlour is empty with- 
 out him." 
 
 Jennifer knew that there were a round dozen more in 
 that back-parlour. But she understood. It is not the 
 number which fill up a place, but the one. 
 
 " I'm so sorry," she said. " Would you like to come 
 over and fetch him back, Andree? You can drive out 
 with me, and I'll bring you back before dark." 
 
 Andree drew back, shy and alarmed. She was more 
 the wild wood animal than ever. The olive oval of her 
 face was thinner and paler, and there was a strange, 
 deeper look in her eyes. 
 
 " I I guess it no matter that much," she stammered. 
 " Peut-etre you bringing him back soon." 
 
 " Well," said Jennifer artfully, " Mrs. Grange said I 
 could keep him as long as I liked, and I don't think it 
 would be quite civil to take him back yet. She might 
 think I was tired of him. Of course if you run off with 
 him that is a different matter." 
 
 " Moosta would hardly notice s'pose he back or not," 
 said Andree, and Jennifer smothered a smile. 
 
 " Come out and see him, anyway," she said. " He calls 
 your name, Andree. It is the only word he says." 
 
 " Ah ! Mon petit ! " The girl's face lighted up. " He 
 is not to forget, the blessed one. No! Mon petit an?i 
 Rosario." 
 
 Then she recollected herself swiftly. 
 
 " Maybe I will come to-morrow or some next day," 
 she said, and disappeared into the dark of the side- 
 passage again. 
 
 In the dusk of two evenings later Jennifer saw Andree 
 haunting the shadows round Son-of-Lightning's shack, and 
 she ran out and brought the girl in to the warm lighted 
 room where Rosario lay before the fire, kicking blissfully j 
 on his little back. It brought Jennifer's laugh on a sob": 
 to see the girl go down on her knees and tangle her curls 
 
 I
 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 319 
 
 in the chubby fingers, and coo the soft Indian baby-talk 
 which was so alien to the white woman. And Rosario 
 chuckled and crowed; tossing his arms until Andree looked 
 up with the beautiful face laughing through her hair. 
 
 "II m'aime," she cried. "He do like me best. Dieu! 
 It is me best." 
 
 Later she gathered him into her arms; sitting on the 
 floor and rocking and crooning until he fell asleep. She 
 took no count of Jennifer. Women never entered much 
 into Andree's calculation unless they got in her way, and 
 Jennifer was deeply thankful that the girl did not know 
 how much this woman who slipped down on the rug beside 
 her stood in her way. 
 
 " Andree," she said ; " Mrs. Grange showed me a very 
 pretty picture of you. I should think it would make you 
 feel so proud. Mr. Heriot painted it, didn't he?" 
 
 " Oui," said Andree on a long-drawn breath. 
 
 " And he painted others too." Jennifer's voice faltered 
 a little. She was striving to crush down an unworthy 
 doubt. But the girl beside her was so beautiful, so very 
 beautiful. And she knew that she was plain. " Won't 
 you show me the others some day, Andree?" 
 
 For a little the girl was silent. Jennifer saw the colour 
 pulsing in her face and the flutter of her breast. Then 
 Andree cast Rosario aside with that impetuosity to which 
 he was so accustomed that it did not break his sleep and 
 hid her face in her hands. 
 
 " It makes me go seeck inside to talk 'bout him," she 
 wailed. " I do not know. I do not know. I not care 
 for people to call me belle any more." 
 
 Jennifer breathed sharply. The bent, dark head blurred 
 before her eyes. Then she put her arm round the shoul- 
 ders and drew -Andree's head against her. 
 
 " Tell me," she said gently, " is it because he had to go 
 away? He could not help that, Andree." 
 
 As usual under pressure Andree sloughed off all reserve 
 and flung her heart bare to Jennifer as she had done to 
 Dick. 
 
 " I love him," she cried. " I do love him so I could 
 ^nel him. And he laugh at me. He kiss me and laugh. 
 The place burn. It burn now. One day he say, ' I love
 
 320 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 you, Andree.' Now he laugh and for two-three months 
 before he go he no speak to me. And one day he hit me 
 with his whip. I hate him. I hate him ah, mon Dieu, 
 J love him so." 
 
 Jennifer controlled her voice with difficulty. 
 
 " And you think he does not love you, Andree ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I not know. Perhaps and perhaps again. But I 
 think he hate me. And I hate him. But if again he smile 
 at me *h," she broke into violent sobbing; "ah, Dick, 
 come back. I not hate you. Oh, come back from so far 
 away." 
 
 " If he told you that he loved you " Jennifer could 
 
 not finish. 
 
 " Oh, mais vous savez, what are men. To-day to kiss, 
 to-morrow to hit. Dick did hit when he kiss. He was 
 not like the others. They did pray to me. Dick made 
 me pray to him. Ah ! " she shook herself free, and sat 
 up, biting her lips. " When he come again to Grey Wolf 
 I will kill him. He no good, anyway. Before he go he 
 drink he drink too much sometimes. He no good. And 
 he make game of me. Tres bien ! I make much game of 
 him. There are plenty more love Andree. Ah! I do hate 
 him. Mon Dieu ! " 
 
 Jennifer could not handle this mood any more than Dick 
 could handle the softer mood of that other night. She 
 shivered, going white under the tense fury of the words. 
 Dimly she recognised that there were elements in Andree 
 which she could never understand, even as there were 
 elements in Dick. For the rugged rocks and the fierce 
 winds and the deep secret woods were the forbears of their 
 souls in the days when Andree's Indian fathers and the 
 roystering gentlemen adventurers who were responsible for 
 Dick had known this young land of Canada as no men 
 of a later day could know it. 
 
 Andree stood up, knotting back her curls with swift, skil- 
 ful fingers. 
 
 " It is another day I will come for Rosario," she said, 
 and then Jennifer found her feet and her courage to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Come soon, Andree," she said. " And talk to me as 

 
 "I WANT THE WEST AGAIN" 321 
 
 much as ever you want to. And by and by, perhaps, you 
 will not be so unhappy. You say that there are plenty 
 more people who care for you." 
 
 " Mais they are not Dick," said Andree, and went 
 away out into the night.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL*' 
 
 " Bio BLANKET, is it?" said Gillington. "Just look his 
 name up, Otway. Two wives arid six children, eh? Got 
 them all here, has he? Well, Francois, tell him to go 
 ahead and name them so I'll know he hasn't swapped any 
 since last year. Otway, I guess I'll want out another box 
 of the paper." 
 
 The Treaty-clerk disappeared into the little tent, and 
 Gillington pushed his hat back from his heated, florid 
 face, and nodded as the immovable Big Blanket introduced 
 his family, one by one, through the interpreter. 
 
 " Little Cow, she old wife," said Big Blanket, thrust- 
 ing the wrinkled wisp of womanhood forward. " Glory- 
 of-the-eyes, she new." Then he ranged up the berry- 
 brown, laughing children, and told them over. " Violette. 
 Piapot. Song-of-all-the-birds. Apisis. Smoke. Beak-of- 
 the-eagle." He stretched his hands for the little packet 
 of dollar-bills, done up neatly in fives, as Gillington paid 
 them down on the big box in front of the little box on 
 which he sat. 
 
 Word by word Francois translated as Gillington spoke. 
 
 " Payuk, nesoo, nisto, naoo, nayanun, Nikoowasik. 
 Those packets are for the children, Big Blanket. Three 
 more lots for yourself and the wives, making kakut mita- 
 tut in all. Nine sets for Big Blanket, Otway. What's 
 that, Doc.?" 
 
 The heat of the sun poured over him as he turned where 
 the grey smoke from a mosquito-smudge blew sideways, 
 hiding and revealing the silent knots of Indians Chipew- 
 yans, Doglegs and Yellow Knives who had come to Fort 
 Resolution on the Great Slave Lake for their yearly pay- 
 ment of the Treaty money. And this Treaty money is the 
 pledge of the Canadian Government that it will stand by 
 
 322
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 323 
 
 the children of the North-West to the extent of five dol- 
 lars yearly to every man and woman and child which can 
 produce the Treaty-tickets carrying his or her name, the 
 number of his band and family, and the date of his last 
 payment. 
 
 A big man with his eyes reddened by the smoke-reek 
 halted at Gillington's elbow. He carried a brown battered 
 bag, and there was a suggestion of strenuousness above 
 all his movements. For the last three hours he had been 
 examining wounds, disease, and various sicknesses in the 
 colony of tepees set along the sandy short, and those hours 
 had been very full indeed. Because many of the distant 
 tribes take their doctor as they take their Treaty-money, 
 once only in a year. 
 
 " I've just seen that old scoundrel, Turquetil," he said. 
 " He and his son had a fight,, and they're more or less 
 laid out. Send them their Treaty by Charlie Diamond, 
 won't you, Gillington? He'll see that they get it." 
 
 Gillington growled assent, ticking off the necessary dol- 
 lars for Little Hat and his belongings. Charlie Diamond 
 was Chief of the Canoe River Band of which Turquetil 
 was an unworthy member. 
 
 " Sure," he said. " Got many sick, Sherwood ? " 
 
 The doctor thrust his lip out. He was lighting a pipe 
 with eager fingers. 
 
 " Same as usual," he said. " If only the Lord had 
 made 'em able to comprehend the meaning of cleanliness 
 life would be simplified. Joseph Iron broke his leg yes- 
 terday, and I met him crawling out for his Treaty just 
 now. For the land's sake, Gillington, what are you doing 
 with all those police? Do the people at headquarters 
 think our precious lives need guarding?" 
 
 Gillington glanced round to the tent where, in the shade, 
 three khaki uniforms made a dull blurr. Two more walked 
 the stretch of sandy level immediately behind the tepees. 
 As Gillington looked they separated; and one went up to 
 the barracks and the other came down towards the tent. 
 
 " Those four came in just now," he said. " A patrol 
 going through to Fullerton. Tempest is in charge. You 
 remember him? The man who was made Inspector for 
 his moral influence and a few more reasons."
 
 334 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 He made the introductions briefly as Tempest came up, 
 then turned to his work again. And from where he lay 
 by the tent with his hat pulled over his eyes and his pipe 
 going fiercely to free him of the mosquitoes, Dick watched 
 this scene which had been so familiar to him in other 
 days: on the Little Slave River; on the Peace; at Ver- 
 milion, and which never grew stale. For it was colour 
 and movement, tragedy and comedy. It was Life. 
 
 He lifted on his elbow; dragged out his sketch-book, and 
 roughed in the picture with a charcoal stub. And it was 
 a picture worth while to the man who could see. 
 
 Back of all lay the broad blue line of the lake that 
 lipped the sandy beach. Then the dirty brown, close-set 
 jumble of tepees half-hid by smoke that lifted sometimes 
 to show the white houses of the Fort beyond. The medley 
 of children and dogs that rolled, laughing and yapping, 
 round the tents. The fathers and mothers of the race, 
 crowding round the Treaty-Payer; pure Mongolian type, 
 some with eager, slant-eyes for the " sooneyahs " which 
 Gillington was dealing; erect, dignified chiefs who ask 
 help of the white man against none but the white man and 
 who manipulate their family quarrels in private ; ill-made 
 derelicts, hauling their loose store-clothes tighter round 
 their unwashed bodies, and looked on with disfavour by 
 the sturdier Dog-legs. And foremost of all, the little 
 group of white men: Gillington straddled on his box, with 
 his shirt loose at the thick throat and the sweat dripping 
 from him as he flung his jokes and genial encouragements 
 to the mercy of Francois* interpretation, seeing in answer 
 the white of eyes and teeth flashing out suddenly with a 
 coarsely-humorous retort; the slim, gentlemanly Otway, 
 with the furtive eyes which told, while they believed they 
 hid, the reason which had brought him so far from the 
 land and the class which bred him; Sherwood, the big- 
 boned, merry-eyed doctor, who carried his lonely beat over 
 a good-sized section of a half-continent Tempest. 
 
 Dick smudged them in; longing for his paints to dab on 
 the raw vermilion of that Cree's waist-scarf, or the saffron 
 tempered by dirt of that woman's shawl. Or the blue of 
 the lake, and the warm umbers of the tepees, and the pure 
 ash-grey of a dog that scratched itself at Tempest's feet.
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 32S 
 
 Tempest he did not care to look at. Through those long 
 steamer days on the Athabaska Dick had seen more of 
 Tempest than he ever wished to see again, and he was 
 dreading the plunge into the wilderness as he had not 
 dreaded the future ever before in all his life. For the fret 
 of that impotent rage which we feel only against those 
 whom we have wronged and who will not give us the sat- 
 isfaction of justifying ourselves was on Dick, by day and 
 by wakeful night. 
 
 Of what Tempest thought through these weeks which 
 held them so closely together Dick did not know. There 
 was nothing in him which could interpret the heart of this 
 man to whom the higher and the deeper places of life were 
 open. Of late he had sometimes even grown to fear Tem- 
 pest. The utter self-restraint of the still man who walked 
 with him by day and sat beside him over the evening fires 
 when neither the pipe-smoke or the long loneliness could 
 knit them together into more than casual speech had its ef- 
 fect on his nerves and on his heart. TempesJ; was com- 
 pletely just to him; completely courteous and kind. But 
 Dick understood well that it was the gentleman in Tem- 
 pest which owed these things to himself; not the friend 
 which owed them to Dick. Not once did he suffer Dick to 
 look below the surface of his quiet manner; and Dick, 
 knowing the savagery in himself which would have had 
 satisfaction for a wrong done him, grew uneasy and re- 
 sentful, and found it daily more difficult to keep Tempest 
 out of his thoughts. 
 
 It was Dick's nature to demand an eye for an eye, and 
 until now he had always felt contempt for the man who 
 asked less. But he could not feel contempt for Tempest. 
 He knew what he had done to this man ; he knew the tor- 
 ment which he had given him to bear, and he knew that 
 Tempest was still the stronger. He would not soon forget 
 his good-bye to Andree on the bank at Grey Wolf, with 
 Tempest standing by. And he knew that the fear which 
 walked with Tempest eternally was the fear for this girl 
 whom Dick had waked to the realisation of love and de- 
 pendence and had flung away to seek helplessly and blindly 
 for what she could find instead. There could be no forgive- 
 ness for such a thing as this, and Dick did not expect it.
 
 326 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 He did not want it, for Tempest would have seemed to him 
 less than human if he could have given it. But, gradually, 
 he was realising, keenly, bitterly, that he was controlled 
 and driven by the blind forces of the universe only, and 
 that for Tempest and Jennifer there was a higher grade. 
 
 Life made sport of them and tied their feet, even as his 
 were tied. But it could not break their spirits. They were 
 nearer that supreme thing which Jennifer called God, and 
 which Tempest had once called Understanding. And for 
 the sacrifice of self which that required of them they had 
 surely found the compensation. And then Dick rolled 
 over, looking straight at Tempest where he talked with 
 Sherwood in the sunlight, and he wondered if this man 
 was to use for Canada only all those great and rich gifts 
 for which his life had qualified him. 
 
 Gillington and Otway were speaking together, low- 
 voiced, and before them stood an Indian girl with restless, 
 beseeching eyes which made Dick think of Andree's as he 
 had seen them sometimes. Her coarse, black hair was 
 parted over the young forehead and hung on her shoulders 
 in two thick plaits. There was a little moss-bag baby in 
 the curve of her arm, and two round-eyed, tottering, elder 
 babies clung to her ragged black skirts. She looked so 
 very young and undefended, and Dick felt curious to know 
 what was puzzling the white men in connection with her. 
 Gillington sat up at last, pushing his hat back. His ruddy, 
 jolly face was troubled. 
 
 " Sorry, Leaf-of-the-woods," he said. " I can't do it. 
 I'll give you Treaty for yourself and the other two; but I 
 can't let you have it for the baby." 
 
 The baby, as though understanding its repudiation, gave 
 a little cry where the girl moved it on her arm. Tempest 
 turned with a half-spoken sentence on his lips. It broke 
 as he looked at Leaf-of-the-woods, and Dick knew why. 
 Those soft wide eyes had brouglyj Andree to Tempest also. 
 
 "What's wrong?" he asked of Gillington, and Gilling- 
 ton rubbed his nose vexedly. 
 
 " Why she can't account for the kiddie. He isn't one 
 of Canada's legitimate citizens, and I can't pay him 
 Treaty." 
 
 " Poor little beggar." Tempest regarded the pl.icid
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 327 
 
 baby-face with pity. " Can't you waive the law for once, 
 Gillington? " 
 
 " Guess not. It wouldn't do to create a precedent. I'm 
 sorry, too. I reckon those five dollars mean as much to her 
 as two or three hundred to you or me." 
 
 Leaf-of-the-woods raised her eyes to Tempest. She did 
 not understand what these big-voiced men were saying; 
 but she read that heart-note in Tempest's tone which 
 is common to all languages. Dick saw Tempest's grave 
 face flush and soften. 
 
 " Can't you manage it some way, Gillington? " he asked. 
 
 " As an officer of the law, I can't. But there's nothing 
 to prevent your giving her the five dollars if you feel like 
 it." 
 
 Gillington laughed at his own joke. But Tempest's eyes 
 lighted to a gleam of the mischievous laughter of earlier 
 days. 
 
 " Nothing to prevent my adopting that kid and insuring 
 his yearly payment out of my own pocket, I suppose ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Nothing but the state of your own pocket," agreed Gil- 
 lington. 
 
 " I fancy I can stand that. Will you explain to Fran- 
 cois that I want the girl to know that I'm going to be re- 
 sponsible for those five dollars in future, and that I'm 
 going to give the child my name so that I can keep track 
 of him." 
 
 " You always were quixotic," remarked Sherwood, look- 
 ing at him curiously. 
 
 " Likely enough," cried Tempest dryly, and raised his 
 voice, calling to a little burly priest who was passing from 
 the Roman Catholic Mission. 
 
 The priest halted, and Tempest went to him, and then 
 the two came back together. A gaping young breed was 
 sent to the lake for a dipper of water, and before the rough 
 box with its thumbed account-books Dick saw enacted a 
 queer little ceremony which left him undecided to the end 
 of his life concerning its comedy or tragedy. 
 
 Gillington's jolly face was composed into an unusual 
 solemnity, and Otway leaned against the tent-opening with 
 his brows knit and in his eyes a haunting look of memory.
 
 328 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Among the crowding Indians stood the fat priest with 
 rusty cassock and kindly, flabby face. Tempest took the 
 baby from the girl's arms, starting with all a man's alarm 
 as it began to cry. Hastily he thrust it into the priest's 
 hands, giving his own name with it, and the child screamed 
 strongly as the water sprayed over it from the priest's hot 
 fingers. 
 
 Then the mother took it again; Gillington, relaxing the 
 corners of his mouth with evident relief, made a careless 
 joke, and insisted on Tempest himself placing the five dol- 
 lars in the soft dark fingers of Neil Fraser Tempest the 
 younger. 
 
 Dick got up and walked hurriedly down to the canoes on 
 the Lake shore. Was this brown, greasy baby the only 
 one who was to carry on Tempest's name when the man's 
 work was done and that alert, breezy step stilled for ever? 
 Dick guessed that it almost surely would be so. There 
 was a lonely life before Tempest now: a lonely life and 
 his work, supposing that this crust of quiet dignity behind 
 which he had withdrawn himself hid living fires and not 
 burnt-out ash. Dick would have given all he had, except 
 a certain little oil-painting, to know what lay beneath that 
 crust. He could have borne with Tempest for an out- 
 spoken enemy, or he could have abased himself and asked 
 forgiveness for the first time in his life. But this rigid, 
 outward calm maddened him; and yet, here again because 
 Tempest was the stronger, he could not break through 
 it. 
 
 He went down to the Lake where the canoes lay ; loaded 
 and ready for their long unknown journey to the East. 
 The other two policemen of the Patrol were there, packing 
 in their own dunnage, and joking with the few white men 
 who stood round. The mosquitoes hummed in swarms 
 across the low swamp-land, and Myers, the stocky little 
 Corporal detailed from work on the Yukon, was swearing 
 in Cockney English as he puffed his briar pipe and beat 
 the air right and left. The bowman of Dick's canoe was 
 a tall, melancholy French-Canadian, with drooping mous- 
 tache and drooping shoulders and muscles of springy steel. 
 He looked at Myers with his dark, sad eyes. 
 
 " Parblieu! You are too fat," he said. " They will eat
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 329 
 
 you always. And it is to be worse where we go in the next 
 days." 
 
 " Ain't 'e a nice feller ter have along on a picnic? " ap- 
 pealed Myers to the lookers-on. " A reel merry company, 
 that's what 'e is. ' Wot's the good o' livin' terday ? ' 'e says. 
 ' We gotter die termorrocr.' Yesser. Why yesser. 
 We ain't got nothin' more ter wait for 'cept them 
 breeds." 
 
 Tempest had hired two breeds and a canoe to help 
 lighten the loads across the dangerous Long Traverse of 
 rapids on the Lake. He looked right and left for them 
 now, drawn to his full height, with his bright eyes keen as 
 Dick's own. Outwardly he seemed all that a workman 
 should be. But the test that would try him in so many 
 ways was not yet. 
 
 Up the sweep of the shore came a canoe, shot forward 
 by the quick, long strokes of the breeds. They paddled 
 Indian-fashion, changing the hands every few minutes, and 
 the flash of the dripping paddles overhead dazzled in the 
 sunlight. Dick looked down at the canoes which were to 
 carry the little patrol so far. Long and snaky-brown they 
 lay; of varnished strip cedar; a good eighteen feet in 
 length, with a forty-four inch beam and a draught of eight- 
 een inches. Tempest had chosen them from the design- 
 book, and he knew every stroke of them; for he and Dick 
 had tried them on the rapids of the Athabaska and he had 
 gone over them, foot by foot, as they lay covered on the 
 deck of the steamer which brought them up to Smith's 
 Landing. They were fitted with oars, and big rolled lateen 
 sails, and with many paddles. Aft and amidships were 
 stowed part of the freight which was to feed and clothe 
 the men until they touched to white-man life again, and at 
 the shore-lip the two breeds were stowing the remainder 
 into their own light birch canoe. 
 
 A man beside Dick stooped to lift the prow of a canoe. 
 
 "What's her portaging weight?" he asked; and Dick, 
 blowing the tobacco-smoke round him in a cloud, said: 
 
 " About one-twenty pounds. The very lightest make 
 I've come across for the strength." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the man, and wagged his head. " But you 
 don't know where you're going. Where a feller has to cut
 
 330 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 portages and portage his canoe afterwards I guess it gets 
 heavy enough." 
 
 Dick turned away with a grunt. He did not like men 
 who looked out for trouble. Besides, it was so very true 
 that he did not know where he was going. Neither in 
 spirit nor in body did he know. But he was very sure of 
 one thing. Before the trail was ended he would burst 
 through that crust which sheltered Tempest, even if Tem- 
 pest killed him for it. 
 
 The sun was yet high, though Tempest's watch said 
 half-past six, when the three canoes dropped away from 
 Fort Resolution, threading through the big and little chan- 
 nels that harry the many island shores. The sun laid its 
 broad gold on their faces or on their neck-napes as they 
 wound right and left, with the birds calling past them from 
 island to island and all the warm wet scents of trees and 
 earth blowing fresh in their ncstrils; there was enough 
 wind to keep the mosquitoes off, and the canoes cut their 
 way strongly with the dipping paddles sending light-flashes 
 far over the streaming water. 
 
 Leaf-of-the-woods, crouched with her children in a little 
 crazy dug-out, and paddling heavily back to her home on 
 a distant island, looked up as the canoes swept by, with the 
 sun glinting on tunic-buttons and badges, and making ruddy 
 the firm-lipped, keen-eyed faces. Exactly what Tempest 
 had done for her she could not comprehend; but she un- 
 derstood that in some mysterious way he had assured those 
 coveted five dollars to the sleeping child at her feet. She 
 halted the paddle in her dusky, dirty little hands ; staring, 
 round-eyed and unemotional. Tempest smiled as he went 
 by. He was kneeling bare-headed, with the wind in his 
 thick chestnut hair and his strong neck stiffened for the 
 thrust and swing of the paddle. Leaf-of-the-woods gave 
 no response. She did not think about it. Tempest was 
 something so utterly alien to her ; so completely outside her 
 life and her comprehension. He scarcely seemed a man 
 among men to Leaf-of-the-woods. He was more like some 
 undefined force, as all the white men who trod and looked 
 as he did were. She watched him pass with a kind of in- 
 difference, and when the islands hid him. she took up her 
 paddle again and worked her stolid way home.
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 331 
 
 Tempest forgot her in a struggle to clear a snag round 
 the next corner. But the thing which he had done before 
 the Treaty tent at Fort Resolution meant more than either 
 the white man or the brown girl knew. For it was earnest 
 of that deeper, more impersonal fathering which Tempest 
 was later to give to the land he loved. 
 
 Through the evening haze a tall York boat grew out of 
 the blue distance with its patched sail drawing feebly in 
 the fitful wind. It was crowded with the Yellow Knives 
 and Dog Rib Indians, going in to Fort Resolution for 
 Treaty Payment. Idly they sat or lay about the decking; 
 long-haired, loose-limbed, indifferent, except where one 
 boy sprang up on a thwart, holding a little girl on his broad 
 shoulder. A red handkerchief was bound about the boy's 
 head; and his shrill hail, broken across by the drop of his 
 voice to a man's depth, came curiously over the empty wa- 
 ters. Then they too fell away into the past, and Dick 
 turned his eyes to the man ahead of him again. 
 
 He had watched each one of those swarthy, dark-eyed 
 faces with the lightningly-keen glance which was his by 
 nature. He knew that he would look so at every man he 
 passed until he found Ducane. The order to go and look 
 for Ducane until he found him would have been very nearly 
 the greatest joy earth could have given him now. But, be- 
 cause it was denied, he knew the matter only lengthened 
 by a little. If Ducane lived he would find him. If Du- 
 cane died he would know it. Concerning this matter he 
 had the strange intuition which occasionally comes to men 
 who have relied all their lives on chance. 
 
 The Lake, wide and moaning as the sea, was dark with 
 the wrath of an eastern wind that night. But it was no 
 darker than Tempest's spirit as he walked the stony ridge 
 behind their island camp, forgetful of the mosquito- 
 smudges, and remembering only that he had at last taken 
 the decisive step away from civilisation and from all knowl- 
 edge of Andree. 
 
 He knew Andree now very much for what she was. But 
 that only changed his love. He no longer thought of her 
 a wife. To him she was, and always would be, just 
 Grange's Andree; a thing half-human and wholly dear 
 a thing which the very soul of him longed to protect and 1
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 .which he could not touch, could not help, could not shield. 
 He looked down the slope to the sleeping bodies round 
 the mosquito-smudge, and knew instantly which of them 
 was Dick. He had lain round camp-fires with him too 
 often not to know how Dick always slept on his side, with 
 one knee bent and fingers curving for the revolver-butt; 
 quick to spring up on the instant at any unusual sound. 
 He was so quick always, this man whom Tempest had 
 loved and trusted. So quick with his laugh and his love 
 and his generous impulses. Tempest had loved Dick be- 
 cause he was Dick, never halting to consider that Dick 
 might treat him as he had treated other men. And now 
 Dick had done it; done it with the usual callous indiffer- 
 ence which he showed at most crises of his life ; done it with 
 mocking eyes and a lie on his mouth. 
 
 In Tempest there was no such mad mixture of rogue and 
 martyr and devil, of sin and renunciation and selfishness 
 and reverence as tormented Dick. There was no little 
 cynical imp of humour in his blood to teach him how to 
 jest at his soul and at all other things which hurt him. 
 Dick possessed that imp. Without it he could not have 
 served the Law which he derided, or found such good joy 
 in life still. Tempest had none of that spark to keep the 
 fire of his days burning. He knew, as all the world's 
 chosen men know (and there are many more of them than 
 the world ever finds out) that, having endured the suffer- 
 ing, it was his plain duty as immortal man to find the rem- 
 edy and to apply it until he could stand upon his feet again, 
 sane and cured, and fit for the work which was to fit him 
 for the future. 
 
 But he knew to-night, as he had known so many times 
 through the last months, that as yet he could not do it. He 
 had first to stamp out his hate of Dick, and all the out- 
 raged, betrayed friendship in him fought instinctively 
 against that. 
 
 He went down to the fire again; took his blanket, and 
 wrapped it round him. A breed was raised on his elbow, 
 throwing more wood on the fire. The flickering light went 
 playing hide-and-seek across the faces of the sleeping men, 
 bringing the semblance of laughter to Dick's mouth. Tem- 
 pest turned his back on him and lay down. But that mock-
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 333 
 
 ing laughter chased him through his dreams and spoiled his 
 rest. 
 
 The morning broke, wet and squally, with a following 
 wind that ran them with taut sails down to the grey angry 
 line of rough water that began the Traverse. Far off the 
 small, bare islands that flanked the shore were lost in haze, 
 and the naked width of the Great Slave Lake was like a 
 rimless sea about them. The canoes seemed absurdly in- 
 adequate and frail to take that passage ; but the breeds slid 
 into it, indifferently, with the assured skill of their kind, 
 and the white men's canoes followed, as snaky and alert as 
 they. The rising wind blew up a sea that threatened dan- 
 ger, and the next two hours were full of it. With tunics 
 flung aside, and sleeves rolled, and hats off every man la- 
 boured for his life; and the crested waves about them al- 
 lowed no rest, any more than the stalking Indian of an 
 earlier day had allowed rest to those free-traders who were 
 marked down for punishment on that Long Traverse of 
 an earlier day. 
 
 They were dripping with rain and lake-water ; exhausted, 
 and stiff with the muscle-ache when they hauled to shore 
 again, two hours later. But the great Traverse was passed, 
 and the beginning of a new world was before them. Dick 
 knew something of that world already. He had trodden 
 part of it himself, and from the tribes gathered in Fort 
 Resolution he had learnt much more. For Fort Resolution 
 is the book which holds the largest and the biggest chapter 
 of the story of Fur. From there men go north to the Bar- 
 ren Lands to hunt the musk ox ; from there fur of marten, 
 of wolverine, of brown bear and ermine, and many more 
 go south in the close-pressed bales, by steamer and by port- 
 age and by the tracker's pull. And from there, all round 
 about it, the trails of the sturdy hunters drive out into the 
 silences over the chartless hundreds of miles. 
 
 At Fond du Lac was a deserted post of the Hudson Bay 
 Company. They left it to rot its way back to the earth 
 again, and followed up the narrowing lake until Charlton 
 Harbour marked the end of it and the beginning of that 
 which all men knew to be the real test of flesh and 
 spirit. 
 
 That night's camp was among a cluster of empty tepees
 
 334 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 on the lonely shore whence white-man tread and white-man 
 voices had departed long ago. The tepees were used as a 
 half-way camp by the Dog Ribs and Yellow Knives going 
 into Fort Resolution for the yearly Treaty Payments, and 
 the signs of recent occupation were plain on them. Dick 
 prowled through their dirty silences that night; but he 
 found nothing of moment except a puppy with a broken 
 leg. He put the leg into adequate splints and fed to it the 
 raw moosemeat brought from the Fort; and Tempest, see- 
 ing, marvelled as he had so often marvelled before, at the 
 strong line of distinction which this man drew between hu- 
 man nature and the animal. 
 
 The black flies and the mosquitoes hailed them before 
 the sun shot up to presage a hot, airless day. And then, 
 under the blaze of it and attended by a mighty murmur- 
 ing, stabbing army, they began that portaging which was 
 to stay with them in larger or lesser degree throughout the 
 rest of the journey. 
 
 The three-mile portage over the divide that parted the 
 two lakes had been beaten hard by the passing of the fur 
 hunters through uncounted years on their way to Fort 
 Resolution. It lay between low close forest where the mos- 
 quitoes hung like an awning, and it climbed a six-hundred 
 feet slope in the sun where the blackflies made patterns on 
 the white stony earth. In four days they had travelled a 
 distance of over sixty miles across that three-mile portage; 
 and Myers vented some opinions as he flung the list tightly- 
 rolled pack on the crest of the divide where the little lake 
 lay, and rubbed the aching muscles of his neck. 
 
 " I'm thinkin' as it were some joker called us the 
 Mounted Police," he said. " We're 'orses, bloomin' 'orses, 
 that's what we are. An' this darned strap " he pulled 
 viciously at the leather loop which hung from his Stetson 
 hat to the curve of the skull " this are our bridle, on'y we 
 hadn't oughter be wearin* it behind." 
 
 Depache, the tall French-Canadian, eased his shoulders 
 from the pressure of the canoe-paddles which had been 
 strapped across the canoe-thwarts so as to enable him to 
 carry the whole thing on his head. 
 
 " Bien," he said. " You will soon not be so fat. I did 
 never see a man sweat as you do sweat. It is wonderful."
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 335 
 
 Myers grunted, beating the swarming flies from hands 
 and face. 
 
 " Guess me an' Heriot is a-goin' ter hev good strong 
 beards ter shelter us in a while/' he remarked. " Wot you 
 an' th' Inspector want wi' keepin* yer faces bare ter be bit 
 I can't see. Tommy-rot, I calls it." 
 
 " C'est en regie," said Depache, and shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 He could not have explained why he and Tempest found 
 no day too hard nor too long but that they could take from 
 it five minutes for a cold-water shave and three more to 
 brush their hair. But Tempest knew. There is something 
 in man which makes it unwise for him to let go of the outer 
 usages of refinement to which he has been accustomed. In- 
 sensibly those refinements keep awake the like in the heart, 
 though outward conditions may batter on both. At no 
 time is it more necessary for some men to hold on to their 
 inner self-respect by according outward respect to their 
 body than in the desolate places where there is none to 
 shame them if they fall. Tempest brushed his clothes 
 daily. He washed out the coarse flannel shirt of the day's 
 wear each night ; and through all the dust and the sweating 
 heat and the loathsome crawling flies he walked with the 
 cleanly-groomed alertness which he carried in the barrack- 
 yard. He dared not let go of that, for he had lost loo 
 much else; and Depache, blindly copying the man to whom 
 he gave a silent, unobtrusive worship, bore his head the 
 higher for it also. 
 
 Dick and Myers frankly sloughed conventionalities on 
 every possible point. They were strong as brown bears 
 and restless as foxes. While Tempest wrote up his diary 
 or did his washing, and Depache, roaming the wind-swept 
 shore, sang his pathetic lumber-camp songs in clipped 
 French, Dick and Myers caught the long, coarse trout of 
 the Great Slave, or the abundant whitefish, or hunted game 
 along the shores, and found none. Dick had his own phys- 
 ical pain on those burning days of the portage-trail. His 
 walk had not the spring of Tempest's, and the sand and 
 the stone of the way seared his feet through the moccasin- 
 soles until every step meant the negotiation of a separate 
 hill of torment.
 
 336 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Tempest did not know of this until the last of those four 
 days, when Depache and Myers were swimming in the lit- 
 the lake that lipped the knees of the sparse trees with so 
 different a sound from the thunder of the Slave, and Dick, 
 in the smoke of the mosquito-smudge, was mending a tear 
 in his tunic by button-clips and talking idle animal-talk to 
 the splint-legged dog at his elbow. Tempest came out of 
 his tent, and looked round. 
 
 " Where are the men ? " he asked. 
 
 " Swimming," said Dick, and did not look up. 
 
 " Was that little black leather case of mine put into your 
 tent? It came up in the last packs to-day." 
 
 " Yes. I chucked it down with the dunnage some- 
 where." 
 
 Dick stood up to go to his tent, and Tempest stopped 
 him. 
 
 " I can get it," he said. " Tell me where it is." 
 
 " Thank you," said Dick dryly. " I prefer to overhaul 
 my personal belongings myself." 
 
 Tempest flushed, biting his lips. But his eyes followed 
 the man into the second tent, and when Dick brought the 
 case it was not of it that Tempest spoke. 
 
 " What have you been doing to your feet ? " he asked. 
 
 " Nothing." Dick took up his work and sat down again. 
 
 " You'll be good enough to answer me more civilly," said 
 Tempest, and for a moment his voice shook. " What is 
 wrong with your feet? " 
 
 " I burnt them portaging." Dick looked up. " When I 
 cry out it will be time enough for you to fuss over me." 
 
 Tempest understood all that look and words meant. 
 They angered him. 
 
 " I should have imagined you knew enough by now to 
 take care of your feet," he said sharply. 
 
 Dick sought among the odds and ends of the fishing line, 
 buttons, floats, oiled rags and other things that were stuffed 
 into a battered little embroidered silk bag made for him 
 years since by some girl whose name he had forgotten. He 
 had carried that bag for sentimental reason at first. Later 
 on it had become a familiar. Now it was about the one 
 thing which might be said to represent home to him. Other 
 things passed and were replaced; but the little faded bag
 
 ON THE LONG TRAIL" 337 
 
 survived in some way which he never took the trouble to ac- 
 count for. 
 
 " Be easy," he said, and detached another clip from a 
 melting lump of cobbler's wax. " I will get through my 
 work as well as the next man." 
 
 He kept his word unconcernedly and to the letter. But 
 it hurt Tempest more than he had believed he could be 
 hurt now to watch those limping feet on the many port- 
 ages that linked up lake after lake until the long waters 
 of Artillery Lake stretched before them, gleaming delicate 
 mauve and silver under the dying day. Dick had been this 
 way before on a lone patrol, filled only with the cheerful 
 exultance of a hunter who keeps a difficult trail. Now he 
 dropped his pack on the camping-ground; straightened with 
 an effort; rubbed his hot hands over his hotter face, and 
 looked out across the peaceful water. At his side De- 
 pache said gently: 
 
 " Mary Mother ! But it is like w'en de bells of San 
 Michel do call us to pray at home." 
 
 Dick heard, but he did not speak. The great spreading 
 calm of the water; the pure air, warm and soothing where 
 it blew in his face; the quiet, bare hill-spaces dimming 
 to dusk, and the one grove of trees about him where the 
 dark thickened, brought more rest into his fretted weary 
 mind than he had known for long. Unmoving he stood, 
 with his face changing and softening. Then he turned, 
 loosed the straps round his pack, and went back over the 
 hundred-yard portage for a second load. 
 
 That night the real keepers of the Silences waked and 
 walked about the two little tents along the lake-shore. 
 Dick, hearing the faint familiar call and the soft clicking 
 of hoofed feet saw them first. Then he crawled to the 
 tent-opening and lay there, watching. In twos and threes 
 and in dozens they passed and repassed him ; the full- 
 grown caribou bull standing mightily with his antlers clear- 
 cut on the pallor of the lake; the slender does, stepping 
 lightly and turning their dappled necks to left and right, 
 and the young bulls halting now and again to butt each 
 other with their sprouting horns and then rushing off with 
 exaggerated snorts of fear. All along the lake-lip they 
 drank and clustered ; parted and came again. The smell of
 
 388 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 their warm, furry bodies and of the mud they churned up 
 in the swampy places came strongly to Dick; and the mur- 
 muring, whimpering sounds of them; the sharp scuffles and 
 the occasional deep note of warning struck home to the very 
 core of the man's heart. 
 
 It was only among the creatures of the wild that the 
 savage was wiped out of him and the unquestioning sim- 
 plicity of their lives filled his own. He stood up present^, 
 and went to them; walking softly, and keeping in the 
 shadow. And then, ahead, where the naked sides of the 
 lake slid to the water, he saw a thing which he once had 
 seen before, and for a moment he wondered if the turbulent 
 years between were nightmare only, and if this endless army 
 of stately-treading bulls who crossed the ridge against the 
 sky, descended, and breasted the lake one after one, was 
 not the same army, even as this was the same night which 
 he had passed here five full years ago. 
 
 Depache's soft, melancholy tones spoke below him as 
 they lay in the grass. 
 
 " Dieu ! They are like the angels of Heaven for mul- 
 titude." 
 
 And then Dick laughed: a smothered, heart-whole laugh 
 such as he had not known these many days. For the surg- 
 ing, crested horns that split the water above the dark 
 swimming bodies looked devilish entirely among the naked 
 hills and the barren waters. Both men lay still until De- 
 pache's long body grew chilled, and he crept back through 
 the grass to the tent. But Dick clung to his spur-top yet, 
 keen-eared for the distant splash where a great bull took 
 the water; for the soft rushing sound as he swam steadily; 
 for the flapping shake of his great body as he landed. In 
 the utter stillness sound carried far, and Dick's ears were 
 quick as those of the hunter must be. And his eyes were 
 quick. That sweeping, endless river of the life which be- 
 longs to the solitudes was distinct and very dear to him. 
 Year by year the caribou took their trails and came again: 
 stately, unafraid, unchanging; seeking the reindeer-moss 
 and the tree-branch and the waters of some unnamed lake 
 for drink. Homeless, drifting ever from North to South 
 and back, they were yet the rightful masters of this land; 
 the sentry-go of the Barren Grounds; the guard along the 
 frontier.
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 339 
 
 In a very few days Dick and the men with him would be 
 across that frontier where once, years before, he and Tem- 
 pest had trodden together. But when they were gone and 
 the North closed up into its long sleep the caribou would 
 still be there, moving in their countless ranks over the 
 noiseless whiteness. 
 
 In the days that came after, the northern limit of trees 
 was passed and the Barren Grounds only lay left and right 
 and north to the Arctic Seas. Here the wind dropped, and 
 the sun poured heat down steadily, until the mosquitoes 
 and flies clung about them in thick, stupid swarms, bring- 
 ing blood on every naked part, and the clayey untrodden 
 portages slid and quaked beneath the tread, letting the feet 
 through to clogging mud and water that sometimes caught 
 the ankles and flung the man forward violently. Up the 
 Cusba River they tracked the canoes among the snarling 
 rapids. In open reaches sudden, stiff winds bore them 
 back to barren shores that held no anchorage. The one 
 lonely little Indian camp they passed was far behind, and 
 the four men moved alone in the hand of the elements 
 and of the God who made them. 
 
 But the fat mosquito-bitten Myers had unfailing jokes 
 for every good or evil; Depache sang his little plaintive 
 French-Canadian songs, untroubled by wind or rain, and 
 the dangerous, alert look softened in Dick's eyes before 
 the touch of the outer places on his soul, and he told his 
 casual yarns of the things he had seen and had done as 
 easily in the cold, wind-beaten tent as round the jovial 
 camp-fires of the south. Tempest's men had been picked 
 with skill, and he had reason to approve the judgment. 
 They were men right through, these roughened, sweating, 
 blood-smudged ruffians who took the tracking-line of the 
 portage-pack, the paddle, the oar, or the straining stays 
 of the sail, cheerfully and without comment, at his word. 
 And he, knowing himself for the king-bolt of the company, 
 laboured with all the inward courage left him to take his 
 part manfully in the daily trials that no man knows until 
 he comes to face them for himself. 
 
 The days dropped away, remembered only by "that 
 noon when we couldn't make a landing, and had no din- 
 ner " ; or, " the night it blew too hard to pitch the tents, 
 and we slept under the canoes " ; or, " that bloomin* day
 
 340 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 what was all portages an' we unloaded an' loaded up again 
 fire times." And then, when a short month was done, they 
 came to the portage on the Height of Land, with rivers 
 and ground falling eastward into Hudson Bay. 
 
 They camped on Height of Land portage that night; 
 round a fire made of driftwood worn and light from long 
 beating on these barren shores, and of moss which Dick 
 searched for, and, knowing well the use of, brought back 
 to the fire in great cakes. It gave out a musty smell to 
 the night, and Myers declared that it made the tea taste. 
 But the flavour was good to Dick, and the wild night blow- 
 ing up dark on the naked wastes about him was good. For 
 the belief was quickening in his mind day by day, and 
 hour by hour that when he touched to the haunts of men 
 again he would find Ducane, 
 
 Through all those miles from Fort Resolution, which 
 were only about three hundred and seventy on the survey 
 map, although the portages had piled them up to almost 
 as many more, Dick's mind held sleeplessly to the thought 
 of Ducane. While his senses exulted in the smell of the 
 rivers ; in the deep-trod spore of deer on the shores ; in the 
 high, white stars that strung themselves across the curve 
 of the great sky; in the winds that blew out of the un- 
 breathed spaces round the Pole, his brain was still plan- 
 ning the capture of Ducane. By force of will he had thrust 
 Jennifer into the background. It maddened him to think 
 of her, and therefore he would not think of her. 
 
 He took his skill in his work for his fetish again, find- 
 ing the very salt of life in it. The try-pit wherein he had 
 been welded, with strong blows and white-hot searing fire, 
 had not left him with much mercy towards himself or 
 other men. Law, duty, discipline had meant practically 
 nothing to him until he saw the beauty of them in Tem- 
 pest's hands. Now, even through his pain in connection 
 with this man, it appealed to his pride and his humour to 
 know that he, the morally-derelict, had whipped Tempest 
 back into the straight path, and that Tempest was tread- 
 ing it, faithfully, if not with the glorying delight of 
 old. 
 
 In some way which he did not try to fathom, this knowl- 
 edge awakened Dick's understanding of what he owed the
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 341 
 
 thing to which he had given his oath. It began to lose the 
 vague semblance of a burden to be slipped when possible; 
 a lesson to be got up with a crib; a factor which had no 
 value, no interest except where it concerned his private self. 
 Step by step, out here among these mighty forces which 
 could crush him so lightly, the personal sloughed off and 
 the impersonal grew more reaL What he was doing; what 
 Tempest was doing; what every map and woman who bent 
 their will to accept law and restraint and discipline through- 
 out the universe was doing, could not be a little thing. In 
 the bulk it was bigger than Destiny itself, because it was 
 the only force which could overcome what humanity knows 
 as Destiny. It was the only force which could raise the 
 world when done from purified motives. 
 
 Dick had never done anything from a purified motive in 
 his life, although the deh'vering of Tempest had been near 
 it in the beginning. Now, with his clear inner sight, he 
 knew that he probably never would do anything from that 
 motive. He knew that when he found Ducane he would 
 delight to see the man cringe and whimper to him. He 
 would delight to kick Ducane up on to his feet and keep 
 him there by the goad. He had suffered too much through 
 Jennifer's husband ever to forgive him, and he knew well 
 that he was going to suffer, so long as he or Ducane lived. 
 And then suddenly, Myers, passing him on the portage, 
 halted, peering into his face with little twinkling, blue eyes. 
 
 "Who was you a-settin' out to kill jus* now?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Black flies," said Dick, and scooped his hand down his 
 stinging neck. " Like Joab and Joshua and the rest, I've 
 been slaying my thousands and tens of thousands." 
 
 Myers grunted. 
 
 " Looks like the smell o* blood don't sicken you any," 
 he said, and went on. 
 
 There was a curious affinity between the cheerful little 
 Cockney and Dick. Myers had served in the Yukon Ter- 
 ritory during the mining rush, and there were several pas- 
 sages in his life which he found it convenient to forget. 
 But he had learnt there how to seek for the inner values 
 in a man, knowing them to be different utterly from the 
 side he faces the world with. Like Dick there were times
 
 342 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 when the man in him grew tired of strife, and turned boy- 
 ishly to the boyish equivalent for birds'-nesting and chas- 
 ing cats; and together they sought these equivalents now; 
 trolling for the great red trout at foot of the rapids; Avhip- 
 ping the water for grayling; hunting caribou when fresh 
 meat was needed; and chasing the cat (which was De- 
 pache) when opportunity occurred. 
 
 No power on earth could ruffle Depache's gentle melan- 
 choly into a storm. When Dick and Myers cursed the 
 flies and the damp heat along the ragged streams and 
 boulders that broke the portages, and yet would not allow 
 canoe- work; when they swore at the windy nights; at the 
 infinitely desolate hills where only the moss and a few 
 handfuls of grass in the bottoms offered fuel ; when, rising 
 to giddy peaks of profanity, they vowed that they would 
 feed no more biscuit to the stomachs that desired bread 
 bread, and could make no fire wherewith to bake it; then 
 Depache would look at them, sad-eyed, and interested. 
 
 " But I could never think of all those words, moi," he 
 would say, and drift off to sing his little songs contentedly. 
 
 By the nature of things Tempest stood somewhat alone 
 throughout his patrol. Birth and position placed him 
 apart, and his temper just now kept him there. He did 
 his work accurately, both in the physical and mental 
 branches; and what he thought about he kept to himself. 
 Once Dick saw him handling his revolver with rather un- 
 necessary interest, and he walked past noisily, meaning to 
 make Tempest look up. Tempest did not look up. He 
 put the revolver back in its case and snapped it shut. But 
 Dick carried the memory of that little scene away with him, 
 and he did not forget it. 
 
 In Tempest's place he would have used the revolver on 
 the other man. He knew that if Tempest used it he would 
 use it on himself, and that thought kept his mind busy, 
 even through the keen disappointment when the patch of 
 spruce wood promised by an early survey map as growing 
 on the shores of Si f ton Lake turned out, after much search- 
 ing, to be soft ground spruce, of hardly greater value thnn 
 the moss. Over that spruce Myers lost his temper fully 
 for the first time. He flung himself on it, tearing it up 
 by the stringy roots, and consigning it to hotter flames
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 343 
 
 than that by which he had hoped to bake his bread. Then, 
 exhausted, he went down the hill, climbed into his canoe, 
 and took up the paddle again. 
 
 " Makes a man wish he was a bloomin* caribou," he said. 
 "They can get their fill off of moss moss, an' like it." 
 
 Once, through a grey evening on the Thelon, they came 
 on a musk-ox, lying like a great earth-clod on the flank of 
 a naked hill. He raced across it when their shouts woke 
 him, and the long hair that swept the ground waved and 
 fluttered round him like rags shaken in the wind. He was 
 the one piece of life they had seen that day, and the barren 
 stretches seemed more desolate without him. 
 
 And then, slow and slow, came promise of life again. 
 Grass blowing thick along the foreshores; heavy timber 
 skirting the banks; sea-gulls and musk-ox; brown bears 
 sauntering under the sunset ; wolverine and foxes crying 
 in the night. On a portage Dick kicked up a carved bone 
 of Exquimaux workmanship. He thrust it into his tunic 
 and trudged on with a new light shining in his eyes. Be- 
 fore long, before very long, he would know if the stamping- 
 grounds of these eastern Esquimaux sheltered Ducane. 
 
 It was a year and two months since Ducane had dis- 
 appeared ; and as he had not been found among the peopled 
 roadways of the land, it followed that he must have fled 
 to the waste places. And as the places where a white man 
 can find means of existence are rather clearly defined in 
 Canada, Dick knew that he must be along the river trail 
 if he had gone east. He could not leave the country 
 undetected by any of the northern ways, and Dick did not 
 believe that he would dare to face the congested places of 
 the south. He knew too many men, and would be known 
 by too many. And never for one instant did Dick think 
 him dead. He felt instinctively that he would have known 
 if it had been so. And he felt, almost .as instinctively, that 
 it would be for him to find Ducane and carry him back 
 to that justice which he had baffled so long. He owed it 
 to Jennifer; he owed it to himself; he owed it to the work 
 which was beginning to mean more to him than ever be- 
 fore. 
 
 Already winter was chasing them with sounding feet; 
 flinging white frost to greet them when they turned out
 
 344 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 from their tents each morning, and spreading soft creaking 
 ice-films before the canoe-prows. The heat of midday 
 swept it off; but each morning it lasted longer, and each 
 evening it came more early. The tentacles of the North 
 were pushing down to annex its own again. Little by little 
 the land was closing up behind them. Already the Mac- 
 kenzie River would have shut down, and Herschel be set- 
 tling into its seven months of rigidity. The keen, glad 
 breath of the mornings put new vigour into the men; the 
 flies were dead, and the long, hard miles of labour had 
 tightened thew and muscle, and sweated off superfluous 
 flesh until there was nothing left but a tense springy 
 strength that seemed never to tire. 
 
 And then, one hot midday when the river ran fast be- 
 tween tall, naked cliffs, the canoes swung round a bluff 
 and found an anchorage before a knot of deerskin tepees 
 where Esquimaux women were working. Dick's heart was 
 in his throat as he went with Tempest up to the tepees. 
 But there was nothing for him there. All the men were 
 away at Fullerton, trading fur and carvings with the 
 whalers, and the little information which the laughing, 
 fat-faced women could give in their broken English sug- 
 gested no knowledge of a white man among them. 
 
 Tempest stopped to admire the sleek, alert, dusky dogs 
 which made the sledge-teams. 
 
 " About as different from an Indian dog as day from 
 night/' he said. " I shouldn't wonder if we weren't wish- 
 ing we had 'em before long." 
 
 " Why ! " Dick was startled. " Don't you imagine we 
 will catch the steamer at Chesterfield or Fullerton ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Can't say." Tempest turned on his heel. " Winter 
 seems likely to be early, and I am afraid its going to take 
 us all our time " 
 
 And then he forgot Dick and stood watching Depache 
 down on his long knees among the greasy, chuckling babies 
 who rolled on the stamped ground without the tepees. 
 
 Depache was cuddling those babies and kissing them. 
 He made bobbing rabbits for them out of his ragged hand- 
 kerchief. He tickled them and laughed as the fat, good- 
 natured mothers laughed, and Tempest went away to camp 
 with a sudden, surprised understanding in him. Shut in
 
 "ON THE LONG TRAIL" 345 
 
 on his own troubles, it had never struck him that this 
 gentle, serenely obedient man had been famishing for some- 
 thing to fondle; something to take care of. Tempest re- 
 membered now how Depache had begged for the broken- 
 legged dog, and how he had gone away by himself when 
 Tempest had refused him. For all the rigid laws and the 
 strenuous man-life to which they had submitted themselves, 
 there was yet something strangely young and uneradicable 
 in these lives under his hand. Dick and Myers wanted 
 their boy-games, though their eyes and the lines round 
 their mouths could tell how much they knew of men. The 
 soft, melancholy Depache, who was stronger than Tempest 
 himself, wanted some little helpless thing to pet and kiss. 
 Of what Tempest himself wanted he did not care to think. 
 He went back to camp, and wrote up his diary. 
 
 Along the Thelon River old cut trees told where Esqui- 
 maux camps had been. For the Indians never stray so far 
 from the western fur-trading posts, and the Esquimaux 
 make no permanent homes in the woods. The open coun- 
 try where the snow packs hard beneath the dog-trains 
 and the caribou run in their endless herds are dearer to 
 them by far. 
 
 There were fish and deer and musk-ox in plenty where 
 the following winter chased the little patrol east and ever 
 east into Hudson Bay. Sweeps of utterly barren country 
 were interspersed with heavy timber; deserted camps 
 showed nakedly among the spruces ; and the thickly-crossed 
 spores of little and big fur animals were everywhere. Un- 
 der sail they crossed Beverley Lake at the foot of the 
 Thelon River, and saw that the far end of it a large Es- 
 quimaux camp where men came down to greet them among 
 the barking huskies and the women and children. 
 
 Dick knelt without moving in the stern of his canoe while 
 Tempest called a welcome, and the answers came in un- 
 usually good English. He was wondering why that husky 
 man, who was broader and taller than any on the beach, 
 had gone suddenly into a half-hidden tepee and dropped 
 the skin flap behind him. And yet, in his own heart, he did 
 not really wonder. He swung his canoe alongside Tem- 
 pest's and spoke to him, very low. 
 
 " Can't we make camp here? " he said. " For I believe 
 I have just seen Ducane."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BARREN GROUNDS " 
 
 UP the stony beach and among the sparse, ragged timber 
 many Esquimaux women were working: cutting deer flesh 
 into long strips; pounding them flat, and hanging them 
 over the poles that ran between forked sticks in the sun. 
 Others were scraping the skins and stretching them on 
 frames. On the left some men were making a kyak; sew- 
 ing the skin across the ribs of the boat with the leg-tendons 
 of the caribou. There were many dogs; fat and healthy- 
 looking; and the brown smoked skin tepees seemed whole 
 and prosperous. Tempest glanced side-ways at Dick. He 
 knew the man's powers of deduction too we'll to doubt him. 
 
 "Where?" he asked. 
 
 " Slinking into one of those tepees. Can I go after 
 him ? " 
 
 There was an eager, almost wolf-like note in face and 
 voice. Tempest recoiled from it, thinking of Ducane's 
 wife. He looked up at the chief of the camp who was 
 talking to Myers in surprisingly effective English. 
 
 " You have a white man here? " he said. 
 
 The Esquimaux nodded and smiled. 
 
 " Oh, so. Him Sleepy-face. Me Good-night." He 
 patted his broad breast. " Dat my wife mak' deer-meat 
 'crost dere. She Sunshine. Dat Sleepy-face wife too 
 be'ind. She sweet Muffin." 
 
 Dick turned to look at Sweet Muffin. She sat on the 
 ground beside a great hunch of the deer-meat with her fur- 
 wrapped legs under her and the loose fur skirt tucked up 
 round her fat, swathed body. She was chewing a bit of the 
 meat as she worked, and her bright eyes glanced in her flat, 
 greasy face. Swiftly she cut off slice after slice, and flung 
 it to the next woman who pounded it out on a stone. Then 
 they laughed together; musically, happily. Dick unfolded 
 his legs and stood up in his canoe. 
 
 346
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 347 
 
 " May I go after Ducane? " he asked, and his voice was 
 dangerously quiet. 
 
 " Why, certainly/' said Tempest. " And don't waste 
 time. Every hour is valuable now. Do you want anv 
 help?" 
 
 11 No, thanks," said Dick. " I'd rather go alone." 
 
 He walked up among the sniffing dogs and the roly- 
 poly children with long, swift steps. He had no weapon 
 with him, and he knew why he could use none to Jennifer's 
 husband, no matter what the provocation might be. But 
 he did not expect any fight from Ducane. He would have 
 given almost anything he had if he could have expected it. 
 But he knew the bed-rock cowardice of the man too well. 
 
 Past a large, well-shaped tepee with its chimney-fly 
 smoked deep chocolate he reached the smaller, half-hidden 
 one into which the big man had disappeared. He had not 
 taken his eyes from that tepee since the man went in, and 
 he knew that his chances of finding Ducane there were 
 considerable. Ducane would not have expected even those 
 hawk-eyes to search him out in that one instant of time. 
 
 He lifted the skin flap of the tepee; stooped, and walked 
 in. It was dark and it smelt infinitely. Dick blew his 
 nostrils out in disgust. Ducane had never been a dainty 
 man ; but this was worse than was necessary. 
 
 " Anyone here ? " he asked. 
 
 There was no sound. He struck a match, and looked 
 round. Under his feet lay strips of wood, caribou-bones, 
 fishing-nets, long needles, and other litter. In the back 
 of the tent furs were piled untidily. It might have been 
 the flicker of the match, but Dick fancied that the skins 
 moved just once. 
 
 " Gone to earth on the chance," said his brain. Then 
 he strode over and took up two great handfuls of the skins. 
 
 " You'd best come out of that, Ducane," he said. " I'm 
 here, you know." 
 
 There was still no sound, no sight of life. Dick let the 
 match drop; reefed up another armful of the softly-cured, 
 odorous deer-skins, kicking at the same time. And then 
 something rolled out on the earth at his feet ; cursing, whim- 
 mering, clutching at him, mixing prayers and blasphemy 
 like a man demented. Dick jerked himself free in a more
 
 348 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 virulent rage than had ever possessed him in his life. It 
 was this thing -this thing that rolled on the earth and 
 cried, which separated him from Jennifer. 
 
 "Get up," he said between his teeth. "Get up, you 
 cur. Get up." 
 
 tDick, you're malting a mistake/' whimpered Ducane. 
 obison was deeper dipped than me. On my soul he 
 was. And he's dead. They must have turned him off long 
 
 ago. Why can't you " 
 
 "in the devil's name get up!" said Dick, and there 
 was something in his voice which brought Ducane shaking 
 and murmuring to his feet. 
 
 " You can't imprison me," he blustered. " I'll turn 
 King's evidence. I've thought the whole thing out. There 
 are others in it. I'll give you their names. But I won't 
 go to prison. I won't put on that damned prison dress. 
 It would kill me. Oh! you! What did you come here 
 for, you " 
 
 " That's better." Dick was taking his breath in long 
 gulps. " Oh, Lord; if you'd only hit me ! " he said. 
 
 " How did you know I was here? " Even in the close 
 dark Dick knew that the man was wringing his hands and 
 rocking like a woman in despair. " Jenny never told you. 
 She was a good wife to me, Jenny was. She wouldn't tell 
 you. Unless you made her! Did you make her? By 
 Heaven, if you bullied Jenny " 
 
 Dick was interested. There was a spark of manhood in 
 this creature yet, then. And it flamed at memory of the 
 woman whom he had left to bear the weight of his disgrace 
 while he lived in a skin tepee with Sweet Muffin. 
 
 " Suppose I did ? " he said, and every muscle was twitch- 
 ing with longing to come to grips with this man who was 
 Jennifer's husband. 
 
 But Ducane had slid back on the earth again; spurt- 
 ing into occasional imprecations and falling silent again in 
 utter fear. He was like a damp fuse, and Dick had no 
 time to wait for him to light up again. 
 
 " That's enough," he said. " Come on. You're camp- 
 ing with us to-night, Ducane, and the canoes are waiting 
 outside. I guess you'll help carry them over the next port- 
 ages. We're bound for Regina, Ducane, and you'll be very 

 
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 349 
 
 welcome there, I'm sure. Are you going to get up? " 
 
 There was neither bodily nor mental muscle left in the 
 man. lit: had become obsessed with the dread of prison, 
 and he prayed to Dick until Dick's very ears burnt with 
 shame. 
 
 "Why can't you leave me alone? I'm not doing any 
 harm up here. Robison's dead. He must be dead. And 
 I'll give you the names of the company. There's John 
 W. Harker, of Dick ! Oh, my God ! Dick ! " 
 
 In lieu of a handcuff Dick had taken a piece of fishing- 
 line from his pocket, whipped it round Ducane's wrist, and 
 twisted it there with the strength of his own fingers. It 
 did not hurt their iron-hard sinews; but it sank into Du- 
 cane's soft flesh like a string into cheese. Ducane sprang 
 up with a yell and incoherent ravings. Dick laughed 
 softly. 
 
 " Why/' he said, " I'm not beginning to hurt yet. But 
 a special patrol of Canada is being kept waiting for you, 
 Ducane, and I don't consider it polite to let it wait any 
 longer. Do you prefer to be led out like a puppy on a 
 string? " 
 
 Ducane took a step. Then he halted. Dread of the 
 dock with that mocking, lazy voice swearing away his 
 liberty swept over him. He lurched sideways, smashing 
 a heavy blow right into Dick's face. Dick carried the 
 mark under his left eye for months, and he never ceased 
 to regret that Ducane did not follow it up with another. 
 He certainly gave Ducane a glad and cordial invitation ; 
 but the man backed away, muttering, " You want to kill me, 
 do you? " and then he followed his captor out into the 
 sunlight. 
 
 Half-way down the beach Dick stopped. 
 
 " You can go and say good-bye to your wife," he said. 
 
 For the first time he saw shame on Ducane's face. 
 
 " No," he said sullenly ; and Dick shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " As you like," he said indifferently, and led on down to 
 the canoes. 
 
 Tempest made the necessary explanations to Good-night, 
 and the uniforms did the rest. Good-night was troubled. 
 Prestige left him with the passing of the white man. But 
 he gave permission graciously, if reluctantly, and watched
 
 350 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the canoes shoot round the grey bend of the river 
 curiosity on his good-humoured face. 
 
 " Dat white man go straight to Sleepy-face like a 
 de kill," he said. " Now, why? " 
 
 Tempest was heart-sick to see the utter letting-go of all 
 traditions of manhood in Ducane, the man who had once 
 been outwardly his equal. He kept away from him when 
 ever occasion allowed. Myers and Depache did the same; 
 very much as dogs who sniff suspiciously and from a dis- 
 tance at a stranger in the camp whom they have been for- 
 bidden to touch. But Dick seemed to find actual pleasure 
 in this derelict thing which he had salvaged. Often Tem- 
 pest caught him watching the other man in speculative 
 interest, as a cat watches a mouse ; and he was repelled and 
 utterly disgusted, not understanding that Dick was learn- 
 ing this man through and through in order that he might be 
 able to guard Jennifer against him at all points. 
 
 Except Ducane no man in the little patrol ever com- 
 plained. But, according to Myers' often-asserted belief 
 " that waster growls enoiigh fer a 'ole bloomin' regimint. 
 Why don't Inspector make 'im take 'is turn o' doin' the 
 bloomin' canoes?" 
 
 This was to Dick after Dick had stood thigh-deep in 
 icy water, hanging on to his canoe that it might not bang 
 itself to pieces on the rocky landing before the others 
 could load it up. Tempest had done the same for his, and 
 the day before that duty had fallen on Myers and Depache. 
 For all the earth was wild and barren and lonely now. 
 Trees had gone with the Thelon River, and moss was far 
 to seek and little to find after much labour. Dick laughed. 
 
 " Why, he takes his turn at eating the bannock, anyway," 
 he said, and Myers departed in fervent profanity. 
 
 Very soon Tempest discovered that Ducane had neither 
 the strength for the portages nor the physical courage for 
 the rapids, and he was sick always when they put the sails 
 up and charged into choppy water. And, because he did 
 not work, the chill of his constantly-wetted clothes struck 
 in to the marrow of him, until Tempest feared sometimes 
 that a real sickness would force an indefinite halt on these 
 Barren Grounds. 
 
 It was on the night following a long and dangerous day
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 351 
 
 of shooting the rapids, where the river fell with sharp 
 zigzags between tall, naked cliffs into Baker Lake, that 
 Dick came to Tempest. 
 
 " Have you the dope-box handy ? " he said. " Ducane 
 has cramp in the stomach, and he doesn't appear to be lik- 
 ing it any." 
 
 Tempest caught up the little medicine-chest and went 
 over to the tent which Ducane shared with Myers and 
 Dick. He sent Myers across to sleep with Depache, and, 
 with Dick, he did what he could for the suffering man. 
 But Ducane was seized with the terrors of the damned. 
 He believed that he was dying, and his agony of mind 
 and body was a painful thing for Tempest to witness. It 
 did not seem to trouble Dick. He did all that he could 
 for the man where he rolled and screamed and cursed; but 
 when he began to call on his wife's name Tempest saw a 
 dangerous glitter in Dick's eyes for a moment. Ducane 
 started up suddenly. 
 
 " Robison is dead?" he cried. "You told me Robison 
 was dead." 
 
 " Why, yes," said Tempest soothingly. " But you're not 
 going to die. " I've seen men much worse than you, and 
 they got over it. Take some more of this, Ducane." 
 
 " You've never seen men make more row about it," said 
 Dick. " How are we to tell if it's pain or only fright ? " 
 
 " Then if Robison 's dead." Ducane was writhing and 
 jerking out his words brokenly. " All these months he's 
 had no masses said for his soul and I'm dying and I 
 promised I swore that I'd go to hell if I broke my 
 word " 
 
 " Be easy," said Dick. " I expect your word won't make 
 so much difference as you think. And you don't mean to 
 tell me that you have the elements of religion in you? " 
 
 He was kneeling by the mattress and his lean, dark face 
 showed mockingly interested in the faint, blurring light of 
 the candle-lantern. Ducane turned his head from it. 
 
 " I don't know," he moaned. " Robison had. I sup- 
 pose a man needs some religion when he's going to die." 
 
 This was O'Hara's cry, and the repetition of it struck 
 Dick unpleasantly. 
 
 " Tempest," cried Ducane. " Tempest ! Come here.
 
 352 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 I'll tell you. I won't tell that . He'd give his word 
 
 and break it before the breath was out of my body. Tem- 
 pest ! " 
 
 "All right All right." Tempest's quiet steady voice 
 came into the following torrent of curses and cries. " I'm 
 here. What is it you want to tell me, Ducane? " 
 
 He took Dick's place by the mattress, and Dick stood 
 up, holding the weak light so that the two faces shone on 
 the gloom for him: Ducane's, with ragged beard and star- 
 ing eyes and white haggard face and a hand that fumbled 
 incessantly at his trembling lips ; Tempest's, with the well- 
 poised head, the thick hair pushed back from the square 
 forehead, the healthy-brown, finely-cut grave face. It 
 seemed to him that he had never really seen Tempest's 
 physical beauty until he saw it in contrast with Ducane. 
 Then Ducane began to speak, and his words were broken 
 with the sobbing of a child and the curses of a man. 
 
 " I didn't want to have his blood on my hands. But it 
 was the price. If he got off and shut the mouth of the 
 Quatre Fourches Indians it was the price " 
 
 " He was to save your skin if you saved his soul," inter- 
 preted Dick. 
 
 " I didn't want " A spasm halted Ducane, and then 
 
 he continued with the tears running down his face. " How 
 could I get at a priest out here? How could I give him 
 the paper? But I promised. There were to be masses 
 for his soul not as a murderer " 
 
 Tempest remembered afterwards how just then Dick's 
 hand bore heavily down on his shoulder, and Dick said: 
 
 " Let me take your place. Let me hear what he has to 
 say. This is my business not yours." 
 
 Tempest shook him off. 
 
 " Be quiet," he said. " What is that, Ducane? Robison 
 was a murderer, you remember. He murdered Ogilvie." 
 
 " No, he didn't. I don't want his blood but how could 
 I get at a priest out here " 
 
 Sharp and clear before his brain-sight Dick was seeing 
 the face of Grange's Andree when he had asked her in 
 Grange's back-parlour why she was crying. He inter- 
 rupted again. 
 
 " Tempest, will you let me
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 353 
 
 " Will you hold your tongue ? " said Tempest impatiently. 
 "How do you know this,, Ducane? Do you mean to say 
 we've hung an innocent man? Who killed Ogilvie if it 
 wasn't Robison? " 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " said Dick, in nearer prayer than he had 
 used in his life before. But he could not keep his eyes 
 from that brown, bending face in the feeble light. 
 
 Ducane lifted himself on his elbow. > 
 
 " I don't want Robison's blood on my hands," he said. 
 " And after all, it was his business*, wasn't it ? Not mine. 
 If he loved her enough he said a girl shouldn't suffer that 
 penalty." - x 
 
 " But you- haven't told me who it was," said Tempest 
 gently. 
 
 " Oh, haven't I ? " said Ducane. " It was Grange's An- 
 dree." 
 
 Dick had expected that name. But he felt the chill run 
 along his blood as he heard it. Tempest stared in utter 
 maze. 
 
 " Andree ? " he said slowly. Then his voice thickened. 
 "Who dared invent that devilish lie? Was it you? By 
 , if you did " 
 
 ' No, no," screamed Ducane, frightened out of his pain. 
 " I didn't. It's true. You'll see it all in the paper. Robi- 
 son promised her at the time that he'd take the punishment 
 if it was found . out. But he wanted masses said for his 
 so.ul. He wanted them i said for a martyr, not a murderer. 
 That's why he gave me the paper. And I don't want his 
 blood " 
 
 The impish devil in Dick was laughing at the mockery 
 of this. Robison's sacrifice had been epic, but it had failed 
 in such a poor feeble way. Failed because of the man's 
 vanity. He could not bear that some unknown priest 
 should give his name to his gods as a murderer's name. 
 And then he shuddered, seeing behind this something of 
 the futility of human plans. 
 
 Tempest stood up. 
 
 " Where is that paper ? " he asked. 
 
 Dick's ever-nimble mind was working instantly. While 
 Tempest's voice held that tone he was not to be trusted 
 with any paper of importance. For the moment Dick
 
 Sot THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 hardly considered the meaning of the paper. It was his 
 natural instinct which led him to protect anything which 
 could compromise anyone. 
 
 " It's in my black wallet back pocket of my breeches." 
 Ducane did not know what he had done, for he had 
 utterly forgotten Tempest's connection with Grange's 
 Andree. But the feeling that he had given important 
 information to these two men sustained him until he almost 
 forgot his suffering. And he quite forgot that he was 
 preparing for speedy death. 
 
 Before Tempest could move Dick had pounced on the 
 wet garment where it hung over a box. He remembered 
 those old riding-breeches in the days when he had first 
 known Jennifer. They were torn and dirty now; but he 
 fumbled with shaking fingers for the buttoned back pocket, 
 drew out the silver-initialled clasped case that had once 
 been so familiar to him, and thrust it into the breast of his 
 tunic. Then Tempest was standing over him. 
 
 " Where is the paper ? " he said again ; and before that 
 voice the ready lie halted on Dick's lips. 
 He picked the breeches up and shook them. 
 " Not here," he said. " Ducane must have put the wallet 
 in his shirt or his artiki or something. Or it may have 
 dropped on the ground. We'd never find it to-night in all 
 this litter. And it's too confoundedly dark to see anything, 
 anyway. Wait till morning, Tempest. It can't get lost by 
 then." 
 
 He was talking without knowing what he said. Nothing 
 seemed very real to him at that moment but the knowledge 
 that he did not want to hear Tempest speak again. That 
 curious, crushed tone sounding through the blackness of 
 the tent was so hideously unlike Tempest. From the 
 mattress Ducane called fretfully. The opiate which 
 Tempest had given him was beginning to take effect, and 
 the fear of instant death was no longer whipping him into 
 frenzy. 
 
 " I'd be better now if I could get some rest," he said. 
 " If you two would only shut up and let me sleep maybe 
 I'll live after all." 
 
 " That's an inducement," said Dick, treading over the 
 bundles and boxes to him. " Leave that wallet till the
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 355 
 
 morning, Tempest. We'll look for it then." He thrust 
 it further into his shirt. " I guess it's not very far off," 
 he added. 
 
 Tempest did not speak again. He turned, groping for 
 the flap, and went out. And after a moment Dick fol- 
 lowed, dodging the moonlight that shone so baldly over 
 the bareness without. For he did not intend that this man 
 whom he and Fate were trying-out in such furnaces should 
 put an end to his training at this juncture. Dick was 
 feeling for Tempest, now, very keenly and anxiously; but 
 mixed with the pity was a strong resentment, an impa- 
 tience; even a savage kind of gladness that Tempest should 
 know at last the full worth of this girl whom he had been 
 squandering the treasure of his life upon. 
 
 " He must be sickened of her after this," he said. " He 
 must be sickened of her. Gad! what is that girl made of, 
 anyhow? And how is he going to stand up to it, I 
 wonder." 
 
 With crafty softness he followed among the low rocks 
 as the tall, black shadows bobbed among them where Tem- 
 pest went down to the lake shore. He shivered in the 
 keen air and the pallid moonlight. If Tempest chose to 
 try to drown himself there was an unpleasant time coming 
 for both. But Tempest seemed to have no such thought. 
 He turned along the beach, and for an hour Dick watched 
 him come and go; walking slow and steadily, with hands 
 deep in his trouser-pockets and head up as though his 
 eyes were looking away to the lonely stars that edged the 
 far level rim of the earth. He was quite evidently thinking 
 out some plan, and Dick began to breathe more freely. He 
 could meet cunning with cunning; but he could not have 
 known what to do with a man broken down by grief. He 
 had borne his own share of heartaches, and knowledge of 
 his endeavour to help Tempest was not the least of them. 
 But at least he could face the world with bold eyes and 
 a joke still, and if Tempest could not, he would feel that 
 disgrace for Tempest as fully as any other. 
 
 Tempest had suffered in silence so far, and not even the 
 most curious tongues $nd ears at Grey Wolf could know 
 how he had taken his punishment. Dick did not know. 
 But he felt desperately that he must know soon. He must
 
 356 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 smash down that barrier in Tempest before the hardening 
 process had gone so deep that the man below was stultified. 
 Whether he was competent to break it down did not occur 
 to him. He meant to do it, and these things are not done 
 by the men who doubt their own powers. Of Andree he 
 was not thinking yet. He did not desire to think of her, 
 nor of the use to which that paper might have to be put. 
 But neither did he intend to give it up to Tempest. His 
 determination there was quickened by that jealousy for 
 Tempest's honour which possessed him more and more as 
 he realised how far his own stood from it. Besides, with 
 him as with many of us, the knowledge that there are 
 some people walking their straight way in the world seems 
 to accord to the rest the licence to do that evil which is 
 a necessary part of the earth's make-up. 
 
 Dick wheeled at last and went back to the tent. He lit 
 a match and stared at the sleeping Ducane until it burnt 
 his fingers and went out. Then he flung himself down on 
 his own pile of bedding and lay still. Until now he had 
 accepted the fact that Ducane was alive and might outlive 
 him. He had accepted it as mankind usually accepts the 
 obvious things, and he had expended himself in trying to 
 find a way round the edge of the obstruction. Now, with 
 a shock of realisation, it had come to him this night that 
 Ducane's life might not be worth much after all. He was 
 a prematurely aged man; enfeebled by excesses; weakened 
 by living in a way which few white men can stand for long, 
 and with no stamina of brain or spirit to help him in a 
 crisis. Lying there, the longing for this man's death swept 
 over Dick like a torrent of fire; blotting out all but the 
 remembrance that there was a hard journey yet before 
 them, and that no law of men nor angels could make it 
 necessary for him to smooth the trail before Ducane's feet. 
 And if Ducane stumbled and fell and one day did not get 
 up again, then, and only then, would Dick bring his thanks- 
 giving to whichever altar pleased him best, and say, 
 " Allah is good." 
 
 In the cold, pale dawn he was up and away down the 
 beach to a little jutting bluff behind which he could read 
 that paper of Robison's in safety. The empty canoes 
 beached on the naked shore; the two little white tents sit-
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 357 
 
 ting together on the stony desolation struck him anew 
 with the paltry weakness of them. Like a flake of foam 
 off the lake they marked the shore for a moment and 
 passed, leaving all as it had been and would continue to 
 be. Those stones and that grey tossing lake and these 
 barren cliffs were the only things unswayed by passion, 
 unbroken by life. There was a stateliness, a dignity in 
 the slowness and the surety of their changes. To Dick 
 there was an irrelevant mockery, an almost disgusting 
 levity about the rapidity of the changes in man. The 
 difference seemed to put him, with his few puny years, 
 on a level with those frail canoes and the tents that 
 stamped no impress on the stones below them. 
 
 Then he backed up from the wind round the corner of 
 the bluff, lit his pipe, and opened the wallet to find out 
 in what words Robison and Ducane had endeavoured to 
 insure a future paradise for both. 
 
 There were a score of things in the wallet. Unpaid bills 
 in plenty; a note from Jennifer Dick knew her writing, 
 and he thrust that sheet back hastily; some accounts; some 
 memorandums; finally a dirty piece of paper folded very 
 small. 
 
 " I fancy that looks like Robison's thumb-mark," said 
 Dick, and he opened it, smothering an oath at seeing that 
 it was written in smudged pencil. 
 
 Then, picking out the words in Ducane's crabbed hand- 
 writing with difficulty, he read it. 
 
 The whole of the account was ill-constructed and full of 
 repetition. It had evidently been drawn up on that night 
 at Chipewyan when Ducane had decided to decamp and 
 Robison had preferred to chance the possibility that Dick 
 might have come on other business. First came Robison's 
 promise to get Ducane smuggled away east towards Hud- 
 son Bay through the Quatre Fourches Indians, on condi- 
 tion that Ducane agreed to the following requirements. 
 Robison's name was set in his big black hand to that. And 
 then came the requirements; and before Dick had got 
 through their tangled phraseology and their strange mix- 
 ture of cant and bold courage and real faith, he was not 
 feeling himself such a very much better man than this 
 coarse, blunt-minded breed, who had gone to his death for
 
 358 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 love of a woman who did not love him, trusting to this 
 paper to absolve him from purgatory. 
 
 Stripped of clogging words the details of the whole affair 
 were bald ; much more bald than Dick had hoped for. They 
 told how Robison had gone to bring Andree back from the 
 English Mission: how they had met Ogilvie in the trail; 
 how the two men had quarrelled and Ogilvie had pulled 
 out his knife. How Andree had snatched the knife and 
 stabbed Ogilvie, and how Robison had dragged him off into 
 the coulee and flung him down among the thick under- 
 growth and snow. The paper also told how he had in- 
 tended to bury the bones as soon as the snow was gone, 
 and how he had subdued Andree's alarm at what she had 
 done by promising to shoulder the possible results. It 
 desired any priest who should receive this paper to pray 
 for the soul of Kesikak Robison, who had died to save 
 the life of another, and added that Ducane would pay 
 all the necessary charges. 
 
 Both men had signed this, and at the foot was set in 
 full the oath by which Ducane swore to deliver the paper 
 and pay the money. This Ducane had signed alone. 
 
 Dick folded the paper and put it back in the pocket- 
 book. He was thinking first that Ducane had either 
 money concealed about his rags, or that he was in com- 
 munication with some person " outside." In the latter case 
 there might be the chance of bail perhaps, or of influence 
 set to work to free him. Dick made a mental note of 
 that. Then he considered the other matter. It was prob- 
 able that if Andree had pleaded manslaughter at the 
 beginning she might have got off lightly. For Ogilvie 
 was known to have been drunk, and had assuredly been 
 impertinent. But she had Robison's death also on her 
 shoulders now. Dick understood at last her cry to him 
 in Grange's back-parlour on the day of the trial. 
 
 " If he want to die, why do it matter?" she had said; 
 and he knew Andree sufficiently to deduce her reasoning. 
 She did not want to die, and if Robison did, why should 
 she not let him? Dick grinned over the simplicity of it. 
 Andree's wits would not carry her further than that, and 
 most assuredly her conscience would not. For there was 
 in Andree a quality which belongs to a certain class* of 
 masculine minds; the quality which enables a person to
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 359 
 
 accept the thing which has occurred as inevitable, and 
 therefore not to be regretted or remembered. But there 
 are few women who can look at life from that stand- 
 point. 
 
 " She could never begin to appreciate that sacrifice," he 
 said. " Little devil." 
 
 And then, horribly, vividly, the truth came back to him 
 that Andree loved him; that he had taught her to love him. 
 And after that he looked up at a step on the gravelly 
 beach, and saw Tempest. 
 
 " I guessed you were here," said Tempest. " I have 
 come for that paper, Heriot." 
 
 Tempest had always called him Heriot since Andree 
 came between them. But to-day the name struck Dick's 
 ears with sharpened force. It reminded him that this 
 breaking of a friendship which would leave raw edges 
 through the length of two men's lives would trouble Andree 
 no more than the death of Robison, or of Ogilvie, or of 
 that wild O'Hara who had died with her name in his 
 mouth. 
 
 " I haven't got the paper," he said. " Couldn't 
 you ? " 
 
 Tempest shook his head slightly, like a stag when the 
 midges are about him. 
 
 "It is true, then?" he asked. "It reads like truth? 
 Tell me, Dick, for I have got to know it now." 
 
 " Why, yes." Dick tried to hide his nervousness by 
 knocking out his pipe and thrusting it into his side-pocket. 
 " Bound to be extenuating circumstances when the matter's 
 gone into, though. Ducane's so much better this morning 
 that I think we needn't delay at all. Did you come to 
 call me for breakfast?" 
 
 "What do you intend to do with that paper?" asked 
 Tempest. 
 
 "Keep it for the present, anyway." 
 
 " You will give it to me," said Tempest quietly. 
 
 " Not on your life." Dick buttoned up his tunic with 
 a short laugh. " Don't talk that way," he said. " You 
 know you don't expect me to give it." 
 
 The rare fury blazed into Tempest's face. Those care- 
 less words had knocked the skin off the unhealed sore 
 below, and though the spirit had won out to a certain
 
 360 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 staying-point during the night, the natural reaction had 
 left his temper less under control. 
 
 " Then I will have it taken from you by force," he said, 
 and Dick saw with approval the quick tightening-up of the 
 slim body. " I am your superior officer." 
 
 " If you do you're not the superior man," said Dick 
 coolly. " Come and get it if you want it, for I assure 
 you you won't have it any other way." 
 
 He did not know what reckless demon in him prompted 
 the challenge. But Tempest answered to it before the 
 words were off his lips, and the two men closed; knee 
 locked in knee, arms gripped, and flushed faces near as 
 they swayed. 
 
 Dick and Tempest had wrestled many times in the days 
 that were gone, and Tempest's lithe quickness had matched 
 Dick's strength equally until Tempest learnt a throw for 
 which Dick could not find the counter. He had found it 
 since, in Chicago, and had seen a back broken by the appli- 
 cation of it. Now he felt Tempest manoeuvring for that 
 throw, and a cruel laugh ran into his eyes. Tempest did 
 not know what could come of it now if Dick chose. He 
 baulked it by a sudden feint, and again they bent and 
 swayed, spurting the gravel out from under their struggling 
 feet, and feeling the lust of fight generate with each hot, 
 hard-breathing moment. 
 
 It seemed as though all the pain and bad blood and evil 
 tempers of the last months had culminated at last, and 
 both men gloried in the knowledge, and fought to ease 
 themselves of the load. Inch by inch Tempest was feeling 
 for the throw again, and this time Dick did not stop him. 
 The fighting savage had been too fully roused in him, and 
 he was mad with desire to prove himself the better man. 
 He slacked his body slightly, letting Tempest get home 
 to the side-swing that preceded the fall. Then, at the one 
 instant when the other man's balance was unguarded, Dick 
 crouched, shifted his grip quick as lightning, and flung 
 Tempest over his shoulder. 
 
 Tempest fell with a thud on the stones of the beach. 
 Being utterly unprepared he had made no resistance, and 
 Dick staggered up and looked at him, breathing heavily 
 through his nostrils. Tempest lay on his face with one 

 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 361 
 
 arm under him and his body curled up. He did not move, 
 and for a space Dick stared at him without emotion. Then 
 terror smote him in such a blinding, tearing agony that it 
 felt like death itself. He dropped on his knees by Tem- 
 pest, but he dared not touch him. From somewhere he 
 heard a voice saying: 
 
 " Have I broken his back? Have I broken his back? 
 Have I broken his back ? " 
 
 At first he did not know that voice for his own. Then 
 he traced it to his moving lips and at once began to take 
 a close and curious interest in the individuality of this " I." 
 It did not seem to be really himself, any more than that 
 still thing with the hidden face seemed to be really Tem- 
 pest. Then why was he afraid? Why was he so sick 
 afraid that his hands were numb and the little pebbles 
 under his knee-bones burnt like fire? Part of his brain 
 was searching for a reason, and presently out of the back 
 of his mind there shaped the memory of a sketch of his 
 paste3 on the wall of the bunk-room at Grey Wolf. It 
 was just an eye, gazing indifferently over the edge of the 
 universe into space, and he had drawn it to illustrate the 
 callousness of that Power which, men alleged, controlled 
 creation and all things within it. Now he knew that he 
 had drawn a true thing, only the Eye was not indifferent. 
 It was watching him. It had been watching all the time, 
 taking that close and curious interest in his individuality 
 which he took himself. 
 
 In a spasm of uncontrollable fear he hid his face from 
 it, but he knew that it was watching still. It was that 
 Thing which Hindoo, and Buddhist, and Christian and 
 Mahomedan each give their own name to and worship. It 
 was the Thing he had jested about and made a mock of. 
 And now it was making a mock and a jest of him. 
 
 He put his fingers out to touch Tempest and pulled them 
 away again. 
 
 " If I knew he was dead," he heard his voice saying. " I 
 could stand it if I knew he was dead. But it's such a 
 ghastly thing to break a man's back. He could live quite 
 a while with a broken back." 
 
 The sound of his voice steadied him somewhat. It 
 seemed the only human thing in this cold, barren place
 
 362 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 where he knelt alone under his sin with that Eye watching. 
 " I must get help," he said, and stood up. For a minute 
 he stood as if in thought, but he was not thinking. " Cer- 
 tainly I must get help," he said again, and turned down 
 the beach and went back to the camp. 
 
 Among the little stones Myers was building a driftwood 
 fire and putting on the kettle to boil. Depache, moving his 
 long limbs slowly, rolled the bedding and strapped it, whis- 
 tling a little song the while. Within the nearer tent Ducane 
 was cursing. Dick rubbed his eyes, standing still beside 
 the fire. These men did not seem real either. They looked 
 like cut-out paper, pasted against the colourless background 
 of cliffs, and it seemed such a silly thing to speak to paper 
 men. 
 
 " Tempest," he said, and stopped, wondering if they 
 could possibly hear him. And then he raised his voice. 
 " The inspector is hurt," he said. " Bring a couple of 
 paddles and a blanket. We must carry him in." 
 
 He believed that the men swore in amaze and asked 
 questions. He believed that they hurried him along the 
 beach, dragging the paddles and the scarlet Hudson Bay 
 blanket with them. But he did not talk to them. The 
 voice inside his head continued to repeat, " Have I broken 
 his back ? Have I broken his back ? " and another voice, 
 the one which he knew for the inevitable cynic devil in his 
 blood, returned, " Well, you tried to. What are you making 
 a fuss about? You tried to." 
 
 Between them the three men carried Tempest back to the 
 tent, and rubbed him, and put heated stones to his feet 
 and cloths wrung out of hot water over his heart. It was 
 Depache who commanded here, with his soft eyes gleam- 
 ing, and Dick who obeyed, enraged at the futile imbecility 
 of it all. Could any reasonable man suppose that hot 
 stones and fomentations were of use when the Power rep- 
 resented by that watching Eye was alone able to control 
 the issue? 
 
 "We should ask It," he began to say stupidly, once or 
 twice. "We are no good, you know. We should ask It." 
 
 But his words were brushed aside, and he was bidden 
 plunge his hands into the scalding water to wring those 
 hot cloths which could not bring the colour of life back 
 to Tempest's skin. Depache was making little broken
 
 "THE BARREN GROUNDS" 363 
 
 prayers as he worked, and Dick looked at him with angry 
 eyes. 
 
 "Why didn't you do that before?" he said; and then 
 Depache straightened, with his melancholy, womanish face 
 lighted exultantly. 
 
 " But it is that he will live/' he cried. " See the blood 
 come back under the skin? He will live." 
 
 Dick looked on the reddened flesh where the cloths were 
 lifted. He saw the dark eyelashes quiver just a little, and 
 he stood up and went to the door, feeling physically sick. 
 
 " For he doesn't know yet that his back is probably 
 broken," he told himself. " He doesn't know that." 
 
 Behind him he heard Depache speak as one speaks to 
 a man who yet belongs to the ordinary life of men, and 
 that uncontrollable fear seized him again, chasing him out 
 along the beach with hasty, unsteady feet. He could not 
 face the consequences of this. He could not face that 
 which Tempest might be facing now. 
 
 The scent of wood smoke drifted to him along the barren 
 beach; the smell of rain was sweet and heavy in the air; 
 lake and hills and sky lay colourless and softly tender 
 where seabirds drifted over, sending down thin cries. 
 
 Dick did not know if it were mid-day or evening or early 
 morning still. A strange, detached feeling of separation 
 from all the natural things possessed him. There did not 
 seem anything to do or anywhere to go. He was helpless ; 
 helpless to avert the consequences of his own passion; 
 helpless in the hands of that omnipotent Life which flushes 
 the veins of men for a little space, and then withdraws 
 to fulfil itself in other forms. 
 
 Because Dick had never loved anyone as he loved Tem- 
 pest he had never known grief before. He had never 
 known the need of a God before. He had never known 
 utter fear. He knew them all now, and he staggered under 
 the weight of them. In a little while he would have to go 
 back to Tempest. He would have to go, and the horror 
 of that thought plucked all the defiant unbelief out of him 
 for the time. 
 
 " God," he said with stammering lips. " Oh, God ! Oh, 
 God ! " 
 
 And then he walked on, am! walked back again, still 
 keeping the edge of the bluff where he and Tempest bad
 
 364 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 fought between him and the camp. And at last, not know- 
 ing why he returned any more than he knew why he had 
 gone out, he passed the bluff towards the camp again. 
 
 The tents were struck, and on the beach men moved, 
 loading up the canoes. Dick stared, rubbing both his 
 eyes. Was Tempest dead, or was he on his feet again; or, 
 knowing the end in store for him, did he want to go nearer 
 the haunts of men to die? There were three men only 
 moving on the beach, and not any of those three were 
 Tempest. Dick shut his eyes; standing still, and strug- 
 gling fiercely for control over himself. He must go and 
 see. He must go. Suddenly he laughed a little. That 
 Power which he had made a jest of was having its money's 
 worth out of him now. Then he set his teeth and walked 
 straight through the dismantled camp and up to the canoe 
 which held Tempest. 
 
 Tempest was lying quite flat in the bottom, and the lines 
 on his face showed physical pain. But he looked up, 
 smiling. 
 
 " You nearly arranged for me to go home feet first," 
 he said. " Where did you learn that counter, you beggar ? " 
 
 " Is your back broken ? " demanded Dick. 
 
 " No." Tempest smiled again. " You've given me a 
 pretty nasty rick, though. I won't be much use for some 
 days. You'll have to make Ducane work now, Dick. I 
 guess I won't be the only one to suffer over this." 
 
 Dick had heard the first word only. Against his will, 
 against his knowledge, sobs were shaking his body and his 
 eyes burnt with hot tears. He turned away sharply, and 
 went up the beach, seeking mechanically for some of the 
 freight to carry to the canoe. Here he stumbled against 
 Ducane, and Ducane caught hold of his tunic, complaining 
 fretfully. 
 
 " This is a nice thing," he said. " Does Tempest expect 
 that I'm going to take his place, I'd like to know? I'm 
 not fit. How can I " 
 
 For the first time this morning nature offered some relief 
 to Dick. 
 
 " Oh, go to hell," he said savagely. And then he 
 laughed in sudden exultation. For he himself had just 
 come out of it.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE " 
 
 " THE Indians throughout this region come yearly to Fort 
 Resolution for Treaty, and, having no permanent camps, 
 would not be benefited by a Police Department in the 
 vicinity. The tribes are Yellow Knives and Dog Ribs, 
 and they bear a fairly good reputation and seem passably 
 prosperous. The Esquimaux " 
 
 Tempest turned in the big chair where he sat propped 
 with all the pillows which the barracks at Fort Churchill 
 could muster. 
 
 " Those dogs are making an awful row," he said. 
 
 " They always fight in the first snow. Besides, the moon 
 excites them." Dick drove his pen into the ink again. 
 "Well? " he said. " The Esquimaux are not a very potent 
 factor. I guess they can worry along all right without us. 
 
 " So long as they dress by their ancient laws and cus- 
 toms they're better without the white-man element. Yes. 
 Er The Esquimaux on the Hudson Bay side of Height 
 of Land " 
 
 Dick went on writing, and for a while there was no 
 sound in the room but Tempest's quiet voice and the 
 scribble of the pen and the noise of the husky dogs out- 
 side the window. The blind was up, and the white square 
 of the moonlit snow showed beyond the black shadows of 
 the buildings. Occasionally a dog shot across it, followed 
 by the flickering ghosts of the mob. Then the square lay 
 naked again, and in the little room where the black 
 stove-pipe ran, oozing warmth, the two men worked on 
 steadily. 
 
 It was just the fitting of another little grey unnoticed 
 chip of mosaic into the huge pavement of the Empire 
 which thrusts its length around the world; just a curt 
 telling of the necessary things with all that made it a 
 human record left out. In the Parliament Buildings at 
 
 365
 
 S66 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Ottawa one man would read it. In the printing-room and 
 proof-room one or two more would run over it with skilled 
 eyes and brain elsewhere before it went to swell the size 
 of the yearly Blue Book of the Royal North- West Mounted 
 Police. Some day in argument a clerk or a minister might 
 turn up the report and find that the Hudson Bay Customs 
 could conveniently be collected from Churchill. If a 
 police map were near he might run his finger north until, 
 between fifty-eight and sixty degrees of latitude, he found 
 the little red flag which proclaimed that Fort Churchill 
 was a post of the police. It might even interest him to 
 see that it was just two thousand nine hundred and twenty- 
 five miles from Liverpool, England. But this was not 
 likely; nor was it likely that he or any other man would 
 read, word by word, the report-sheets which lay on the 
 floor round Dick's feet. 
 
 In Dick's black decided hand some of the headings 
 showed on those scattered papers. Game; Topography; 
 Temperature; Inhabitants; each slip filled up with curt, 
 direct sentences which said nothing of the dreams under 
 a blue sky with a fair wind in the sails; of the struggles 
 and the suffering; of the solitude when the sound of a 
 little bird calling floods the heart with a longing for home. 
 The actual mileage was added to the foot of the report, 
 as witness to the labours of four white men in the uncon- 
 sidered areas; but few would heed it, although it ran well 
 into the thousands. For this patrol was to stand with so 
 many others among the things which do not matter par- 
 ticularly, and both men knew it as they patiently built up 
 the report, page by page; Tempest in his chair, reading 
 from blotted note-books and diaries; Dick at the table, 
 with his tunic-collar loosed and his forehead knit and the 
 rough edge of his hand making a little scratching sound 
 on the paper as he wrote. 
 
 It was Tempest who sat crippled in the chair, but it was 
 Dick's face which showed the burden of those past days. 
 Ducane had been worse than useless in the canoes, and the 
 journey down the Beverley Lake and along Chesterfield 
 Inlet had dragged on until Dick was maddened beyond 
 thought or speech. A cold, driving rain which no coverings 
 could keep out had put rheumatism into that ricked back
 
 " THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE " 367 
 
 of Tempest's, and the two days of sailing and paddling up 
 Hudson Bay itself into Fullerton, when it was found that 
 the steamer had not waited for them, did not ease the 
 trouble. Rough weather between Fullerton and Fort 
 Churchill, with the little open steamer battling through 
 the big seas and an early winter spurting in icy blasts 
 down from the North had broken even Tempest's courage, 
 and he accepted the decision of the men at the Fort 
 Churchill post, and prepared to surrender up his reins of 
 government to Dick. 
 
 Already Dick had taken up all those threads which it 
 had been necessary for Tempest to drop. He had man- 
 aged Ducane as no other man could have done; he had 
 arranged the slow and exceedingly difficult matter of pro- 
 curing dog-train outfits, and in the morning he was to 
 leave with Ducane and Myers for the South. Previous 
 instructions had transferred Depachc to the Fullerton post, 
 and Tempest would not soon forget the trouble in the man's 
 gentle eyes as the little steamer snorted off from the wharf. 
 Depache had looked after him with wonderful tenderness 
 and forethought, and when he was left behind Tempest 
 suffered considerably under Myers' rough hands and Dick's 
 abrupt strength. Now he dropped the last pencil-scrawled, 
 weather-stained note-book with a sigli of relief. 
 
 " I guess it's all in," he said. " Bring it here and let 
 me look over it. You've got Earner's Fullerton reports 
 all right, have you?" 
 
 " Yes. He's wanting a whole lot of lumber sent in 
 next spring. Hope he'll get it." Dick gathered up the 
 sheets and carried them over the room. " Do you want 
 those ermine skins sent east right away ? " 
 
 " Not if you can get them properly cured and made up 
 in Winnipeg. If you wire Harley to meet you at the sta- 
 tion he'll take charge of them. Tell him I want them fixed 
 into the fashionable kind of furs women wear now. And 
 tell him they're for my sister. He knows Betty." 
 
 So did Dick, and his memory jumped back to days in 
 the old home far off in Ontario when he and Betty had 
 climbed apple-trees together and pelted Tempest where he 
 lay in the long grass with " The Canterbury Tales," or 
 Schiller, or, in later days, Tolstoi or Schopenhauer. He
 
 368 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 looked down at Tempest's long hands moving with difficulty 
 among the papers, and looked away again sharply. 
 
 " Hellier is making things good and snug here for the 
 winter," he said. " They've hauled no end of wood, and 
 the whole place has been freshly muddied-up. You will 
 be happy as a coon in a hollow tree, Tempest." 
 
 " Yes. I wish I could have got through." Tempest's 
 eyes darkened. " Hellier has written the Commissioner, 
 telling him that I'm not fit." 
 
 " He'd know that, I imagine. He knows you. And it's 
 going to be a beast of a time. Soft snow and rotten dogs. 
 I've got scratch teams if ever I saw them! Thank the 
 Lord, Myers is a first-class driver, though." 
 
 " Yes," said Tempest absently. 
 
 He went on reading, and Dick thrust some more wood 
 in the stove; lit his fourth pipe that evening; roamed 
 through the room restlessly, straying at last to the blind- 
 less window. He smoked in long breaths, screwing his 
 eyes up, as a painter does in seeking for his values. But 
 he was not thinking of that bold beauty which the snowy 
 night held. 
 
 The strained, unnatural mood which had held him for 
 days after that fight with Tempest had gone, as a matter 
 of course. But he could not wholly forget it. He could 
 not forget that for the time he had absolutely believed in 
 a God: that he had cried to that God for help: that he 
 had felt the reality of that God more keenly than he had 
 ever felt anything in his life. He knew that Tempest 
 believed, and he guessed that here lay the secret of Tem- 
 pest's unclouded eyes and calm forehead, and his patience 
 under pain. But that did not clear the matter for his own 
 mind. Logically, without bias, he had endeavoured to 
 thresh it out, and he could see no reason for belief in an 
 all-prevailing Godhead. The sorrow and the torment of 
 the world was to his understanding clear proof against it, 
 and the comparison between his own virile strength and 
 Tempest's bowed body sharpened that proof until he turned 
 from the struggle bitterly. But over and over again, un- 
 bidden, unwelcomed, it came back. 
 
 He leaned his knee on the window-sill, staring out with 
 both hands in his pockets. And his face was drawn into
 
 "THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE" 369 
 
 a heavy frown. Suddenly he felt that Tempest was watch- 
 ing him, and he swung round, reddening angrily. Each 
 day it became harder to meet the light in those uncon- 
 quered eyes. 
 
 " You've had a hard day," said Tempest. " But every- 
 thing is fixed now, isn't it? " 
 
 " Why, yes. I could only get four dogs for each team, 
 and they're a mangy lot. Mongrel curs, most of 'em; one 
 or two huskies, and a Mackenzie hound. He'll pull like 
 a bullock if the huskies don't kill him. They'll try. It's 
 not going to be a good trip. Snow isn't fit. But Myers 
 and I are in splendid fettle, and Ducane has picked up 
 a lot. We have a breed too, as far as Split Lake. Couldn't 
 persuade him to come further. He's in for the trap- 
 ping." 
 
 Tempest asked several questions more, and then came 
 silence again. Across the passage the men of Fort Church- 
 ill detachment were laughing uproariously in the mess- 
 room. Here, in Hellier's private room, these two men of 
 the little northern patrol sat without speech. Dick was 
 searching for words, but he could not find them. Twice 
 in his life he had set out to save a brother's soul and each 
 time he had cut his own fingers to the bone instead. Then 
 Tempest said: 
 
 " You still have that paper of Robison's ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " You will give it in to the Commissioner at Regina ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Dick jerked out his pouch and proceeded to refill his 
 pipe, sitting astride a chair. His manner could not have 
 been more brutally indifferent, and yet he had never so 
 deeply longed to tell Tempest how much he cared for him. 
 
 " Why wouldn't you give it to me when I asked you ? " 
 
 " I didn't intend that you should destroy it." 
 
 " Ah ! " It was a quick note of surprise. " You thought 
 I meant that ? " 
 
 "What else should I think?" Dick twisted the chair, 
 looking with resentful eyes. " I consider you acted like 
 it." 
 
 " I had not thought of your suspecting that," said Tem- 
 pest with sudden haughtiness . " You might naturally
 
 370 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 have imagined that I would have wanted to read it for 
 myself, and when you refused I remembered some spe- 
 cial reasons why you should not have been the man to 
 deny me that right." His voice changed suddenly. He 
 sighed. " I don't believe I thought much after that/' he 
 said. " If I had I hope I'd have behaved differently. 
 What illogical, disreputably-minded beings we are all of 
 us. And yet how splendid we are most of us." 
 
 " Ducane, for instance/' said Dick bitterly. 
 
 " I was thinking of Robison. And you believed that I 
 wanted to destroy that paper? The thing has gone far 
 beyond that unless I could at the same time destroy the 
 deed and the conditions that made for it." 
 
 A twinge of mental or physical pain stopped him. Dick 
 lit his pipe with hurried, impatient hands. His own part 
 in this affair seemed to be showing less nobly. But how 
 could he have known? And then, with sudden force, the 
 explanation hit him. A man naturally judges others by 
 himself. 
 
 " We recognise the responsibility of the criminal fast 
 enough," said Tempest slowly. " I wonder if we are 
 always so sure of his identity." 
 
 " She did it long before I had any " 
 
 " Leave the personal element out," said Tempest. " We 
 can't alter that by discussing it. I told you it had gone 
 far beyond that. But because the representation will lie 
 in your hands now, I want to speak to you about this. We 
 white men make and enforce the criminal laws of a coun- 
 try. But it is not taken sufficiently into consideration that 
 in very many cases we also make the conditions, which, 
 later on, call for the enforcements of those laws. So that 
 the punishment, when it falls, often falls on the wrong 
 person." 
 
 His voice was so quiet that Dick could not guess in 
 how far his heart was stirred. 
 
 " That's an old story," he said. " It's the same all the 
 world over. We can't help it. We are only sufficiently 
 advanced to see the obvious yet. We do our best with 
 the limited sense we've got." 
 
 " I don't think we do. We don't take into considera- 
 tion the fact that the civilisation of those who make the
 
 "THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE" 371 
 
 laws is in many cases about a thousand years older than 
 the civilisation of those whom we force to obey them. 
 When we spend less money on paying men to tinker with 
 those laws, and more on teaching men how to live so that 
 they won't need those laws, then we may be really doing 
 something towards the development of the individual. But 
 we won't study economics sufficiently for that. We make 
 laws. And at the same time we are making criminals." 
 
 " Punishment for crime is not man's idea. You're rating 
 his intellect too highly. It's one of the natural primary 
 laws." 
 
 " Of course. The moral punishment. I was speaking 
 of the physical. The moral punishment falls on the race 
 on the nation. And we think to avoid it by visiting physi- 
 cal punishment on the few. That doesn't alter our obliga- 
 tions." 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do about it ? I fancy 
 other men have been struck with the same notion. But I 
 don't observe that it's affected the world at all." 
 
 " But that doesn't alter our obligations. We white men 
 have chosen to be rulers of the world. Do the best we 
 can we'll have a mighty reckoning to pay for that pride. 
 And we'll have a mighty reward for that service. But 
 until we recognise our brotherhood, until we recognise our 
 individual responsibility, we are not going to get much 
 virtue out of our inheritance." 
 
 " I tell you we do what we can. I think the law is too 
 ready to look for extenuating circumstances." 
 
 " Do you think it will find any extenuating circum- 
 stances in Andree's case ? " 
 
 Dick shut his teeth with a snap on the pipe-stem. He 
 did not look at the other man. 
 
 " How can I tell ? " he said sullenly. 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Nor do I. And yet we both know that they are there, 
 and we know that the law can't recognise them. The re- 
 sponsibility lies with those who make it possible for a girl 
 to grow up with no restraint, no moral training, no tradi- 
 tions. And it lies with those white men those rulers of 
 the country who take advantage of that. We know that,
 
 872 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 too, and the law knows it But the law is powerless there 
 and so are we." 
 
 " J thought you knew human nature better than to talk 
 like that. We can't get back to the original factor in an 
 individual case, anyway. He's generally dead." 
 
 " No, he isn't," said Tempest quietly. " He's always 
 living plenty of him. He's you and me, and all the 
 other men who help to rule and serve Canada. He is 
 every man who hasn't got five cents to spare for the Mis- 
 sionary box; and who can't be bothered to subscribe to 
 the Hospital Fund, and who makes a ring on the Educa- 
 tion Board because of the money he can get out of it. 
 He is every man who won't put sin or temptation out 
 of another's path because he's afraid of dirtying his own 
 hands. He is every man who takes advantage of the laws 
 of the country to add to that sin and temptation. Oh, he 
 isn't dead. Don't you think it. He's alive, and he's going 
 to keep on living. And he is going to keep on governing 
 the world." 
 
 Dick was on his feet now. He walked through the 
 room. Then he came back and stood over Tempest. His 
 face was black. 
 
 " Because you're a Puritan you needn't curse all other 
 men," he said. " I imagine we are as God made us if 
 there is a God." 
 
 Tempest flushed painfully. 
 
 " I don't want to curse other men. But I can be glad 
 that she is to die for this. It was life that I was afraid 
 of for her." 
 
 Dick walked back to the window. He stood there some 
 time. Then he said: 
 
 " On my honour, I never meant to make her love me." 
 
 " What happened to your honour when you gave me 
 your word that you'd leave her alone, and then broke it ? " 
 said Tempest sternly. 
 
 Dick turned round. That crumpled body with the clear, 
 menacing eyes seemed suddenly terrible. He understood 
 that this man was fighting for more than " the individual 
 case." 
 
 " Oh, you can't understand," he said impatiently. "If 
 you could you wouldn't need to ask. You'd know for
 
 THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE " 373 
 
 yourself. A man struggles or he doesn't struggle. And 
 it all comes to the same in the end if it's built that 
 way." 
 
 " That can't be true." Tempest lay back, staring at 
 the wall. " Good and Evil are forces," he said. " Whether 
 we generate them ourselves and let them loose in the uni- 
 verse, or whether they are in the universe and we have 
 power to annex them, doesn't matter much, I think. We 
 have access to them, anyway. And we can choose which 
 we will have access to principally, and we know that the 
 more we have to do with the one the less we can have to 
 do with the other. That seems to have proved itself. 
 Those forces are indestructible. Huge blind gods, perhaps. 
 Purposeful things with individual power to attract or repel, 
 perhaps. We don't know anything about all that. But 
 we do know that we can draw those forces into ourselves 
 and transmute them by the alchemy of our own souls into 
 potent things. And we do know that, whether we like it 
 or not, we have got to transmit those potent things to 
 others. It may be possible for mankind to so absorb the 
 Good that it will in time kill all sin out of being, as inocu- 
 lation destroys disease. That is another thing we can only 
 guess at. It is certainly possible for us individually to 
 absorb the evil so far that we seem unable to retain the 
 good. But the Good must be meant to win out if we would 
 only help it. There is no other solution for the making of 
 Life. And how do we know that the Good is not seeking 
 us as we are seeking it? A new Force, like electricity or 
 magnetism, ready to enlighten the whole universe if we 
 would only give it a chance. We grope in the dark. How 
 do we know that we haven't got the match in our hand, 
 waiting to be lit." 
 
 His face was glowing and his eyes deep with a glory 
 that Dick had not seen even in Tempest before. Dick 
 looked at him in envy. 
 
 " I reckon you have lit your match," he said. 
 
 " No, no. Oh, God knows I haven't." Tempest put up 
 his shaking hands to his face. " There were times when I 
 could have killed you," he said. 
 
 Dick drew a long breath. 
 
 " Thank the Lord for that," he sa^d. " You've some-
 
 374 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 times scared me into thinking you couldn't be human. I 
 was afraid you only wanted to kill yourself." 
 
 " I did want to." Still Tempest spoke with his face 
 hidden. " I knew that I had to see this thing in a larger 
 way or I probably would." He broke off, sitting silent; 
 and Dick walked through the room with his lips tight-shut. 
 At last he touched Tempest on the shoulder. 
 
 " Here's } r our medicine," he said. " Let me hold the 
 glass. What do you expect me to think of a God or a 
 Good that can let j ou suffer this way while I go free ? " 
 
 Tempest looked up. His forehead was wet near the 
 hair, and his eyes were very sad. 
 
 " Do you go free ? " he asked. 
 
 Dick looked away. The blind battling soul in him de- 
 sired intensely to cry out its doubts and troubles to this 
 man. But his stubborn heart held him back. Besides, he 
 told himself that he could not speak of Jennifer. 
 
 " I'd give my own strength to get yours back," he 
 said. 
 
 " It will come back." Tempest smiled a little. " I'm 
 not going to be laid on the shelf yet. And I owe you 
 more than you owe me." 
 
 " What ? Dick looked at him in sudden distrust. 
 
 " You did turn me back into the trail again. And I 
 believe that you began to do it honestly. And I have no 
 right to judge you. I have failed too far myself. I had 
 thought that I could stand and it needed her sorrow as 
 well as mine to show me the only way in which I could 
 stand. She had to pay so that I should learn, you see. 
 I have got to do something with that learning." 
 
 " Tempest! Do you love her still as a man loves the 
 woman he wants for his wife?" 
 
 Dick blurted the question out, half-afraid, half-desperate. 
 With that paper in his pocket he knew that he must know 
 this. 
 
 " No," said Tempest, very low. " Not that way any 
 more." 
 
 He did not explain further. But Dick guessed, and he 
 did not guess so very far wrong. Tempest loved Andree 
 now for all that she was not. For all that an unripe and 
 over-strenuous civilisation had made her. For all her kin
 
 "THE LAW IS POWERLESS THERE" 375 
 
 who would sin and suffer under that same civilisation. 
 For all that ignorance required at the hands of knowledge 
 and did not get. 
 
 There was silence again in the room. And then Hellier, 
 Sergeant in charge of the post, came in, and after that the 
 wheels of life took up their ordinary running once more. 
 There was much to be said yet. Much that never would 
 be said. Tempest had forgiven Dick. But he had shown 
 very fully how much there was to forgive. And Dick, 
 although feeling painfully that he should be grateful, set 
 out on the winter trail with no light heart. 
 
 On the third night out they camped on the edge of the 
 heavy timber, and the morning gave a cold world of wind 
 and storm and a drifted trail that demanded constant 
 breaking. Each man but Ducane took his turn at .that and 
 his turn at holding the blinded, struggling dogs into it 
 when it was broken; and each man but Ducane laboured 
 to put the tent up in the teeth of the wind that night, and 
 to make a fire with the little green twigs torn off the bowed 
 spruces. But it was Ducane who refused to turn out of 
 his blankets on the following morning. He complained of 
 that cramp which had caught him by Beverley Lake, and 
 Dick, who had expected this, found a sinful delight in 
 administering some medicine which kept Ducane passably 
 civil for two full days. 
 
 The three men of the Outer Places were wolf-thewed and 
 tireless. They could break trail for a half-day and feel no 
 after pains. They would curl up in their wet furs and 
 sleep, and wake cheerfully to another day of labour. But 
 Ducane had never belonged to the Outer Places, and in 
 a very little while he began to drive Dick desperate with 
 his complaints. Dick cured his toothache by threatening to 
 abstract the tooth, and he heard no more of Ducane's weak 
 ankle after the night on which he urged the teams for- 
 ward, leaving Ducane to limp sulkily into camp when sup- 
 per was done. But through the cold and heavy fortnight 
 of travel which landed them at Split Lake Ducane made 
 life for those about him an infinitely more wearisome thing 
 than it had any need to be. 
 
 It was on the trail to Norway House where the police 
 flag flew at the head of Lake Winnipeg that Ducane asked
 
 876 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 the question which Dick had been expecting since they 
 first met. 
 
 " Where is Jenny ? " he asked ; and Dick stopped his 
 walk and looked at him. 
 
 " With her mother in Toronto. You expect her to come 
 and bail you out, of course ? " 
 
 " What business is that of yours ? " snarled Ducane. 
 Then he looked at the other man in sharp suspicion. 
 " What business is it of yours what my wife does or 
 doesn't do ? " he said again. He thrust his watery eyes 
 and ragged beard close to Dick. " Do you love her ? " 
 he snapped suddenly. 
 
 " W r hat business is that of yours ? " countered Dick 
 lazily. 
 
 " Why I guess it is my business, too. I " 
 
 " No, it is not." Dick turned on his heel. " The next 
 time you poke your nose into my private affairs you'll 
 likely get hurt, Mr. Ducane," he said; and left the other 
 man puzzled and staring.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 " BUT THAT CAN'T BE " 
 
 " COME in," said the Commissioner. 
 
 Dick halted yet another moment before he followed his 
 knock into the office. These three days in the Regina 
 Headquarters of the Royal North-West Mounted Police 
 had brought him back to the trim alertness required of 
 every man who wears the buffalo-badge, and his mind was 
 fully as alert as his body. But it was much less brushed 
 and buttoned into shape, and his eyes were anxious as he 
 crossed over the threshold, saluted, and stood up, rigid 
 and expressionless, before the Commissioner. 
 
 The Commissioner was sitting sideways at his table with 
 his keen face more grave than was usual. Many things 
 and many men pas?ed under his hands, and his work was 
 often weighty on him. But he loved it, and he took a 
 pride in his men, although he seldom told them so. He 
 had known Dick in the days when Dick was rough-rider 
 here, and he had seen him many times since when he sent 
 the man out on his lone patrols and welcomed him when 
 he came back to report. He turned to him now with the 
 steady eyes that had learnt how to judge men while the 
 man himself was learning how to trust them, neither for- 
 getting nor ignoring conditions of upbringing or birth. 
 
 " You are looking better than when you came in," he 
 said. "Are you feeling as fit as you look?" 
 
 " Quite, thank you, sir." 
 
 ' Ready for another lone patrol ? " 
 
 A change flickered over the composed face before him. 
 It was gone instantly; even before Dick said his respect- 
 ful " Yes, sir." But the Commissioner had seen it, and 
 again he wished, as he had so often wished before, that 
 it was not incumbent on him to treat these fiery pieces of 
 flesh and blood and spirit so like machines. 
 
 " You have had seven months of severe work," he said. 
 
 377
 
 378 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I should not send you out again just now if I did not 
 believe that you were the most suitable man I can spare 
 at present." 
 
 " I am ready to go, sir/' said Dick. 
 
 He had regained his outward balance, but his mind was 
 whirling. Ducane he was one of the principal witnesses 
 in Ducane's case. He had got the information together. 
 He knew more of the connecting links than anyone else. 
 If he were sent away again, for months, perhaps for a 
 year, what was going to happen to that case? The Com- 
 missioner was watching him. 
 
 " What is it, Heriot ? " he asked. 
 
 " I was thinking about that case of Ducane's, sir. I 
 worked it up so far as it went." 
 
 " Ah ! Ducane. Yes, of course. He's in cells here, 
 is he not? Yes. I have all the information on that case 
 tabulated here. Sergeant Jones sent it down from Grey 
 Wolf, and of course it has been in abeyance until we got 
 the man. Did this Ducane tell you that he desired to turn 
 King's evidence ? " 
 
 " He said so. But I didn't believe " Dick stopped 
 
 in disgust. 
 
 " Well, it is a fact. I saw him the morning after you 
 brought him in, and he gave me the names of this com- 
 pany. I am operating now on the basis of what I got from 
 him, and I fancy we can manage without you, Heriot. 
 You are wanted for more important work." The Com- 
 missioner smiled. " This man will be no trouble," he said. 
 " He is eager to tell everything in order to lighten his 
 sentence. He will lighten it, of course. In fact, after the 
 case comes up in court he will probably be let out on bail 
 pending the arrest of the other men. There is a bigger 
 thing behind this than the petty rogueries of Ducane, and 
 I can assure you that your thorough work in the matter 
 will not go unappreciated." 
 
 The Commissioner smiled again, but Dick's face was a 
 blank. A cold horror had shut down over him. Ducane 
 out on bail; penniless; practically a moral and physical 
 wreck, and Jennifer with no one to guard her, no one to 
 help her against him. He had not forgotten Jennifer's 
 steady words that night in the Edmonton hotel.
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 379 
 
 "If he needs my help I shall always give it; " and he 
 knew that she meant what she said. Through this long 
 journey he had taken comfort in the thought that at least 
 he was insuring her safety from Ducane. Now, seeing 
 what he had done, and seeing himself helpless, he had no 
 words to say. 
 
 " On the day you came in I wired Grey Wolf Barracks 
 for the arrest of the girl called Grange's Andree," said 
 the Commissioner, turning over the papers on his desk, 
 Sergeant Jones' reply came in an hour ago." 
 
 He paused, and Dick answered with his mechanical, 
 " Yes, sir." He had neither thought nor care to spare for 
 Andree at this moment. 
 
 " Sergeant Jones says that full inquiries have been made 
 concerning the girl," went on the Commissioner, picking 
 up a telegraph-form. " She is not in Grey Wolf. It 
 has been ascertained that she went North, probably on 
 the Peace, with two nuns who were going in to Fort 
 Vermilion just before the rivers shut down." 
 
 " Went North ! Andree ! " Dick was startled into sud- 
 den attention. " She must have had word of this," he 
 said. 
 
 " Ah ! " The Commissioner leaned forward. " Why 
 should you think that ? " 
 
 " Why she has always had a superstition against the 
 North. She used to say that she would never come back 
 if she once went down there " 
 
 " You know her, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Ah! How do you suggest that she might have been 
 warned ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Yes, I do. Ducane likely talked about 
 the matter to someone and word got round to her. There 
 has been plenty of time. It is over a year since he had 
 the paper." 
 
 " I see. Then you think that she has gone North in 
 order to escape ? " 
 
 " Very probably," said Dick. 
 
 " I see." The Commissioner sat back in his chair, 
 frowning at the wall. 
 
 " This complicates the affair," he said. " She has ha3
 
 380 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 six weeks or two months' start. But it makes me all the 
 more certain of the wisdom of my original decision. I 
 have detailed you to bring the girl in, Heriot. It is a 
 cold time of year for travel, but you are acclimated to 
 that." 
 
 " You want me to go after Andree ? " 
 
 Dick spoke low and dazedly. The thought seemed 
 strangely horrible and unreal. 
 
 " And as soon as possible." The Commissioner's voice 
 sharpened. " We hanged Robison," he said. " We have 
 hanged an innocent man. That is a stain which, to my 
 knowledge, has not been on our name before, and I would 
 give a very great deal if it could be wiped out. Unfortu- 
 nately that is impossible; but it is all the more our duty 
 to bring the real criminal to justice without loss of time. 
 You have a genius for marking down your men, and I 
 don't think I could do better than send you after her." 
 
 Dick did not speak. The Commissioner turned back 
 to the table. 
 
 " You can get a dog-train outfit in Grey Wolf, of course," 
 he said. " Don't delay at any point on account of funds. 
 The honour of the whole Force is more or less tarnished 
 until we get her. For if she knows of it we may be sure 
 that she is not the only one. You will leave here in the 
 morning. Come to me after stables, and I will give you 
 your letter of instructions." 
 
 Dick was dismissed, but still he did not move. The 
 Commissioner looked at him again, and then for a mo- 
 ment he trod over the barrier of discipline. 
 
 " This patrol doesn't please you," he said. " I am 
 sorry, for I have always looked on you as one of our 
 keenest men. What is your ob j ection ? " 
 
 " I knew her rather well," said Dick slowly. " I had 
 sooner it had been another man to take her, sir." 
 
 The Commissioner looked away again. There was evi- 
 dently much more here than he knew. But he had no 
 right to probe too far into the inner lives of these men 
 whom he ruled. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said. " But it is not necessary for 
 me to tell you that in such work as we have to do private 
 feelings must be ignored. The fact is, I trust you to
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 381 
 
 make good time over this, Heriot. There is a good deal 
 at stake. And in sending you I believe that I am sending 
 the best man I have. You hold a good reputation for 
 that kind of work, you know. That is all. Come and see 
 me in the morning. You will be driven into Regina to 
 catch the mid-day train West." 
 
 Dick went out. He turned along the familiar side-walk 
 and across the barrack-square. But he did not know where 
 he went, nor why. Like a burning-glass his mind was fo- 
 cussed suddenly on one point. He would not go after An- 
 dree. He would not, and he could not. He would go East; 
 East to Jennifer. He would desert and go to Jennifer, 
 and he would make her give him the comfort he would need 
 when the shame of what he had done became known. He 
 would take Jennifer, because Ducane must not take her, 
 and he would take with her the searing disgrace and the 
 need for the avoidance of his kind which must follow his 
 desertion. He loved his work. It was the only thing 
 which held honour alive in him. But he loved Jennifer. 
 
 " And by , I'll keep him away from her," he said, 
 
 half-aloud. 
 
 " What's that ? " A Colour-Sergeant thrust his arm 
 through Dick's and walked on with him. " Glad to see 
 you again, Heriot. A kid we had here Warriner was 
 always talking about you and the other Grey Wolf folk. 
 By the bye, queer thing that Mrs. Ducane should go back 
 there, isn't it ? " 
 
 " She's in Toronto " 
 
 " Not she. Grey Wolf, my boy. Grey Wolf. Been 
 there the last six months. She " 
 
 Dick ceased to hear. He was suddenly very angry with 
 Jennifer. What had induced her to go up there again? 
 She must have known that it would be much more difficult 
 for him to take her away from there; much more difficult 
 for him to escape from there. How the devil was he to 
 
 He stopped impatiently, knocking the snow off his high 
 fur over-boots. He had forgotten that Jennifer knew 
 nothing of this determination of his. 
 
 " Is she alone ? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 "Who? Oh, Mrs. Ducane? No; she has her mother 
 with her, I believe. I fancy that if Ducane "
 
 382 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 The stream of talk went on, leaving Dick still more 
 angry. Her mother ! What in the name of sense had pos- 
 sessed Jennifer to saddle herself with her mother? What 
 was he going to do with her mother? And how was he 
 going to persuade her, even though he persuaded Jenni- 
 fer? Even though? Sudden dread of the doubt which 
 those words implied chilled him. He forgot the difficul- 
 ties; he forgot the sacrifice; he forgot his anger. He re- 
 membered only that he wanted her wanted her; that she 
 was the one sw^et and sacred thing to him the one salve 
 to all the aches and bruises that life had given him. 
 
 He went back to his corner of the bunk-room which he 
 shared with four other men, and sat on his bunk with his 
 head in his hands. 
 
 " I've got to think this out I've got to think this out/' 
 he said, over and over. But his will would not hold any 
 one point true. Again and again it swung him up into the 
 wind, and he shivered, helpless as a ship in irons. 
 
 Tempest and Andree: Jennifer and Ducane: his own 
 good name and the way men spoke of it from Herschel 
 across to Fullerton and south into Regina itself. It was 
 not his private name that he cared about. That had been 
 blurred long years ago. But he was jealous for his work. 
 His work. The one thing which he had never betrayed or 
 belittled or neglected. The one thing which he had served 
 purely, according to his lights. He had dreaded always 
 that life and passion might call on him to cash in his brain 
 also at the bank of his heart, and he knew that if ever that 
 day came it would leave him naked of something which he 
 never would have any more. His work was the one firm 
 thing which he had clung to, and he knew, with a terrible 
 clearness of vision, that even with Jennifer's arms about 
 him, his soul would be sick for that world still, and for the 
 pride which he had lost. 
 
 He stood up at last; changed his boots, thrust his 
 cheque-book into his inner pocket, and went down to ask 
 the O.C. for leave. He banked in Regina, and it was wise 
 for a deserter to draw all his money out betimes, for, as he 
 knew well, a cheque is often one of those little threads by 
 which a man ties himself to that which he would escape. 
 
 And the next morning, across the snow-bound prairies,
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 
 
 sat in the train that rocktd west, ever west, and fitted into 
 shape with grim precision every move in this game whicli 
 he meant to play. 
 
 It must be played quickly. He could not go to Grey 
 Wolf and not go to the barracks. That would raise sus- 
 picion too soon. And he could not go to the barracks with- 
 out reporting to Sergeant Jones, who knew already that he 
 had been detailed for the patrol and who would already be 
 getting the outfit together. Therefore, at whatever hour 
 of the day or the night he took Jennifer away with him, it 
 would not be long before he was looked for. He could 
 hoodwink them in several ways, and he thought those ways 
 out, hour by hour, sitting in the position which Tempest 
 knew so well, with one knee over the other, and his chin 
 shut into his hand. But for all the start he might get it 
 would be little enough in that country where the few win- 
 ter trails are known as a man knows the number of his fin- 
 gers. Again he felt irritation at Jennifer because she had 
 gone back to Grey Wolf. 
 
 " She might have known I would come to her," he said. 
 " She might have known." 
 
 He felt strangely fretful and angry about something. 
 He was going to give what to him would be the greatest 
 sacrifice of his life, even though he gained what he most 
 desired by it. But he could feel no exaltation ; no calm 
 determination. A child playing up and down the corridor 
 offered him some candy. 
 
 " Those are kisses," she said, with her red lips upturned. 
 But he pushed her aside with his knee. 
 
 " I don't want any," he said sharply, and she ran back 
 to her mother, half-frightened. 
 
 Then his mind began to run on the fear of what Jenni- 
 fer would say. She would not refuse again. He had got 
 to break down her resistance this time. He had got to do 
 it. He felt maddened at the very thought of going North 
 and leaving her where Ducane could trouble her. 
 
 " She has got to give in," he told himself. " She has 
 got to give in." 
 
 And then he sat still, and thought of all the things which 
 he would say to her. 
 
 He had a month in which to mature those plans and ar-
 
 384- THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 guments. A month of sleigh-driving behind the ringing 
 horse-bells; of impatient waiting at side- way houses for a 
 team; of cold beds and discomfort and the magic of the 
 North pulling at his heart-strings and the shame of his pur- 
 pose heavy on his soul. He faced that knowledge, looking 
 out into the white world with sullen eyes and bitten lips. 
 Again Life was making a jest of him. But this time he 
 could not fling the jest back. The barb had gone too deep. 
 His pride was touched, and he could not contemplate the 
 loss of that even in his secret heart and hold his head 
 up. 
 
 He looked worn and thin and sulky when he knocked 
 the snow of Grey Wolf off his over-boots on the familiar 
 step and went into the barracks to report to Sergeant 
 Jones. And the sight of the florid, fleshy little man in the 
 chair which had once been Tempest's did not ease his 
 spirit. Sergeant Jones had many things to say, and the 
 short winter twilight had already shut down when Dick es- 
 caped and went through the kitchen to find Poley. His 
 impatience to see Jennifer was over-riding most things 
 now; but the human part of him had to obey the calls of 
 cold and hunger. And something of the keen edge of his 
 temper softened at the old man's welcome, and at the hot 
 food, and the warmth, and at Kennedy bursting in, rosy- 
 faced and incoherent with delight. 
 
 The boy looked older, with little lines showing already 
 about the corners of his eyes. His manner was more as- 
 sured, and Dick looked on that piece of his work with 
 pleasure. He was going out of it all, and Kennedy was 
 exactly the kind of fellow to curse him with tears in his 
 eyes and the bitterest profanity he knew. But he would 
 not be able to forget that Dick had made him. The mess- 
 room was dearly familiar, with the smells of old from the 
 kitchen and the mat before the stove where Dick's pipe 
 had burnt a hole. And Poley was dearly familiar, with his 
 red rough beard where the grey hairs showed and his wa- 
 tery blue eyes either side the bloated nose. The man who 
 had taken Dick's place was away, and Dick was thankful. 
 For one little hour he lived here again in his own right. 
 Then he stood up. 
 
 " I think I'll go round and see if Grey Wolf has got all
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 385 
 
 its corners yet/' he said. " Don't wait up for me, Ken- 
 nedy. I can find my way into my bunk, I fancy." 
 
 Kennedy had talked of everything he knew ; including the 
 disappearance of Grange's Andree, and the rumour (it was 
 no more than a rumour) which had slid through Grey Wolf 
 whispering that she was wanted. 
 
 " Don't speak of Andree to Grange/' he said. " He's 
 awfully cut up about it. You wouldn't think the little fel- 
 low'd a-had so much heart. He's blocked Moosta showing 
 these pictures of yours around to folks since she left." 
 
 Dick had forgotten those pictures. He remembered 
 them now with a swift pang. Then he nodded acquies- 
 cence, and went out. 
 
 But he did not turn down the well-known flapping side- 
 walk to Grange's. He went across to the frozen lake 
 where the snow lay levelly hard and white under the new- 
 come dark. Far over the glimmering stretch shone the 
 lights of Jennifer's home, and Dick turned his face to- 
 wards them and walked forward quickly. 
 
 In the early days of her married life Jennifer had left 
 the house-blinds up at night that 'the lights of his home 
 might greet Ducane the moment he turned his eyes towards 
 them from far off. Later she had drawn them that she 
 might not see the gleam from the police barracks shoot out 
 into the gloom. Now that neither Ducane nor barracks 
 mattered any more she left them up, because she loved to 
 see the white stars and the dance of the northern lights 
 when the lamps were low, and to watch for the occasional 
 beat of, a night-bird's wings on the pane. 
 
 This night there were no northern lights, and the stars 
 were shrouded. But the blinds were up still, though the 
 lamps were high, and Jennifer sat in the softened glow of 
 them, sewing on some white work. A half-made pinafore 
 intended for one of Miss Chubb 's children at the English 
 Mission School lay on the floor beside her, and a black 
 kitten had rolled itself up in it. Jennifer stooped to roll 
 it out again, and heard across the room a sound like the 
 flutter of a bird's wings on the glass. She looked round. 
 And then she sprang to her feet; dropping her work, and 
 shutting her hands over her leaping heart. 
 
 In the sudden terror of her face and her wide-stretched
 
 886 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 eyes Dick knew what he had done. Of course she did not 
 know that he was within a thousand miles; two thousand; 
 five. She would think that his spirit had come to tell her 
 of his death. She would think 
 
 " Good Lord/' he said. " I've frightened the life out of 
 her," and he ran hastily to the door into the side-hall. 
 
 Then he remembered that his disappearance would put 
 more truth to her fear, and he cursed himself for a clumsy 
 fool as he wrenched the door open; shed his heavy furs 
 and cap in one movement, and thrust open the sitting-room 
 door. Jennifer heard his feet, and she turned. She saw 
 him at the door, but she could not believe. His face was 
 so thin and his dark eyes looked so far back under those 
 heavy brows. 
 
 " Jennifer ! " he said ; and with a queer, choked cry, she 
 put out her hands to him, tottering where she stood. 
 
 Then she felt herself swept up in his arms, and his 
 kisses on her; warm, strong, quick kisses over her lips and 
 her eyes and her hair. She clung to him blindly, passion- 
 ately ; sobbing in little gasps, and incapable of any but the 
 one thought that he had come back to her. He had come 
 back, and all the terrible blanks of her life were filled by 
 the touch of his lips and his arms. 
 
 He held her close, speaking with tender, broken words 
 such as no one had ever heard on his tongue before. To 
 the end of her life she remembered the smell of the wood- 
 smoke in his clothes ; the roughness of his coat-collar where 
 her tears wetted it; the shaking gentleness of his voice. 
 He carried her over to the lounge by the open fire, and put 
 her on it; sitting beside her with his arms round her yet, 
 and his hand stroking her hair. 
 
 " I told you it had to come to this," he said unsteadily. 
 " Darling my darling don't shiver so. It's all right, 
 dear. It's all right now." 
 
 " I thought you were dead," she sobbed. " When I saw 
 I thought you were dead." 
 
 " I know. I know. Stupid brute that I was to frighten 
 you so. You know better now, sweetheart, don't you? Are 
 these the kisses of a dead man?" 
 
 He was controlling himself with difficulty. Ducane was 
 forgotten; his own black, fierce fight with himself was for-
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 387 
 
 gotten. Nothing mattered but the sweetness of her lipg 
 on his own and that vague fragrance that clung about her 
 hair and dress. It intoxicated him. He held her off; look- 
 ing at her out of shining eyes, and laughing with pure 
 pagan joy. 
 
 "Are you alive?" he said. "You little wild-haired 
 thing! You want a garland of acorns and oak-leaves on 
 that head of yours, and all the green grass under a fairy- 
 forest to dance on." 
 
 The glowing exultance of him seemed to fill the room 
 up. Her veins tingled with his vitality. He put an elec- 
 tric spark into the air which lighted her own heart to a 
 flame. 
 
 " I wanted you," she cried. " Dick, I wanted you ! I 
 wanted you ! " 
 
 " I know you did. And I wanted you. And I've come 
 to you. Good Lord, we thought we could do without each 
 other, did we? What fools we were, my little girl. What 
 fools ! Ah ! We're wiser now. Kiss me, sweetheart. Jen- 
 nifer, if the skies fall, we'll have the hour. We'll have the 
 hour, by God, whatever comes." 
 
 His vehemence began to frighten her. She shrank a lit- 
 tle in the strong grasp of his arms. 
 
 " I can't think," she said breathlessly. " When you look 
 and talk like that I can't think." 
 
 " Who wants you to think? Leave that for another day. 
 Laugh, Jennifer. Don't look at me with your dear mouth 
 quivering so. Laugh, sweetheart, for we have found each 
 other at last." 
 
 For the moment she believed it. He was so glad, so 
 gloriously sure. She smiled faintly, uncertainly, looking 
 up at him with wet, hungry eyes. She noted the dark 
 bruise which Ducane had made on his cheek-bone, and the 
 rumpled hair, and the deep wind-burn tan of his skin. She 
 put her fingers up softly to the bruise. 
 
 "Does that hurt?" she whispered. 
 
 He laughed again, remembering whose hand had given it. 
 
 " Not now, my darling. No. Nothing can hurt me now, 
 I think. I'm going to wear you for an amulet in future, 
 little girl. Do you hear that? You're coming away with 
 me, Jennifer. Where shall we go, honey? We've all the
 
 388 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 world before us. Australia, with a sheep-run of our own? 
 Or South Africa, with little nigger-boys to dig us dia- 
 monds? Or I know a place down at the bottom of Ma- 
 lay " He was laughing still ; stooping his ruddy, wind- 
 whipped fact to hers. " Anywhere, sweetheart. Any- 
 where at alL We've got the whole world to choose from, 
 and there's always room for another rover on the Out 
 Trail." 
 
 By the force of him he was sweeping her out into the 
 atmosphere where his wild soul lived and drew deep 
 breaths. But the air there was too strong for Jennifer. 
 She felt suffocated; giddy; afraid. She pressed his face 
 back with both hands, and he kissed the palms where they 
 lay across his lips. 
 
 " Oh, don't," she gasped. " You frighten me." 
 
 " Poor little white bird. My darling, you're shaking all 
 over. It was that cursed foolishness of mine at the win- 
 dow. See, then, is this going to bring the colour back? " 
 
 He kissed her eyelids and her forehead and her white 
 cheeks ; tenderly, remorsefully, and, like a weary baby, she 
 let him do it. The storm of his passion seemed to have 
 torn her strength up by the roots. She had nothing left to 
 fight him with. She was scarcely conscious that there was 
 need for fight. But dimly she felt that something wonder- 
 ful and precious had come to her and that it could not 
 stay. 
 
 " If one could only die," she whispered. " When one 
 was perfectly happy, if one could only die." 
 
 His face changed and darkened. He, too, had forgotten 
 the realities until her words brought them round him with 
 thronging feet. 
 
 " Better to live and keep on being perfectly happy, you 
 little silly thing," he said. 
 
 " But that can't be," she said, like one repeating a les- 
 son. " That can't be." 
 
 Then he felt her move as though to push him away, and 
 he held her more closely, foreseeing the battle that was 
 coming. His strongly-masculine mind saw no use in it. 
 There could be but the one end now. But he knew that the 
 woman would have to go round about to it, and he waited, 
 with his mouth a little set and a queer smile in his eyes.
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 389 
 
 " Let me go," she said. " Let me go. Oh, what have 
 you made me do? " 
 
 " Something that neither of us will ever forget," he said 
 unsteadily. " I think I will remember the touch of your 
 dear lips on mine when I am in my grave." 
 
 " Oh, how could I forget ! " She spoke in a rush of ter- 
 ror, with the blood burning her face. " I only thought 
 
 of you " 
 
 " You have only to think of me now till the end of time, 
 Jennifer." 
 
 " No ! No ! You know that is not true. Oh, let me 
 go ! Let me go ! " 
 
 She burst into an agony of weeping; flinging him off, 
 and hiding her head among the cushions of the couch. He 
 saw her slim body shake and jerk with the violence of her 
 grief, and he stooped over her in a distress almost as great 
 as her own. Something of the sort he had expected, al- 
 though he could not understand it. But this shook him to 
 the very core. 
 
 " Darling," he said. " Darling for God's sake, don't. 
 Jennifer, Jennifer; don't cry like that. Good Heavens, 
 what can I do ! What can I do ! She'll kill herself. Dear- 
 est, dearest. Stop. Oh, Lord, what a clumsy brute I 
 am." 
 
 He went down on his knees beside her; pleading in 
 Broken words ; trying to see her face ; shaking and moved 
 jeyond belief at her trouble, and yet knowing grimly that 
 he must hold such rights as he had gained, both for her 
 sake and for his own. He could never leave her now. She 
 iceded him too much. 
 
 " For the love of Heaven, stop, Jennifer," he said. " I 
 I can't stand it. There is nothing on earth should make 
 you cry like that. Dear; I'm not asking much of you. 
 People get divorces every day, and you have a perfect 
 right to demand one of Ducane.'' 
 
 He laid his hand on her shoulder; but she shook it off, 
 and sprang up, with the tears dried in her eyes. 
 
 " Don't touch me," she said, with burning cheeks. 
 Don't touch me." 
 
 He had seen flashes of Jennifer's occasional temper be- 
 fore, and he breathed more freely; standing up against the
 
 890 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 mantel-shelf as she walked through the room with her 
 hands shut up, fighting for her self-control. He did not 
 attempt to speak, knowing that she would scatter his words 
 out like chaff. He stood still, looking at the black kitten 
 where it wound itself in a spool of Jennifer's thread, and 
 presently she burst out: 
 
 " You should have helped me to do what was right. You 
 are the strongest; you should have helped me." 
 
 " I did," he said, not looking at her. " It was right for 
 you to come to me. We love each other." 
 
 " It is not right while Harry is alive. And I feel that 
 he is. I " 
 
 " He is alive," said Dick coldly. " I have left him in 
 prison at Regina Barracks. I found him living among the 
 Esquimaux with a native wife." 
 
 He raised his eyes and looked at her as he spoke. But 
 she swung round and walked the room again, and be could 
 not tell how much she was stirred by his news. She walked 
 in silence, and presently he was ashamed of his brutality. 
 
 " For God's sake have some pity on me, Jennifer," he 
 said. " Don't treat me as if I'd been a scoundrel." 
 
 "Then you must help me do what is right," she said. 
 
 " What do you choose to call right ? " 
 
 " Sending you away." 
 
 The voice very nearly broke. Dick laughed, half-im- 
 patient, half-desperate. 
 
 " Merci much, as the breeds say. No, I'm not going to 
 help you do that. You hardly expect it, do you? " 
 
 " If you love me, I do." 
 
 " But this is madness," he said in exasperation. 
 " There's no use going over all this ground again, Jenni- 
 fer. You know what I thought before. Now, after what 
 you have allowed me to do, I consider that I have some 
 say in the matter. I am not going to be sent away." 
 
 She stopped and looked at him with her eyes wide in her 
 white face. 
 
 " You are making my punishment a very certain and 
 bitter thing," she said. 
 
 " My darb'ng oh, good Heavens, what am I to do with 
 you? Sweetheart, when a thing is done, it's done. You 
 showed me just now that I meant more to you than anyone
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 391 
 
 else. You can't take that back. It is not right that you 
 should. Doesn't the God you believe in allow His crea- 
 tures happiness, Jennifer? And if He does why should 
 you deny it to us both ? " 
 
 " Because this would not be the way to get it/' she said. 
 
 He went to her and took her hand and led her back to 
 the couch. 
 
 " Come here and sit down," he said. " You are not fit 
 to stand. If we have got to go over this again I suppose 
 we have got to. But we have not gone into it lightly, you 
 and I. To disobey man's law means very little to me. 
 Perhaps I know too many of the reasons why he makes 
 many of them. And I do not " 
 
 He stopped suddenly. He could not say that he did not 
 believe in a God now. 
 
 " You you believe in a God," he muttered, hardly 
 knowing what he said. 
 
 " In my God and in my conscience," said Jennifer. 
 " Dick, I have got to help Harry still if he needs help. He 
 is my husband. I can't let him utterly go to ruin. Oh, 
 there is something in me which tells me that I can't." 
 
 She pressed her hands over her heart again, looking at 
 him with her wide, wistful eyes. He could not meet that 
 look. But in some way it angered him. What was that 
 thing in Tempest and in Jennifer which commanded them 
 apart from their hearts and their human wills? It was a 
 power that they dare not disobey; that they would not 
 disobey though all that was flesh in them cried out against 
 it. He felt afraid; groping in the dark below them. That 
 great Eye seemed moving down from the horizon of the 
 world again. Jennifer could stand up before it. Tempest 
 could. But he could not. He wanted his own will, and 
 he hated that which denied it to him. 
 
 " And don't you think I want help? " he said bitterly. 
 
 " Yes. But I can only give it to you by being away from 
 
 you." 
 
 "If you'd be good enough not to talk sophistries or enig- 
 mas I beg your pardon. I don't know what I am saying." 
 
 He sprang up and walked through the room several 
 times. Then he came back, beginning boldly: 
 
 " I tell you I need you more than Ducane does. As
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 philanthropy seems to mean more to you than love you 
 might make a note of that. You've filled my life up 
 every hour of it " 
 
 His voice grew uneven; stopped, and he stood still, look- 
 ing into the fire. For a little while she did not speak. 
 Then she said: 
 
 " What had you wanted me to do ? " 
 
 " To come away with me to-morrow." His voice changed 
 eagerly. " I could arrange that quite easily. And then 
 you'd go to the States, and I'd meet you somewhere." 
 
 " And your work? " 
 
 He felt the twinge. But it was a light one. Beside her 
 nothing else was of moment. 
 
 " That doesn't matter," he said. 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 "Well, it doesn't matter. You come first." 
 
 " Then you meant to desert ? " 
 
 " I tell you it doesn't matter," he said impatiently. 
 " They wouldn't catch me. I know more than any of 
 them." 
 
 " Oh! " Jennifer leaned back, covering her face. "And 
 you are so proud of what you have done in your work." 
 
 " I would be more proud of your love for me," he said 
 sincerely. 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " I could get work somehow. Anything, that paid. I'm 
 strong. And I am good at draughtsmanship. I might get 
 into an architect's office. I wouldn't let things be hard for 
 you, Jennifer." 
 
 He came near, almost timidly, as though" afraid that she 
 might deny that which she seemed to be giving. Her eyes 
 ran over. He was blooded to the wild ways and the long 
 trails. The very breath of them spoke in his daily speech, 
 and she knew she had never plumbed his love for her until 
 now. 
 
 " I told you once before that you were a better man than 
 I knew," she said. " I tell you again. There is some- 
 thing too great in you to be spoiled, Dick. You must make 
 it easy for me to do what I know to be right." 
 
 His face darkened again. He knelt a knee on the couch 
 beside her.
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 393 
 
 " There is nothing great in me except my love for you," 
 he said. " With your love I might make something of my 
 life, even if I though I give this work up. But if you 
 send me away I can't say what I shall do, Jennifer. There 
 is nothing in me which holds me straight. I don't want to 
 be held straight." 
 
 " Not for my sake ? " 
 
 " No. Not for your sake, without you. You don't know 
 very much of a man's temper, Jennifer. And you don't 
 know the work I'm on just now. They are sending me out 
 after Grange's Andree. She is wanted, and I'm to go till 
 I find her." 
 
 He spoke roughly, wanting to rouse her jealousy. But 
 he felt the unworthiness of his thought when she looked up 
 at him. 
 
 "Poor Andree," she said. "Poor, poor Andree. Oh, 
 Dick ; be good to her. She cares for you, and she is too 
 too ignorant to hide it." 
 
 " I know she cares. I taught her to," he said. 
 
 Jennifer put out her hand to him. 
 
 " Don't hurt us both that way, dear," she said. " Can't 
 we say good-bye without hard words ? " 
 
 " God knows," he said. " I don't see how we're going 
 to say it at all. I don't see why we should say it." He 
 gripped both her hands suddenly, bringing his face near. 
 It was very white, and the forehead was wet. 
 
 " Jennifer," he said, " I need you. Don't turn me away. 
 I need you. I don't know what I may do." 
 
 He was speaking with a premonition of what was to 
 come upon him. She shivered, but her eyes were steady. 
 
 " It's something beyond me, Dick," she said. " I know 
 I must send you away. I know. You must find your own 
 salvation, and fight your fight alone." 
 
 " Then you don't love me as I love you," he said huskily. 
 " You are not willing to give up even a private scruple for 
 me." 
 
 He did not say what he had been willing to give up for 
 her. But she knew, though even then she did not know all. 
 
 " I would give up my life for you," she said. " But the 
 other thing is not mine to give. It belongs to God." 
 
 She said it quite simply, as though she believed it. Dick
 
 394 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 looked at her a moment. Then he stood up, drawing his 
 breath in between his teeth. 
 
 " That ends it, I fancy," he said. " I suppose you hope 
 that some day I'll come to love that Power which you have 
 set up between us. I am not quite such a fool, Jennifer. 
 I shall never do anything but hate it." 
 
 He turned down the room as though to leave her with- 
 out another word. But at the door he wheeled swiftly and 
 came back; caught her close in his arms; kissed her once 
 on the lips, and let her go. She heard his quick, firm tread 
 across the floor and the decisive shutting of the door. And 
 then she dropped down on the couch in a little heap with 
 her face covered. 
 
 Jennifer's mother also heard the shutting of the door. 
 She had been listening for it ever since she came down 
 the passageway more than half an hour ago, and found 
 Dick's coat and cap outside the door. She had seen the 
 shining buttons of the Mounted Police among the fur, and 
 with a sudden chill at her heart she had stooped and felt 
 the lining of the thick coat and the cap. They were quite 
 cold, and then she knew to whom they must belong. If it 
 were any other man Jennifer would have come to call her 
 long since. 
 
 She went back to her room, sitting with the door half- 
 open, and listening for that step. She had never seen Dick. 
 She had not known his name until she came to Grey Wolf. 
 Jennifer never spoke of him. But she knew the hold that 
 he had on her daughter's heart, and she knew that she was 
 helpless here. She, with all her love and her long years 
 of cherishing was helpless against this unknown man who 
 had trodden farther into Jennifer's heart than she could 
 ever tread. She sat still in her chair, with her delicate 
 wrinkled hands pressed together, and waited for him to 
 come by. And when she heard the door shut she went 
 out into the passage swiftly, so that he must pass her as 
 he came. 
 
 She watched him as he come, walking straightly. He 
 held his cap in his hand, and his big coat fell open, showing 
 the dull blurr of khaki. He came as a man who knew his 
 Way; glancing at her carelessly with bold, imperious eyes 
 that seemed to look through her and pass on. To his
 
 "BUT THAT CAN'T BE" 395 
 
 knowledge he did not see her at all. He did not hear her. 
 But he was vivid enough to her. She never forgot the 
 sensation of his passing her; the free, swinging step; the 
 erect head-carriage, and that rush of vitality which seemed 
 to quicken the air about him as he moved. He turned 
 down the angle of the passage, and she heard him go 
 through the front door and shut it. The very clap of its 
 shutting frightened her. That man was not made of the 
 stuff which is easily mastered. If Jennifer had sent him 
 away again, then there had been a battle first which her 
 gentle heart quaked to think of. 
 
 Twice she went down to the closed door of the sitting- 
 room, and twice she crept away again. Then, with sudden 
 courage, she opened the door and went in. Jennifer sprang 
 up with a sudden cry. Then, seeing her mother, she 
 dropped back, trembling and trying to smile. 
 
 " Why, what a start you gave me, little mother/' she 
 said. 
 
 The elder mother came over, and took the cold hands 
 and fondled them. Almost she was afraid to speak. It 
 seemed as though her daughter were gone into a different 
 world: a place where she could not follow; where she did 
 not understand the language. Then, nervously, she said: 
 
 " Someone passed me just now in the passage, dear." 
 
 " Oh ! " Jennifer drew in a long breath, and the colour 
 came painfully back to her face. 
 
 " It was it was Mr. Heriot, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " Is he do you expect him to come back again, Jenni- 
 fer?" 
 
 " No, Mother." 
 
 Then suddenly Jennifer turned and flung her arms round 
 her mother's neck. 
 
 " Hold me tight tight," she sobbed. " Pretend I'm 
 your little baby girl again, mumsie. Oh, hold me tight; 
 mother, mother ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " THE EPITOME OF LIFE " 
 
 "A la claire fontaine 
 
 M'en all ant promener; 
 J'ai trouver 1' eau si belle 
 Que je m'y suis baigne." 
 
 THE strong, soft voice died out as the passing breed swung 
 by on his snow-shoes through the clear, frosty night. 
 Slicker turned back from the window with the hard lines 
 of his young face softened too. But he did not cross the 
 room where, at one end of the table, the men of the Split 
 Lake Detachment were gathered in a mist of tobacco-smoke 
 and a silence broken only by the curt sentences as the cards 
 went round. Slicker was one of the four at that table 
 usually; but a prospector passing through to the North 
 had taken his place to-night, and so Slicker had stood at 
 the window and heard the breed sing and felt a wave of 
 home-sickness for the old life with Jennifer and Dick and 
 Tempest in it. 
 
 For three months now he had known this Split Lake life; 
 and to him it had been a time of stagnation and of numb- 
 ing ideals. He had expected so much from the call to 
 which he had answered; knowing as he did the work at 
 Grey Wolf, the stern self-denial and the long hours of 
 labour on an under-manned, difficult post. Slicker had pre- 
 pared himself for that. He was ardent for self-sacrifice. 
 He was ready to die on the trail if need be for the glory 
 of service. He was eager to serve nobly and with his 
 whole heart. And Life had required of him another test 
 than this. It had sent him to one for which he was ill- 
 prepared and ill-fitted. It had sent him to a lonely post 
 where the only give-and-take of thought was from these 
 men at the table; where there was little work to do and 
 less to see and less still to think about. This detachment 
 
 396
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE " 397 
 
 was a integral part of the whole: it guarded a line; it 
 made a nucleus for a mighty tract of country. But few 
 people passed that line few came on to it from the country. 
 It was there as a warning and a promise, but it had few 
 chances of fulfilling either. 
 
 When the winter wood was drawn and cut; when the 
 walls, were muddied-up, and the sleds overhauled, and a 
 few more necessary things done, work was at a dead-lock 
 until something happened. And things did not often 
 happen at Split Lake. The other men accepted the stag- 
 nation contentedly enough. They slept a good deal, they 
 smoked, and they played cards; and, according to Cordy's 
 assertion, they "pegged along very comfortably." But 
 for Slicker with his young high heart and his aspirations 
 the life was purgatory. He puckered his brows, looking 
 at the men with a kind of hate. He was so tired of them: 
 of little Hopper, the Sergeant, morose and nervous and 
 with a curious dread of being left alone ; of the dull, stupid 
 Smith, with his limited, coarse thoughts; even of Cordy, 
 the light-hearted gentleman who was his one friend and 
 who was always full of laughing regrets that he could not 
 cease to dress and move like a man of the London Clubs. 
 Slicker wondered idly why Cordy had ever come away 
 from them; why he didn't go back. And then, suddenly, 
 he saw Hopper, the nervous little Sergeant, who was play- 
 ing on Cordy's right, thrust his chair back and stand up. 
 
 " I've had enough," he said, in that uncertainly defiant 
 voice of his. " There's some kinds of luck a man can't 
 play against." 
 
 Smith looked up with a whistle of amaze, but the man 
 on Cordy's left sat still. If Hopper was his host, so was 
 Cordy. Cordy swept up the cards. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll have better luck next time," he said 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " There won't be a next time." Hopper gripped the 
 chair-back fiercely, and Slicker came forward in a hurry. 
 He felt as though the hinted accusation had been flung at 
 himself. But Cordy was untroubled. He lifted his eye- 
 brows. 
 
 " Just as you like, of course," he said. " Hallo, Slicker, 
 you take a hand? "
 
 398 THE L'AW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Don't you. Unless you got more money than you 
 want to keep." 
 
 " Oh ! I say," said Slicker, and turned from Hopper's 
 scarlet face to Cordy, expecting to see the anger that he 
 knew was in his own eyes. But Cordy laughed, although 
 there was a dull flush on his cheeks. 
 
 " Losers are allowed some latitude," he said. " I'm 
 sorry, Hopper, but you can't win every time. Just see 
 what your luck last night has done to your temper ! " 
 
 " We were not playing for such big stakes last night." 
 
 " Lord, man ; you don't call these big stakes ! Don't 
 be sarcastic. Coming, Slicker? " 
 
 A moment Slicker hesitated. Then he slipped into Hop- 
 per's chair, and Hopper turned and walked out of the 
 room sharply. The game went on, and Cordy's easy man- 
 ner soon brushed the restraint off it. But Slicker played 
 badly. He felt vaguely outraged; not so much at the 
 accusation as at the fact that Cordy did not seem to resent 
 it. For his own honour, for the honour of the Force, for 
 the honour of this little post itself, Cordy ought have re- 
 sented it before this quiet-eyed, observant civilian who lost 
 his money with such equanimity. Slicker had worked him- 
 self into acute indignation by the time the evening was 
 done, and Cordy had cheerfully seen the prospector into 
 his room down the passage and had come back to turn the 
 lamp out. Smith was gone; but Slicker sat at the table 
 with his blue eyes alight and that square look on his jaw 
 which Cordy had come to know. He went straight to his 
 point. 
 
 "Why didn't you give Hopper the lie just now?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 Cordy yawned. But there was an unpleasant look in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " This life imposes bonds considerably tighter than the 
 marriage-bond, my dear boy," he said. " I have probably 
 got to live with Hopper for the next few years and he 
 is my boss." 
 
 " Will it improve the situation to have him think you a 
 cheat?" 
 
 " My dear Slicker ! " Cordy laughed, but his cheeks 
 took their dull flesh again. " You haven't learnt the graces
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 399 
 
 of speech yet. Why, of course, it will improve it. Hop- 
 per will bear anything better than contradiction. And 
 how could I disabuse his mind except by my fists? I 
 don't want to go out of here in irons." 
 
 "If you'd given him your word of honour he'd have had 
 to believe you ! " 
 
 Cordy glanced at him sharply. There was something 
 of envy and of pain in the quickly-veiled eyes. He knew, 
 and Hopper knew, why he did not offer his word of 
 honour. And Hopper knew, as he knew, that the matter 
 would have to blow over simply because these lonely men 
 dared not make their daily life intolerable. Cordy regis- 
 tered a determination that Hopper should be his partner 
 for a few times when a fellow came by who was worth 
 fleecing. That would shut Hopper's mouth if nothing else 
 would. He yawned again. 
 
 " Oh, my dear boy, what do these louts know about a 
 word of honour? " he said. Then he laughed softly, draw- 
 ing up his coat as he stood before the stove. " That re- 
 minds me of a funny story that happened to a chap I knew 
 in England." He paused, with light raillery in his eyes. 
 " I don't know if you're old enough to hear it," he added. 
 
 Slicker fingered his lip where the soft down was already 
 beginning to part itself into a moustache. This touched 
 him on the quick as Cordy knew. 
 
 " Go on," he said surlily. And he laughed when it was 
 told; for it was very funny, etnd Cordy's subtle delinea- 
 tions flattered his raw manhood. But he went to bed more 
 uneasy than he cared to allow. That little song had in 
 some way brought Jennifer and Tempest very clearly into 
 his mind. And he did not care to think of them in connec- 
 tion with Cordy. 
 
 For several days the thought of Tempest possessed him. 
 He knew, of course, that Tempest was at Churchill and 
 that he would probably come out as soon as he Was fit. 
 He realised that of late he had not been very anxious 
 to see Tempest again, and with that straight courage which 
 seldom failed him he sought the reason and found it. He 
 did not want to have Cordy tell Tempest that he and 
 Slicker were such good chums. And he knew just exactly 
 how Cordy would say it, too. This matter kept him sulky;
 
 400 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 until he found a solution where nine-tenths of humanity 
 finds it, in a compromise. He could not quarrel with 
 Cordy. That would be absurd; besides, the old fellow 
 was really such awfully good company. And he could 
 not tell him that his way of looking at life was not ele- 
 vating. Cordy had seen much more of life than Slicker, 
 and he would think Slicker a fool. No; he could not 
 behave differently to Cordy, but he would not let what 
 Cordy said hurt him. "A fellow can laugh at a joke 
 without approving of it," he told himself. 
 
 But when Tempest came Slicker was taken unawares 
 For Cordy groaned. 
 
 " Don't you think it's likely to be well to be a little 
 dull to-night? " he asked. " I wouldn't say anything 
 against the Inspector, of course. But he will inspect more 
 than our kits and our teeth, won't he? Have you got your 
 soul cleaned up, Slicker?" 
 
 " Tempest doesn't preach," said Slicker, but he red- 
 dened. 
 
 " Oh, my dear boy, no. He's a gentleman, of course. 
 But can't you just see how Tempest, the immaculate, will 
 look on us, the erring ones. He won't say anything, of 
 course; but he'll purse his mouth up and shake his head 
 inside himself at our card-playing. I'm going to take the 
 very shirt off you to-night, Slicker. But I'll let you have 
 it back to-morrow. As philosophers, you know, we are 
 bound to meet circumstances as cheerfully as we can." 
 
 " Tempest plays cards himself," said Slicker. 
 
 " Cribbage," suggested Cordy. " Or is it patience, 
 Slicker ? " 
 
 Slicker laughed with him, although he felt the treachery 
 to Tempest. But he went away thinking that perhaps 
 Tempest was a little well, not exactly the sort of fellow 
 one would set out to have a jolly time with. And Cordy 
 was. 
 
 But Cordy had made a miscalculation when he asserted 
 that Tempest would not say anything. Acting on this 
 belief he forced animal spirits to take the place of the 
 drink which was debarred at the detachment, and in a little 
 while he heard Tempest come down the passage which sep- 
 arated the mess-room from Hooper's quarters. Tempest
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 401 
 
 stood in the door, smiling at Slicker, who, stripped to shirt 
 and trousers and with his hair wild, was attempting to 
 sand-bag Cordy as the elder man dodged and feinted and 
 doubled. There was considerable skill shown by both, and 
 Tempest dropped into a chair and watched them. It was 
 against strict etiquette, but he had known Slicker so well 
 once. He had been in a little earlier in the evening, wait- 
 ing for Hooper to finish a game of cards, and he looked on 
 now with a very much clearer knowledge of Cordy than 
 Cordy imagined. And neither he nor Hopper guessed why 
 Tempest had insisted that the Sergeant should finish his 
 game. Nor why Tempest came back now. 
 
 They were exhausted presently, and Tempest made them 
 sit down and talk. He had not seen Slicker since the boy 
 had worn the khaki and he chaffed him about it, good- 
 naturedly and cleverly enough to make Cordy laugh once. 
 In some way this astonished Slicker. He was coming 
 to look on stronger meat as the only possible material for 
 jokes. And that Cordy should laugh raised his opinion 
 of Tempest considerably. But the real mischief in Cordy 
 which had enabled him to weather all the winds that 
 buffeted him was his undoing very presently. Slicker 
 never quite remembered at what point of the conversation 
 he felt Tempest look at him; look again, and finally break 
 in on Cordy 's easy-flowing speech. 
 
 " Slicker," he said, " I wish you'd ask the Sergeant if 
 my kit has been taken to my room. And I'm going to 
 ask you to unpack it for me. I can't do much stooping 
 yet." 
 
 What Tempest said to Cordy after the door was shut 
 Slicker never knew in the least, for Cordy showed no af- 
 ter-signs of it. But what Tempest said to Slicker him- 
 self Slicker knew very certainly. Tempest had an apt 
 directness of speech on some occasions. 
 
 "I am going to use a very unpleasant simile, Slicker," 
 he said ; " and I am using it because I think it more ap- 
 propriate than any other. There are many men and ani- 
 mals which are attracted by vile smells and tastes high 
 game, rotten cheese, asafcetida, and all that kind of thing. 
 Those are the physical attractions. Animals we say un- 
 fortunately for them, but there may be some doubts about
 
 402 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 th a t cannot be attracted on the mental side as men must 
 be and are. Your friend Cordy is mentally attracted by 
 mental Bombay ducks and putrid game. I won't add gar- 
 lic; that's a healthy smell, though I don't like it myself." 
 
 Slicker wriggled in his chair, but his manner suggested 
 that he had expected something of this sort and was in- 
 different to it. Tempest looked at him narrowly. 
 
 " How long have you been here, Slicker ? " he askeJ. 
 
 " Four months/' said Slicker sulkily. 
 
 " And Cordy is the only friend you've got ? " 
 
 " There's no one else." 
 
 " No. There's no one else, I suppose. I wonder if you 
 remember anything of what I said that day in Grey Wolf 
 when you asked me if you should join the Force? " 
 
 " Yes. But but I say, Tempest " Slicker forgot his 
 rank and uniform " a fellow can't stay a kid all his life. 
 I've got to do as men do when I'm with them, you know." 
 
 " Do I? But why not make them do as you do?" 
 
 This was a new thought to Slicker. He stared. 
 
 " I couldn't," he said. 
 
 "You mean that you have not enough character; not 
 enough initiative, or brain, or common-sense?" 
 
 This was not pretty, put into words. Slicker reddened, 
 standing still. 
 
 " Poor old fellow," said Tempest. " It isn't easy, is 
 it? But you didn't expect ease when you gave yourself 
 to us." 
 
 " I don't want ease," burst out Slicker. " I want work, 
 and there's nothing to do here. That's the the damnable 
 part of it all. There's nothing to do and nothing to drink, 
 and so I fool around with Cordy. I can't help it." 
 
 " Well," said Tempest, " you remember our motto, don't 
 you? We maintain the right over a fairly big jurisdic- 
 tion several million square miles. But that's not so much 
 to be proud of if we can't maintain it over ourselves. I 
 don't know if there are many men fit to preach to other 
 men on that exact point. I'm not. We all have some 
 special place where we fail most, Slicker, and it will 
 probably trip us more or less all our lives. But because 
 a fellow has fallen over a stone he is not debarred from 
 shouting a warning to the fellow behind. I have no right
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 403 
 
 to do more than shout the warning. But you'll allow me 
 that, won't you? " 
 
 " I wish to goodness I'd been put somewhere under you." 
 
 " That woudn't be very much use. We can't do such a 
 tremendous lot for each other, old fellow. And if we try 
 we perhaps make things worse." 
 
 He was thinking of something which had been done to 
 himself under the name of help. Slicker saw the shade 
 on his face, and the crust of these latter days split through 
 completely. 
 
 " You know sometimes when I used to hear you and 
 Jennifer yarning about all kinds of things or when you 
 used to get on to Dick, and the old beggar would smoke 
 and grin quietly till he had you up on your feet then I 
 felt that I that I wanted to to go out and do some 
 of the big things that fellows did in the old days. I did 
 really, Tempest. And now to have nothing to do. It's 
 knocked the bottom out of all my ideas. It's a rotten 
 life." 
 
 " There's the army that pushes the trail through into the 
 enemy's country, and there are the details who guard the 
 line. They are of equal importance." Tempest smiled. 
 " You may not have to be a detail for long," he said. 
 " But if you are you must remember that you're necessary 
 or you wouldn't be here. I mentioned to Cordy that he 
 wasn't exactly the man I'd choose for an intimate friend, 
 and he may profit by the hint or he may take his revenge 
 out of you. But more probably he won't do either. I'm 
 going straight to Regina now, and I'll see what I can do 
 there. But if I can't do anything, you remember, Slicker, 
 that Cordy is better as an enemy than as a friend." Tem- 
 pest screwed his face up as though he tasted something 
 unpleasant. " He's a highly-specialised and refined beast," 
 he said. " And they're the worst sort. I hate to know 
 that there are such fellows in the Force. It gives some 
 people a chance to call us a refuge for derelicts; though, 
 thank Heaven, I don't think there are many like 
 him." 
 
 Tempest did not forget his promise when he came to 
 report to the Commissioner at Regina three weeks later. 
 He touched on the matter lightly, with an apology.
 
 404 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " For the boy joined on my recommendation/' he said. 
 " And he's a clever boy. I think he may be worth a good 
 deal to us if he has a fair start. He has a temperament 
 which takes up some things very enthusiastically." 
 
 " Then he probably won't stay with us. The work is 
 not what it was when J was on patrol. Too much sentry-go 
 and too little whiskey-smuggling and raiding to please the 
 men. Isn't that so? " 
 
 " Why, certainly in some cases." Tempest thought of 
 Dick. " But I believe young Warriner would want to stay 
 if he had more to do." 
 
 " Well, I'll make a note of it. Perhaps I can move him. 
 
 You say that one of the men is a bad companion for him ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly. I shouldn't wonder if you had trouble 
 
 with him later. Other parts of the world have possibly 
 
 had trouble with him already." 
 
 " I'll make a note of that, too." The Commissioner 
 turned from the subject with relief. " You are not quite 
 strong yet? I notice that you limp a little. It started 
 from a fall, did it? " 
 
 " The rheumatism settled in my hip. But I'll be all 
 right once the warm weather comes. Yes; it was a fall. 
 I ricked myself." 
 
 " Ah ! I want to put you in charge of the MacKenzie 
 District, Tempest. Channing has resigned, and he comes 
 out this summer. You'll get your furlough first, of course. 
 But if the doctor won't pass you I don't quite know what 
 I'm going to do." 
 
 " He will pass me," said Tempest quietly. 
 He sat silent for a minute, trying to brace himself for 
 the next thing which he wanted to say. Andree was sel- 
 dom long away from his thoughts; but as he got nearer 
 Regina she filled them up with a completeness which was 
 absolute torture. Sight of the familiar little chapel and 
 the prison across the barrack square had made him giddy 
 with the flood of realisation. Was Andree now shut in 
 Fort Saskatchewan prison? Had she met her death there, 
 or did she live still? His love for her was now protection 
 and pity only; but the memory of what had been was sharp. 
 He turned in his chair with his face from the light. 
 " Corporal Heriot brought out some more information
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 405 
 
 about the Robison-Ogilvie case," he said. " Has it been 
 followed up ? " 
 
 The Commissioner frowned. 
 
 " That is the worst case we have had in the Force/' he 
 said. " I hate to think of it. We have hanged an in- 
 nocent man, and the girl who is responsible for the two 
 deaths lias gone off to the North somewhere. I sent Heriot 
 after her once, and he'll get her if anyone can. But I 
 don't expect to hear any more for a long while yet. She 
 had about two months' start." 
 
 Tempest had schooled himself to hear something which 
 would hurt. But not all his self-control was quite suffi- 
 cient. The Commissioner looked up. 
 
 " You knew something about her, too, did you? I re- 
 member that Heriot was very averse to going. Had he 
 but that is no business of mine. I told him not to come 
 back without her, and he is too keen on his work to fail." 
 Tempest stood up, smiling a little. 
 
 " No. I don't expect that he will fail," he said. " And 
 I must ask you to excuse me, sir. I'm sleeping at the 
 Ferrar's to-night, and they have people coming for dinner, 
 so I'll have to go round and borrow some clothes. I have 
 only my kit here." 
 
 But he walked across the square to the married officers' 
 quarters and up to his room in Ferrar's house without think- 
 ing any more about the clothes. He did not quite know 
 what he thought until he caught his eyes asking him the 
 question from the mirror. It was chiefly the eyes which 
 told how Tempest had suffered. The eager glow in them 
 was quenched, and the steady light which shone instead 
 kept its gravity, even when he smiled. There were a few 
 white threads in the thick hair, and the temporal arteries 
 showed more clearly. But the wind-tanned, muscle-hard 
 face held its fine lines still, and his mouth had not lost 
 its sweetness. 
 
 "Dick!" he said to the eyes in the mirror. "Dick!" 
 He sat down, hiding his face in his hands, shaking with 
 the rebellion against life which swept over him. He judged 
 Dick as more merciless, more indifferent, more wilfully 
 cruel than he really was, and for the moment he hated 
 most fiercely the man who had been his friend and whom
 
 406 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 he loved still, as he knew that Dick loved him. Dick 
 would not fail. He would bring Andree back to that 
 justice which had waited her over-long. And Andree loved 
 him. Tempest did not dare let himself think for many 
 minutes on that flight and the return. He got up and went 
 out through the grey chill dusk to borrow a mess suit from 
 Charteris or Bayne or someone else. 
 
 Charteris could not lend, because he also was going to 
 dinner at the Ferrar's ; but he arranged the matter for 
 Tempest, insisted on his dressing at the Bachelor Quarters, 
 and walked over with him afterwards. Charteris was a 
 good-natured, obtuse man with a tendency to spread him- 
 self over the affairs of others, and he made the conversation 
 at table more personal than Tempest desired. He had just 
 been East for his leave, and had stayed with Tempest's 
 people, and he did not forget it. 
 
 " They'll never let you come back a bachelor, Tem- 
 pest," he said. " There's your sister engaged and Lloyd 
 married, and young Stuart thinking about it. You will 
 have to take the plunge some day, you know. Ferrars 
 can tell you that it isn't as bad as it's supposed to be." 
 
 " Ferrars had a special inducement." Tempest turned 
 to Mrs. Ferrars with his smiling courtesy. " And also 
 a good deal of conceit. There is no other occasion on 
 which a man needs such a good opinion of himself, is 
 there?" 
 
 " Except in the dock. It's marvellous how nerve will 
 carry a fellow through them. Does anyone remember 
 that case of young Claverley " 
 
 " We have all forgotten it, Charteris/' said Ferrars 
 blandly. " And we are not going to be pilloried for our 
 ignorance. It would be quite as hopeless as discussing 
 the Balkan trouble or the reason why so many men prefer 
 death in an aeroplane to life on the earth." 
 
 " Or a year's isolation round the rim of the Pole to city 
 comforts. How long since you have eaten with a silver 
 fork or drunk wine, Tempest? " 
 
 " I forget. But I have borne those deprivations with 
 much greater equanimity than I bore the loss of my razor 
 when a breed upset all my dunnage in Pelican Rapids. 
 It's awful how a man accustomed to a smooth face loses
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 407 
 
 his self-respect when he can't shave for weeks at a time." 
 
 The pretty girl at Tempest's side looked up at him. 
 Mrs. Ferrars had placed her there in order that she should. 
 
 " Fancy thinking of that in such a strenuous life. How 
 wonderful you are," she sighed. 
 
 " I know," admitted Tempest. " But so few people rec- 
 ognise it. I have to be Bowdlerised for ordinary conver- 
 sation, you see." 
 
 " He means that the person who hasn't been there only 
 understands and commends us for the obvious things," in- 
 terpreted Bolton, who was an Inspector himself. "And 
 they are never the things that are of any conse- 
 quence." 
 
 " Oh," murmured a soft voice on Tempest's other side, 
 " Clothes, for instance." 
 
 " My dear Christine," Mrs. Ferrars laughed. " We 
 women and our ideas don't count on the outside edges of 
 things." 
 
 " I mean to count," said Christine. She glanced up at 
 Tempest with a spark of challenge in her dark eyes. 
 " Are sweethearts and wives among the deprivations which 
 you men of the police can bear with equanimity? " she de- 
 manded. 
 
 Tempest knew her for the wife of a young Englishman 
 who had just entered the Force. It was suspected that he 
 had done it for the sake of excitement, and that he would 
 not stay in it long. He smiled quietly. 
 
 " You must ask someorie who is better qualified to give 
 an opinion," he said. " In poetical phraseology I happen 
 to be wedded to my work, and so I have all I want of 
 life, you see." 
 
 The young eyes questioned his a moment longer, and he 
 bore the look unflinchingly. It was the stand he meant 
 to take all his life through now. But he was relieved 
 when the two women were gone. Good wine, and a good 
 cigar, and the talk and voices of the men of his own class 
 were very comforting to him after the five strait years of 
 naked necessities only. 
 
 A little later the name of Ducane came up. Tempest 
 was known to be connected with the case, and Bolton asked 
 questions.
 
 408 THE J.AW-BRINGERS 
 
 " I am working it up here/' he said. " The man is & 
 worm. He turned King's Evidence and told every mortal 
 thing he knew. So he's out on bail, pending the arrest 
 of the others. We have two of them, but the rest have 
 disappeared. Of course we'll get them, though it may take 
 time. It is going to be quite a big affair, for people have 
 been wanting to get at the basis of the Canada Home-lot 
 Extension Company for some time. You knew Heriot, 
 Tempest? He was under you at Grey Wolf, wasn't he? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Bad luck for him that he hadn't the chance to carry 
 this thing through. He would probably have got his step 
 over it. He's a clever chap, too. A confoundedly clever 
 chap. But there's kink in him somewhere, to my mind. I 
 fancy he is safer hunting criminals along the Mackenzie 
 than knocking around among civilised beings. Didn't you 
 find him hard to manage? " 
 
 " Not particularly. You said Ducane was out on bail. 
 Where is he ? " 
 
 " Gone back to his wife at Grey Wolf, I believe. Poor 
 little woman, she'll need to be good stuff to stand him. 
 And she is good stuff, I know. One of our oldest Toronto 
 families. Eh? Why yes. She did go home for a while. 
 But she came back to Grey Wolf. I happened to see her 
 on Regina station the day she passed through. She has 
 wonderful eyes." 
 
 Tempest assented absently. He wondered if Jennifer 
 had gone back to Grey Wolf to take care of Andree. And 
 he wondered what she was doing there now with Ducane. 
 Before the evening was over he had made his mind up 
 on one point. He would spend the two first months of his 
 leave in a fleeting visit to Grey Wolf. Jennifer deserved 
 that of him. And, besides, she could tell him so much 
 about Andree. 
 
 In the bachelor quarters several of the men spoke about 
 Tempest later on. Bolton was genuinely troubled. 
 
 " He's as good a fellow as ever, of course," he said. 
 " But he looks as if he'd had a knock." 
 
 " Had a knock ! He looks as if he'd been shot sitting 
 and drilled clean through," declared Charteris. " I hope 
 his folk will marry him off, down East. A good, comfort-
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 409 
 
 able, domesticated life is what he wants. He should give 
 up the Force. You can see he's had enough of it." 
 
 But before Tempest went East he presented himself one 
 warm, wet spring morning at the house across the lake from 
 Grey Wolf, and heard Jennifer's cry of joy, and felt the 
 grasp of her hands as she welcomed him. 
 
 " Oh," she said. " How I wish you had six hands to 
 shake, I can't tell you how glad I am. And you haven't 
 got this district, have you? That would be too splendid 
 to be true." 
 
 " Yes ; I'm afraid it would. I'm on leave, and I'm 
 spending a part of it in hunting up my old friends." He 
 looked at her intently. " I came to see if you needed 
 help," he said. 
 
 " That is like you." Jennifer's eyes met his bravely. 
 " You will see Harry directly, and I shall be glad to talk 
 to you afterwards. Here's mother. And mother and I 
 hunt through every day for all the fun we can get out of it, 
 you know. It makes life so much more more bear- 
 able." 
 
 Tempest understood completely why she chose that epi- 
 thet when Ducane came in to lunch. The fellow was a 
 wreck of the burly, blustering man whom Grey Wolf had 
 once known. He shuffled in his walk, hanging his head. 
 The shadow of the cells was on him, and horror of the 
 future showed in his shifty eyes and in his manner. He 
 alternately raved at Jennifer and cajoled her. He cringed 
 to Tempest, and when the two men went out under the 
 light spring rain with their pipes he gave way altogether; 
 shivering and sobbing; cursing Dick and himself and the 
 law, and imploring Tempest to help him. 
 
 " It would be so hard on Jenny to have me in in 
 locked up again," he whined. "And she's been a good 
 wife to me always. I don't deserve it. I know I don't 
 deserve it. But she knows I'm fond of her. She knows 
 it. Poor Jenny." 
 
 It was a horrible exhibition to Tempest; but he bore 
 with it in patience. Even so little as he could do eased 
 the burden for those brave women in the house. And, 
 for all the fallen manhood in Ducane; for all the shame- 
 ful thing which he had become, there was still that re-
 
 410 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 deeming feature in him. He loved Jennifer. After each 
 burst of passion he came to her like a dog, whimpering 
 for forgiveness. His eyes followed her about the room, 
 and the touch of her hand soothed him in his sudden fits 
 of excitement. Tempest guessed that if Ducane were 
 parted from that sweet womanly strength on which he fed 
 he would soon be parted from life also. And in his heart 
 he hoped that that day might come soon. 
 
 On the second night, when Ducane, cross and sleepy 
 as a child, had stumbled off to bed, Jennifer slid her arm 
 through her mother's. 
 
 " Mr. Tempest is going in the morning, little mother," 
 she said. " And I have got one or two things to scold him 
 about privately. You don't mind, darling? I knew you 
 wouldn't." Then when the door was shut, she drew a chair 
 for Tempest up to the fire, and sat down in a corner of the 
 lounge where she had said good-bye to Dick. 
 
 " I want to speak to you about Andree," she began at 
 once, not looking at Tempest. " When I got your letter 
 I came back to look after her. Don't thank me. I had 
 nearly decided to come anyway. And I was glad of the 
 excuse. I did what I could." She paused a moment. 
 " She cared for him too much to look at anyone else. And 
 then she went North. I had not heard of any reason 
 why she should go until Mr. Heriot told me that he had 
 been sent after her. She did not come to say good-bye to 
 me. I am sorry that I failed to to understand her better. 
 I did try. But Andree never cared about women." 
 
 Tempest sat back in his chair for a long while, staring 
 into the fire. At last he said slowly: 
 
 " You saw Heriot as he came through ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And she loved him still? As much as ever?" 
 
 Jennifer felt her eyes fill. She knew how this man had 
 loved Grange's Andree. 
 
 " He seemed to have wakened her heart, and so he 
 possessed it. I think they both realise that." 
 
 Tempest was silent again. His hand shaded his face, 
 but Jennifer could guess something of his thoughts. For 
 a little she struggled with herself, trying to brace herself 
 to give him comfort which it was going to hurt her un-
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 411 
 
 speakably to give. She laid her hand lightly on his knee 
 for a moment. 
 
 " You are afraid that she will tempt him to to forget 
 his work and to run away with her, or or something of 
 that sort. He won't, Mr. Tempest. And he won't be cruel 
 to her. I think he will try to treat her as I would want 
 him to treat her." 
 
 Tempest looked up sharply. 
 
 " How do you know that? " 
 
 " Because he loves me and I love him. And we have 
 told each other so," said Jennifer bravely. 
 
 Tempest stared at her, not conscious that he was staring. 
 
 "Is that true?" he said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " My God ! " said Tempest. He put his hand up to his 
 
 forehead. " He he has He looked away, stunned 
 
 by the revelation. " You you can't mean but how could 
 he ever have " 
 
 " Each time I sent him away it maddened him. I can't 
 understand. Perhaps you can't, either. But I have had 
 to understand that it did not alter his feeling for me. I 
 could not blind my eyes to that." 
 
 " But " he fell into thought again. Then he seemed 
 
 to catch hold of his natural courtesy. " I did not de- 
 serve this nobleness from you," he said. " I think no 
 woman could have done a more gracious act." 
 
 " I had to." Jennifer was speaking very low and lev- 
 elly, with her hands gripped tight. " I trust him, and you 
 must trust him too." 
 
 " But you said you sent him away ? And last time 
 I I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to " 
 
 " This time was different," said Jennifer steadily. " He 
 we said more than we had done before. We knew that 
 there could not be anyone else. You see he understood 
 that he had perhaps brought Harry back to me." 
 
 Tempest shivered. Beside this tragedy even his own 
 seemed to have faded. For he did not love he never had 
 loved Andree as Dick assuredly would love this woman. 
 The thought brought him to his feet with his pulses beating 
 unevenly and his voice unsteady. 
 
 " I do not know how to thank you for telling me this.
 
 412 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 It explains so much. And I had never guessed good 
 Heavens! Why, I I asked you to look after Andree 
 because " 
 
 " That did not matter very much." Jennifer smiled 
 faintly. " Ke wrote to me before he went North with 
 you. Just a few lines, but they made the matter clear. 
 I mean they did not palliate it. He has never tried to 
 do that with anything in his life." 
 
 Tempest leaned his elbows on the mantel-shelf, pressing 
 his temples with his fingers. This man who had lived 
 with him daily, for weeks, for months, for years, had had 
 this in his heart all the while. 
 
 "And and his evidence at the trial?" he said. 
 
 " He did not mind what people said of himself. He 
 tried to make it easy for me. And he would not make 
 excuses for what he had done to me. He had done it, and 
 he let me know it. He he used that work as a weapon 
 to to fight himself with in part. And and he would 
 not let me think him better than he was." 
 
 Tempest nodded. He knew that love can be as merciless 
 as hate. Dick would have Jennifer's love and his bold 
 temper would insist that he had it in spite of what she 
 knew of him. 
 
 " And he knew that he left you to this," he said slowly. 
 
 Jennifer did not answer. Memories were too keenly 
 sharp. The thoughts of both were with the man some- 
 where out along the far trails in the silence. 
 
 The fire fell together with a crash, and Jennifer looked 
 up. 
 
 " Have you forgiven him for what he did to you ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I thought I had. I know now that I had not. I can 
 guess a little at what pain would do to a man of his tem- 
 perament. If I had only known but he would not tell me, 
 of course. He could not." 
 
 "But you can forgive him now?" 
 
 " I have already forgiven him officially," Tempest smiled 
 a little bitterly. " And I can't cease to care for him. I 
 don't know if I shall ever feel the same way towards him 
 again. He did a great wrong, not to me, but to her." 
 
 " No one could have expected her to care."
 
 "THE EPITOME OF LIFE" 413 
 
 " He knew his power with women. I beg your par- 
 
 " Please don't. He has been quite honest with me, so 
 there is no need." 
 
 There was silence again until Tempest straightened 
 himself and looked at her. 
 
 " You make me ashamed," he said. " I have seen your 
 gentleness and your care of Ducane, and now I have seen 
 something that I can't speak about. I had thought we 
 men of the Mounted Police were doing a great thing for 
 Canada. But perhaps when all is made clear we'll un- 
 derstand that some of the greatest things done here have 
 been done by the women. You^you still intend to look 
 after him ? " 
 
 " So long as I can. If they imprison him I shall get 
 rooms near the prison. He needs me." 
 
 " I shall be in the North later, as I told you. But my 
 leave lasts four months yet, and if you want me during 
 that time you know how gladly I will come. And if ever 
 there is anything I can do and that I can free myself for 
 you, will you tell me ? " 
 
 " I surely will." She stood up and gave him her hand. 
 " I hope I have helped you, for your sympathy has helped 
 me. There are certain things which one cannot fight 
 against. We have to order our lives from that standpoint. 
 But there are so many things which we can. And, after 
 all, the epitome of Life is battle and conquest, isn't it? " 
 
 " Or defeat" 
 
 " There are high defeats which are better than low 
 conquests/' said Jennifer, and her words stayed with him 
 when she went away and left him alone by the dying 
 fire. 
 
 Would not those words of Jennifer's apply to more than 
 the abstract case? Had he not himself been seeking con- 
 quest along infinitely lower lines than this high defeat 
 which had overtaken Jennifer and Dick? Nature had in- 
 sisted that he should love Andree even as it had insisted 
 that Dick should love Jennifer. But must a man always 
 accept Nature's ordinances from end to end? Is it not 
 against old Nature that her sons and daughters have to do 
 their fighting with conscience as the umpire? Tempest
 
 414 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 knew, as he had known for long, what must have hap- 
 pened if he had persuaded Andree to marry him. She 
 could have been no helpmate for his soul. He could never 
 have made her other than she was. And yet nothing but 
 the knowledge that he could not get her had parted him 
 from her. Then those things which he used to talk of. 
 That conception about the Norse Edda: he had believed 
 that he had stumbled on a great truth there. But in how 
 far had he acted on it? Dick had frankly acknowledged 
 his preference for Gigungagap. Tempest had talked of 
 the higher planes he could remember now the thrill and 
 the certainty with which he had spoken. Then were all 
 his great dreams, all his aspirations and beliefs dead 
 leaves only; ropes of sand; dust that the first wind of de- 
 sire blew out of existence? 
 
 " Oh God ! Not that ! Not that ! " he cried. He had 
 surely struggled. He had schooled himself, to accept the 
 inevitable when he was very sure that it was the in- 
 evitable. He had now lifted this love into a sacred thing 
 which he could think of without shame and without passion. 
 But who had enabled him to do this? Not his own 
 strength. Not his own conscience nor his love for that 
 work which he had believed meant more to him than any- 
 thing else. It was Dick who had thrust him back ; brutally, 
 mercilessly, but faithfully into the battle. And he could 
 not forgive and he could not forget because Andree had 
 been sacrificed that this should be accomplished. And yet 
 he had consented that Dick should sacrifice Jennifer for 
 his work's sake. He had seen very clearly there how the 
 individual must perish to further the growth of the whole. 
 But where the matter touched himself; where Andree had 
 to go that he might give what the years, what his birth 
 and training and traditions, had made him for the aid of 
 the many, what had he cared for his work then? 
 
 He got up, walking through the dusky room as Dick had 
 walked on the night when he pleaded with Jennifer. 
 Through these months Dick must have been fighting nearly 
 as stern a battle as himself. He would suffer for what 
 Jennifer might have to undergo with Ducane as Tempest 
 suffered for Andree. But Dick had never let his work go. 
 Wild-hearted, bitter-minded unbeliever though he was, he
 
 415 
 
 had held valiantly to his work, even using it, as Jennifer 
 had said, for a sword against himself. He remembered 
 the cruel mockery of those sketches in the Grey Wolf bunk- 
 room. Dick had no more to help him through life than 
 what they told. He had nothing to hold to. What wonder 
 then if he fell? But had he fallen any further than Tem- 
 pest? Than Tempest, who knew and preached the right 
 to others? 
 
 Tempest went late to his bed that night, and when he 
 said good-bye to Jennifer in the morning his manner was 
 very gentle. 
 
 " I owe you a very great deal," he said. " And I owe 
 Dick a very great deal." He smiled. " He knew that be- 
 fore I did," he added. " But perhaps he can bear to hear 
 it again." 
 
 He saw Bolton for a moment on the Regina Station as 
 the train carried him East, and the jovial Inspector shook 
 his hand warmly. 
 
 " 'Pon my soul, you look better already, old fellow," he 
 said. " Wait till the pretty girls in Ontario get hold of 
 you. They'll knock ten years off you." 
 
 " Thank you," said Tempest. " I think I don't want to 
 lose those years, Bolton. Not a blessed one of them." 
 
 His welcome at home shamed him again. They were so 
 transparently joyful at his coming, and he had wanted 
 so little to come. He knew that all the great issues of 
 his life were bound up for ever with the West: with the 
 places where he had suffered and lost and gained so much. 
 And yet he found that there was something for him to gain 
 in the old home. Some panacea which he had needed and 
 which nothing else could have given him. He found it 
 in his mother's kiss, and in Betty's throttling embraces, 
 and in Lloyd's hand-grip. It was Lloyd who got down to 
 the heart of the matter at once, reading him as a man 
 reads his kind. 
 
 " You won't get old Neil to cut the Service and settle 
 down over here, mother," he said. " You may trot out 
 your eligibles and stay him with dinner-parties and comfort 
 him with dances all you know and it won't help you worth 
 a cent. Something else has booked him, mother, and we're 
 going to lose him."
 
 416 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Oh, Lloyd ! You don't think that any girl out 
 there 
 
 " No. Or if there was he's lost her. But I noticed him 
 talking with Carter and Orde last night. It's Canada 
 has taken him, I guess. He means to give himself to his 
 work, and not to anything else." 
 
 Betty scoffed at this doctrine and angled for him with 
 all the arts which she and her friends could muster. In 
 the first glow of her own love she appealed to Tempest 
 vividly, and he delighted to take her about. She was much 
 younger than himself; and she had been a merry child 
 when he was a tall and studious boy. She was a merry 
 girl still, and she brought the sweets of life back to him in 
 many ways through those brief weeks. Tempest had that 
 quiet, interested courtesy which charms wherever it goes; 
 but his serene indifference to its effects roused Betty's ire, 
 and one evening as he smoked his cigar under the scented 
 limes she came to him, running in her white dress over the 
 grassy lawn, and walked up and down with him. Her 
 hand was through his arm, and she chattered to him and 
 scolded him, half in mischief, half in real earnest. For 
 a while Tempest parried her thrusts with good-natured 
 evasion. Then he turned on her slim finger the ring which 
 sparkled through the starlight. 
 
 " It's once and for altogether, Betty dear ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes." She fell shy instantly at confessing her 
 love. 
 
 " Even though you lost him there could never be any- 
 one else? " 
 
 " Never ! Oh, never ! " 
 
 " Well that's my answer, dear," he said gently.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 " THE LONE PATROL " 
 
 " BUT assuredly you will be doing me the greatest of fa- 
 vours," said Pere Melisand. " You come to me, figura- 
 tively speaking, as the men used to come to me at Rouen 
 with strange stories in their eyes and the smell of the salt 
 sea-water in their hair. I have not seen the sea since I 
 left France ten years ago. And you? " 
 
 " I saw salt water three months ago in Hudson Bay." 
 Dick flung off his coat and looked round him. " You 
 keep some relics of France with you still," he added. " I 
 remember the original of that portrait at Versailles and 
 surely the chair below it is Louis Quinze? " 
 
 " Genuine. Yes. We have our fancies yet, though we 
 change the skies over us. There is an incantation in these 
 little things to one who remembers." 
 
 Dick turned to look at his host. Without the cassock 
 and tonsure Pere Melisand would have had nothing to knit 
 him to this little Roman Catholic Mission at Vermilion on 
 the Peace River. For he had the look of a man of the world 
 in his eyes and the fluency of a scholar on his tongue, 
 and he welcomed Dick to his poor quarters here just as 
 he would have welcomed him to some old chateau in his 
 native France, with no embarrassment at all in the con- 
 trast. Perhaps ten years had used him to it, although it 
 had not sapped the polish of his manner. He smiled at 
 Dick. 
 
 " I will ask Antoine to hasten dinner," he said. " You 
 must be both cold and hungry. Travelling in a thaw is 
 difficult work." 
 
 " Well, two of my dogs knocked up rather badly. Could 
 I get more here ? " 
 
 "Vital Jeudi might have one or two. We will see him 
 
 417
 
 418 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 in the morning. I wish we had some to spare at the 
 Mission. But if there are any in Fort Vermilion be 
 assured that you shall have them if possible." 
 
 Dick watched him go, idly wondering what power could 
 bring such a man to waste himself among the breeds and 
 Indians of this Canadian outpost. Religion seemed to him 
 such a weak answer. For Dick looked on religion still as 
 many men look on it, as a refuge when life has little left 
 to offer. And Pere Melisand's eyes told that such a rea- 
 son was untrue here. 
 
 " But it may occasionally be a refuge when life has too 
 much to offer," he told himself, and throughout the simple 
 dinner he watched Pere Melisand in that interpretation. 
 
 The man could talk. He showed deep and wise inter- 
 est in many things, and more than once his eyes lit to a 
 fire that accorded ill with the meek tonsure. He did not 
 smoke; but he gave Dick a good cigar, and he brought out 
 a bottle of wine which gave a rakish air of conviviality 
 to the evening which appealed to Dick's humour. It was 
 over the walnuts which Pere Melisand cracked with an 
 old-fashioned silver crackers that Dick broached the busi- 
 ness which had brought him to Vermilion through the wet 
 dangerous drifts where the early Chinooks blew warm, and 
 Pere Melisand leaned back, caressing his chin. 
 
 " Ah, that I cannot tell you," he said. " Soeur Narcisse 
 and Soeur Madeleine came in while I was at Battle River. 
 There was no girl answering to your description in Ver- 
 milion when I came back. She must have gone further." 
 
 " Then might I be allowed the honour of a few minutes' 
 conversation with one of the ladies you mention?" 
 
 " Assuredly." Pere Melisand's fine lips drew into a 
 smile. "And why not?" 
 
 "If you have no reason I shall certainly not supply 
 one," Dick smiled back. " It is very necessary for me to 
 find her," he explained. " I'm a wanderer until I do." 
 
 "May I ask what she is wanted for?" 
 
 "Murder in the first degree. And as an anti-climax 
 perjury." 
 
 " Ah ! " Pere Melisand shuddered. " Poor thing. And 
 yours is a hard life, my friend, when it sends you out on 
 such errands."
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 419 
 
 " A man must live even, or shall I say, usually at the 
 expense of others. And if he cannot wipe out his own 
 crimes he is surely doing well in assisting others to wipe 
 out theirs." 
 
 Pere Melisand shook his head, with the smile still lin- 
 gering. 
 
 " Well there is always the untamed thing that runs 
 clamouring through our blood. There will be the doer of 
 crimes, and the executor of crimes so long as this old 
 world lasts. And in the next we may have to sheet those 
 very crimes home to the opposite shoulders and begin all 
 over again. But do not speak of this to Soeur Narcisse 
 in the morning. I think you shall see Soeur Narcisse." 
 
 " She is perhaps not young enough to be fluttered at the 
 sight of shall we say divided skirts ? " suggested Dick. 
 
 Pere Melisand shook his head again. 
 
 " Be careful," he said. " I learnt well that a light 
 tongue seldom means a light heart." He cracked another 
 nut. " You deserved that, and you do not deserve to see 
 Soeur Narcisse. But you shall see her. And speak to her 
 of Ouchy if you can. She comes from Ouchy, and we 
 French love our country." 
 
 " Which is, I imagine, the reason why you leave it. A 
 thing denied has its value enhanced, and the wisdom of 
 the French in matters of love is fully acknowledged all the 
 world over." 
 
 Pere Melisand laughed, settling his shoulders in the tall 
 chair. 
 
 " Come," he said. " Tell me what you know about 
 France. We will leave your opinions on love to explain 
 themselves. And talk French. You never learnt your 
 wisdom in any language but ours." 
 
 Dick's answering smile did not show in his eyes. Pere 
 Melisand guessed that there had been no smile there for 
 long. That did not surprise him, for he knew much of 
 the lives of the wandering men; but the pity on Dick's 
 face when he saw Soeur Narcisse next morning did. The 
 soft-eyed, shy young nun with the strange, delicate bloom 
 which stirs a man's heart glowed with excitement when 
 Dick's question called her eyes up to his face. 
 
 "Mais oui," she cried. "Is it that I could forget An-
 
 420 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 dree? Why that voyage was so much of delight so 
 much of the new." 
 
 Over her head the men smiled. This which was stag- 
 nation to the man who had lived was life itself to little 
 Soeur Narcisse. 
 
 " Ah ! She was si belle ! Si grande ! Et si triste. Elle 
 me baise quand she say adieu. And moi, I was for her 
 so sorry." 
 
 " Andree kissed you ! " Dick was curiously upset at 
 this, for he knew Andree's utter indifference to women. 
 
 " Then you can't tell me where she went? " he asked. 
 
 " To Chipewyan. But beyond that I do not know. 
 There were many Indians on rafts. We begged of her 
 stay; be one of us. Mais elle n'en peut. Elle dit il y a 
 le vent aux cheveux. I do not understand, moi. Perhap 
 she jeter la plume au vent." 
 
 " Perhaps/' said Dick. But he shivered a little. Would 
 the death which he was bringing her ever so still Grange's 
 Andree that she could not feel the wind of Life in her 
 hair ? 
 
 He looked at Pere Melisand when the two went out to 
 the sun again. " Didn't young Macrae of a Survey Party 
 once try to carry off a nun from one of these places? " 
 he asked. " You'd best look after Soeur Narcisse, sir. 
 Men are men still. And she is meant to make some man 
 happy." 
 
 " Because you have no religion you do not recognise 
 your impiety," said Pere Melisand composedly. " Exist- 
 ence means more than earthly happiness." 
 
 " My soul! D'you think I don't know that?" said Dick 
 with a sudden flash. And through the long day's sleighing 
 when the threatening squish of the packing mush-ice took 
 the place of the clean burring hum of the runners, and the 
 wind blew warm on his cheek, he remembered grimly what 
 good cause he had to know it. 
 
 He dreaded this lone patrol as he never had dreaded one 
 before. That night with Jennifer seemed to have slacked 
 his physical and mental muscles. He had been knocked 
 out in a fight for the thing he most wanted; knocked out 
 completely, without a hope of return, and he could not 
 forget it. There was no pride in him because he had not
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 421 
 
 betrayed his work. A woman, a girl with shaking hands 
 and the exhaustion of utter grief on her, had beaten him; 
 had broken his will, and stripped his defiance from him, 
 and sent him away. And he had gone. He could not 
 discover why he had gone, and why he knew that he could 
 not go back. He knew only that Jennifer's will was not 
 equal to the steel of his will, and that therefore it was a 
 power behind and beyond her which had struck at him 
 through her. He had refused to acknowledge or obey that 
 Power. But he had been forced to acknowledge it on 
 Beverley Lake, and now he was forced to obey it. And 
 this galled him and enraged him, and poisoned the call of 
 the North in him, day by day. 
 
 Though near the verge of breaking, the ice held still 
 when he drove into Chipewyan some days later. But the 
 long, straight-laid street was dirty with trampled mush 
 and noisy with much shouting of men and snapping of 
 the long caribou-gut whips and the fighting of loosened 
 dog packs. The fur-hunters of the North were bringing 
 their winter's yield into the big Hudson Bay sheds at old 
 Chipewyan, and there was no one in the settlement who 
 did not know it. To-day the Hudson Bay Company was 
 king of the North as it was in the golden days of its 
 reign, nearly three hundred years ago. From out of un- 
 numbered solitary places the trappers came to do honour 
 to it; deep-eyed, alert men, with that hip-rolling walk 
 which is born of the snow-shoe and those sudden spurts 
 into ungoverned merriment which are in the blood of the 
 French-Indian breed. 
 
 Dick left his team at the barracks and walked down to 
 the Hudson Bay Store. Forsyth was away until the even- 
 ing, and Dick was glad. He had no desire to answer all 
 the questions which Forsyth would ask, although he had 
 one arrow ready sharpened for the complacent Sergeant. 
 Here were men from the Barren Grounds with their fierce 
 little Eskimo teams pulling sleds piled with musk-ox and 
 caribou-skins. Here was a hollow-cheeked Indian with 
 his mangy mongrels staggering under the weight of a half- 
 filled little sled of wolverine and mink and fox. A French- 
 Canadian flogged his big-footed, long-legged Mackenzie 
 hounds past at a gallop; halted them with many screams
 
 422 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 and French curses, and sprang in among them with his 
 dog-whip as the loafing pack of huskies, mongrels and 
 malemutes fell on them in that close, grim welcome which 
 means all the blood and death their masters will 
 allow. 
 
 Dick watched the man in the midst of them with appre- 
 ciative interest. He had all the spring and the verve and 
 the diabolical absence of fear which belongs to the best 
 class of trapper, and his rakish clothes, his earrings, and 
 the gay trappings of his sled proclaimed him as one of 
 the dandies of the North. He freed his team at last; un- 
 harnessed them, and let them go back to their battle. 
 
 " Que voulez-vous ! " he said, shrugging his shoulders as 
 he caught Dick's eye. " They will have it." 
 
 " There are more than the giddes will have it at times, 
 eh?" said Dick. 
 
 " Dame," said the Frenchman, and laughed with his 
 black eyes snapping. " It is a true word, that." 
 
 Outside the Store a team of Labrador dogs lay in the 
 lines. They were motionless ; but the prick of their ears 
 and the occasional snarl baring the white teeth told their 
 nature. Death was the one foe to whom the dogs of the 
 Labrador consented to strike their flag. The office at the 
 end of the Store was packed with men. The approaches 
 to the sheds were a tangle of emptying sleds and quarrel- 
 ling dogs; of Indians and breeds and Frenchmen, and an 
 occasional whiter-skinned man of the South. Dick passed 
 them by to the tepees already rising like a little forest 
 along the outskirts. For many of the trappers yearly take 
 their families to the woods and the home of those families 
 is wherever the tepee rises. 
 
 It was here that Dick hoped to glean some information 
 concerning Andree. If she had gone to Chipewyan with 
 the Indians she had possibly gone to the woods with them 
 too. He did not believe that she would come back to 
 Chipewyan. The cunning of the forest was in her as it 
 was in himself. But he might get a clue. He lifted the 
 flap of the first tepee and looked in. It was dark after 
 the glare of the sun, and a strong smell of musk from 
 the musk-robes pervaded it. Something chuckled out of 
 the dark as a child chuckles over the thing it plays with;
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 423 
 
 and Dick went on his knee as his eyesight cleared and 
 looked into the sunny eyes of a white baby rolling on the 
 musk-ox robes. She was two years old, perhaps, and she 
 snatched at his face with round dimpled hands, cooing and 
 kicking her feet in delight. Indian rags were wrapped 
 round her, and her yellow hair was cut across the fore- 
 head, Indian-fashion. Then the tepee-entrance was dark- 
 ened by the broad bulk of an ld breed woman, and Dick 
 sat back on his heels and asked questions. 
 
 " Aha ! " said the old breed. " She belong to Alphonse 
 Michu. Him wife die and him go to the trapping and 
 take the baby. I have her sometimes. And the other 
 women they do have her sometimes. She quite pretty 
 baby." 
 
 " Is Alphonse Michu here? " 
 
 The old breed nodded, and Dick went out, strangely 
 moved. From something such as this had Grange's An- 
 dree come, and well enough he knew what it had made 
 of her. He remembered Tempest's talk at Churchill about 
 the responsibilities of the white man; but it was not that 
 alone which sent him in search of Alphonse Michu. A 
 great and overwhelming pity for helpless childhood and 
 girlhood possessed him for the first time in his life, and 
 he acted in obedience to it. 
 
 But he could do not anything at all with Alphonse 
 Michu. The French Canadian loved his baby passionately, 
 and perhaps, in his superstitious heart, he regarded her as 
 a fetish. Dick's determined efforts brought the anger 
 into his voice and his long pale face. But they could do 
 no more, and he left the man with a prayer in his heart. 
 
 " The Lord send she doesn't turn out as pretty as 
 Grange's Andree," he said. 
 
 On the slope to the barracks he overtook a breed with a 
 husky team which hauled a heavily-laden sled. He stopped 
 with that intuition which never failed him where faces and 
 names were concerned. 
 
 " Why, Tommy Joseph," he said. " What are you taking 
 your catch to the barracks for? " 
 
 "Wolves," said Tommy Joseph, raising his gaunt face 
 for a moment. Dick glanced from the lean, dark man 
 to the huskies where the blood of their wolf-progenitors
 
 424 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 still ran savagely. And he felt the same untamed pulse- 
 throb in Tommy Joseph. 
 
 " Well, you ought to know all about 'em/' he said. 
 " And you've had good luck, I see. We're paying twenty 
 dollars a pelt this year." 
 
 Tommy Joseph glanced up with quick fire in his eyes. 
 " There is no good luck and no bad luck. It is fate/' he 
 said in French; and Dick suddenly remembered the story 
 of Florestine. 
 
 " Well, perhaps you're right. Tommy, have you seen 
 Grange's Andree lately? She came up to Chipewyan last 
 fall." 
 
 " Laissez," said Tommy sharply, and kicked at his fid- 
 geting dogs. " Was it Andree ? Certainement. I did see 
 her last in Grey Wolf. It is two years since." 
 
 He proceeded to fill his pipe with an indifference which 
 proved his words lies to Dick. But Dick never showed 
 his hand. He gave Tommy good-bye amiably and went to. 
 Forsyth. Forsyth had seen Andree, and, what was more 
 unlikely, he remembered the circumstance perfectly and 
 described it with much detail. 
 
 " That bunch went on towards the Rocher," he ended. 
 " Rafting along the Slave to Resolution, I guess. I didn't 
 take much stock of 'em." 
 
 Forsyth never took much stock of anything. Dick 
 nodded. " All right. I'll try to make Resolution before 
 the ice goes out. Might as well be hung up there as any- 
 where else," he said. 
 
 Dick stood long at his window that night, looking over 
 the Lake, where through nearly three hundred years, had 
 plied the little canoe-patrol between old Chipewyan and 
 Montreal. A grim, lonely patrol, put through by those 
 wild-hearted men, gay-eyed and daring, quick in murder, 
 in love and laughter. They called to their descendant, 
 those pioneers with their silken sashes and their slender, 
 strong wrists whence the ruffles had been ripped away 
 when Prince Rupert's gentlemen girded themselves for that 
 first fight with Canada. They called across the treading 
 years which had blotted out so much of romance, so much 
 of horror, so much of gallant endurance, so much of glad- 
 ness and passionate grief. And for long Dick listened,
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 425 
 
 with fire smouldering in his eyes and his breath coming 
 fast through his thin nostrils. 
 
 In the tepee camp arose suddenly the deep baying of 
 hounds; the sharp yelps and strong-throated snarls which 
 told where the still lawless spirits of the North gave battle. 
 Shrill French screams and curses cut as suddenly into 
 the noise, mingled with the hissing of the long caribou- 
 whips. The roar died to a mutter of growling; to silence, 
 and Dick went to bed, remembering the words of the 
 breed-dandy, " They will have it," and half-envious of the 
 giddes because he knew that within the hour they would 
 have it again. 
 
 He crossed the Lake next morning with little Jack 
 Lowndes' kisses on his lips, and still something of the hot 
 vigour of those long-dead men possessing him. And this 
 mood held with him merrily through the daily danger that 
 threatened him. For the Chinook blew, day after day; 
 and hour after hour the ice moaned and creaked, surren- 
 dering to its persistence. A policeman outside the barracks 
 at Smith's Landing waved a hand to him as he swung 
 past one evening, for he could travel now only in the frosty 
 hours. 
 
 " Good luck to your hunting," he shouted ; and then he 
 too was gone, and only the soft sputtering of the mush ice 
 on the runners broke the silence of the world. 
 
 All Dick's will was bent on reaching Fort Resolution 
 before his hold-up came, and he did it, with the threat 
 ever on his heels and the first great cannon-like reports 
 and thundering groans of the bursting heavy mass to keep 
 him awake on the second night after he reached the Lake. 
 
 It was from Resolution that the real tracking of Andree 
 would begin. So far there had been the one road only 
 for her; but on the Great Slave Lake there were so many 
 trails, and he might have to draw a half-dozen covers 
 before he marked her down. There was the Fullerton trail 
 which he and Tempest had taken, with its medley of inter- 
 secting lakes. There was the trail direct north to the 
 Great Bear Lake where long-dead Hudson Bay posts hold 
 yet glamouring traditions of bullet-riddled palisades, and 
 mahogany furniture; of the grim kings of the Company 
 and the dare-devil men with bright handkerchiefs bound
 
 426 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 round their brows. There was the Coppermine River trail 
 to the Dismal Lakes on the rim of the Arctic Ocean, or 
 there was the great Mackenzie route to the Yukon and to 
 Herschel Island. Dick weighed the chances of each with 
 all cunning and knowledge. He believed that Andree 
 would go down the Mackenzie; for, wild creature of the 
 forest though she was, she had never loved loneliness nor 
 the Indian. . Her ways had lain among the white men, 
 and her vanity and love of excitement would keep them 
 there. The ice was breaking on the Great Slave Lake 
 when Dick reached it, and in a little while the birch canoes 
 shot across the long blue run of it. Dick was to do much 
 paddling there before he came upon the trail of Grange's 
 Andree. He was to know well the mouse-grey evenings 
 when the sea-birds and loons flew low, calling stridently. 
 He was to see the prairies yellow as the snow passed and 
 the pale feathers of birch and poplar blow against the in- 
 digo of the fir-forests. He was to seek the camp of many a 
 breed and Indian along the shores, remembering past his- 
 tory, and making, in his dull khaki and his untiring deter- 
 mination, his small indelible share of the new. 
 
 Very familiar now were the names of those long-dead 
 forts which Sir John Franklin had set up all across this 
 wild land. Enterprise, Reliance, Providence, Confidence, 
 Good Hope and Resolution. The courage of the bluff old 
 sailor and his strong-hearted men rang in the words yet; 
 beacon-lights for the men who come after them. 
 
 One night the smell of a spruce camp-fire called him 
 into a bight where the thick trees came to the water-lip. A 
 score of trappers lay round the fire with the fierce resinous 
 glow of it in their faces, and Dick saw there that look 
 of deep content which belongs only to the people of the 
 North in their own stamping-grounds. He went ashore, 
 and stayed the night there. And when he paddled back 
 to Resolution he knew that Grange's Andree was flying 
 from what he was bringing her to the great silence of the 
 Mackenzie River. 
 
 Next day he packed his kit and followed her. He fol- 
 lowed while the brief summer glowed to the full and faded ; 
 while the anemones and fragile snow-flowers gave place to 
 fireweed that glowed in all the glory of a Scotch heather
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 427 
 
 hill. Tall mauve asters swayed by the banks, and the 
 shining ranks of the golden-rod lit up the hillsides where 
 the black crows flapped low and heavily and the wild bird 
 calls thrilled, thin and far, through the dry tang of the 
 pine-forests. At Fort Simpson the barley in the Mission 
 fields was swelling with the milk in it, and all the pota- 
 toes were in flower. Dick stayed here some days ; seeing 
 the Sisters of Charity working in the garden-patches, and 
 questioning the many breeds and Indians who drift through 
 the post from the Liard River and across to Lac la Marte. 
 Here the Hudson Bay Store stood in the strongly-palisaded 
 enclosure which had been common to all of old, and the 
 hot sun warmed its weather-beaten flanks and struck colour 
 from rock and sweeping prairie. Then the excitement of 
 separating two drunken Hare Indians one night took him 
 to the Hudson Bay factor with a question. 
 
 " Well, you know what it is," said the factor, and 
 laughed. " Men will drink something. They make this 
 abominable stuff themselves of hops and yeast and dried 
 fruit and sugar. The smell nearly kills a chap dead. But 
 it serves its purpose. You might let Macpherson know 
 about it." 
 
 Dick assented. Two little detachments patrolled the 
 whole of this Mackenzie River district as best they might, 
 and they would infallibly bring the weight of law into 
 Simpson some day before long. 
 
 The old stars were dying down the sky behind him now, 
 and new ones rode in an unfamiliar sky. Already there 
 was a riot of coloured leaves on the wild-rose bushes and 
 the tall, slight saskatoons, and down by-ways the pea-vines 
 were taking colour and fireweed leaves blazed red and 
 orange. Near Fort Norman he met a canoe with a con- 
 stable and a Hare Indian, paddling upstream with the sun 
 in their eyes. Dick gave a greeting, and the Constable 
 swung alongside. 
 
 " Come and tiffin with me," he said. " It's about time." 
 And on the bank of the Macken/ie the two ate badly-cooked 
 damper and tinned beans and freshly-caught fish with 
 more appetite than they once had eaten in London 
 hotels. 
 
 The Constable used the speech of Eton and Oxford, and
 
 428 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 he had never learnt his drill at Regina. But all his hard- 
 bitten, genial face showed contentment, and Dick recog- 
 nised him as one of those throw-backs to the restless days 
 which bred Raleigh and Drake and so many more. He 
 had caught his man near Fort Macpherson, and two thou- 
 sand miles of lonely country and a desperate furtive In- 
 dian stood between him and civilisation. But he said good- 
 bye to Dick with a hearty grip and laughing eyes. 
 
 " Good fortune to you," he said. " At what end of the 
 earth will we meet next ? " 
 
 At Little Fort Norman in the Great Bear Lake district 
 there was no word of Andree. Dick did not expect it, 
 and he turned from the English Mission house to his long, 
 silent trail again with certainty growing in him. Andree 
 was seeking the white life. If she had wanted to hide 
 among the Indians she would not have come so far north 
 as this. The creatures of the wild were all about him 
 as he made his night-camps now. The short-necked moose 
 thumping down on their knees to nibble grass in the open 
 places; black bear snuffing down the hole of rabbit or 
 musquash ; wolves yowling on some edge of forest at the 
 moon ; marten, wolverine ; fierce, tuft-eared lynx. He saw 
 the spores of all and heard their cries. At the occasional 
 Indian camps among the white birches and the deep spruces 
 he went ashore, struggling in the little Chipewyan that he 
 knew to make interpretation to these Slave and Dog-Rib 
 Tribes. 
 
 Where the big Mission churches and schools, the trading- 
 posts and log-houses of Fort Good Hooe stood above its 
 tall ramparts of clay banks, Dick sought the Hudson Bay 
 factor. He slept that night between lavender-scented 
 sheets with the memory of Grieg, played well by the fac- 
 tor's wife, in his ears. There had been silver on the table, 
 too, and cut glass, and the rim of the Arctic Circle was 
 fourteen miles away. Dick left Good Hope reluctantly. 
 The two hundred odd miles separating him from the next 
 post promised so much of that solitude which he was daily 
 finding more terrible. 
 
 There was frost in the red mornings, and the yellow 
 evenings when he reached Arctic Red River, and on the 
 little lagoons, where the duck were gathering to take flight,
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 429 
 
 ice crisped sometimes as he drove his canoe in among the 
 reeds to shoot mallard or merganser for his supper. The 
 days were shortening rapidly ; but wild-flowers still bloomed 
 among the grasses when he left the Mackenzie and turned 
 op the Peel River to Fort Macpherson. Two days before 
 he had found a drowned Indian caught in a snag and had 
 towed him ashore and buried him. For a moment he had 
 stood by the shallow grave scooped in the sand and stared 
 down on the dead face before he covered it with an aching 
 desire to know what was the use of it all ; of all the short, 
 sharp days of man's life that pass so swiftly; of all the 
 long eternities of nothingness that come after. 
 
 His first evening at Macpherson gave him more comfort 
 than he had known for many days. In Corporal Hensham's 
 little warm private room, with the big black stove-pipe 
 running through it, he smoked pipe after pipe among the 
 pictures on the walls and the well-worn books on the 
 shelves. Dumb-bells and Indian clubs filled the corners, 
 for Hensham was an athletic and enthusiastic Canadian 
 with all the energy of youth in him yet. 
 
 " I'm off on a mountain patrol the end of the week," he 
 said ; " but I can take you out to the Fishing Lakes to- 
 morrow, and you'll likely get some information there. The 
 Indians are thick around it, getting their fish out before 
 the ice. They are principally Loucheux ; a very decent lot, 
 and I can let you have an interpreter. What's the girl 
 like? Nearly white, you say." 
 
 Dick reached a sheet of brown, wrapping paper from 
 under the table, and picked up a bit of chalk which Hen- 
 sham had been using, to keep a quoit tally with. 
 
 "I'll try to give you some idea," he said; and rapidly 
 roughed in the tall, breezy outline, the curve of the cheek 
 and chin, and the carriage of the small curly head. It 
 moved him more than he cared to allow as Grange's An- 
 dree sprang into life under his hand, and he tossed the 
 sheet across to Hensham in sudden irritation. 
 
 " That is an amateur attempt," he said dryly. " Her 
 Maker has done the thing rather better." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " Hensham was startled. " Why ; she's a 
 beauty. And you're a don at this kind of a thing all right. 
 You'll let me have it for my gallery, won't you? Thanks.
 
 430 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Seems a brutal thing to have to corral a girl like that. 
 You must have known her pretty well, too." 
 
 " I have seen her several times. You have a young 
 Grahame here, haven't you? I came down as far as Chip- 
 ewyan with him two years ago." 
 
 " Oh, I say. Didn't you hear about that ? We were 
 all awfully cut up. He got lost last winter. Hunting a 
 Loucheux who'd deserted his family, you know. And there 
 was a blizzard, and well, it was starvation, I guess, unless 
 the wolves got him first. We came across his bones in the 
 spring. They were stripped clean. There were a few lines 
 in his pocket-book they hadn't touched that. " I've done 
 my best," he said, and I guess he cashed in over trying 
 to get down something about " Tell somebody something." 
 we couldn't read that. I sent his dunnage out by the 
 steamer for the Commissioner to forward back to his 
 people. He came of good stock, you know. I've seen 
 the photographs of his folk and his home in Scotland." 
 
 Dick remembered how sure he had been of the baronet 
 father; and he guessed that the pocket-book would go into 
 the family shrine along with perhaps a rutsy claymore 
 worn at Flodden, or a sword broken under Montrose. 
 
 " Did he ever shoot a bear ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " Why was it Grahame or yes, he did. The first win- 
 ter he was here." 
 
 Dick's lips curved on his pipe-stem into a smile. He 
 had not forgotten the lad's eager words on the Atha- 
 baska, and somehow he felt curiously pleased that young 
 Grahame had shot his bear. 
 
 Hensham had a couple of gaily-ornamented birch ca- 
 noes ready at day-break, with a Loucheux Indian of pro- 
 nounced Japanese type squatted in the stern of each. 
 
 " We go up the Peel," he explained. " Then a little 
 river lets us right into the Fishing Lakes. Jelly and 
 Good Boy will get us up in no time. Smells good, this 
 morning, doesn't it? " 
 
 The air was still and vital with the frost. Across the 
 foot-hills and the white flanks of the Rockies sunlight 
 dazzled, drawing sharp scents from distant clumps of 
 aspen and tamarac and willow, all mixed with the pungent 
 odours of spruce. In the swampy places over the river,
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 431 
 
 and along the uplands duck were calling and wild geese 
 clanging in their haste to be gone, and Dick's foot broke 
 a stray yellow dandelion from its stem as he sprang into 
 the canoe. Hansham pointed his cane at it. 
 
 " Look/' he said. " In August, and a hundred miles 
 within the Arctic Circle as the crow flies. What would 
 English people think of that?" 
 
 " I've found wild-flowers in July two-fifty miles further 
 on." 
 
 " At Herschel ? " Hensham looked at him quickly. 
 "You've been there, then? Why I guess you're the 
 man who picked that Yankee absconder out of his own 
 whaler there about five years, ago." 
 
 " Six. It is a great solace to some of us to find we 
 can win fame so easily." 
 
 " I imagine it wasn't easily. You can't treat a Yank 
 like anyone else. He mostly has his own opinions. These 
 canoes are pretty decent, aren't they? The Indians won't 
 use anything but birch bark. Our hardwood's good 
 enough, too. Baskerville he's H. B. factor here he has 
 a pair of birch bark snow-shoes over a hundred years old. 
 Right and left spread of frame, you know. I want them 
 the worst way, but he won't part for any money." 
 
 It was good to hear Hensham talk after the long silences 
 filled with thoughts that hurt. And it was good to paddle 
 smoothly with the strong stern-thrust to help, past banks 
 of spruce and willow and scented Balm of Gilead where 
 the coloured leaves dropped into the water. The frost 
 had killed out the last flies and mosquitoes; but Hensham 
 remembered them feelingly. 
 
 " An absolutely devilish pest they are," he said. " How 
 did you get on ? " 
 
 " Kept out in the stream all day, and made smudges 
 at night. They were nothing to what I've known on the 
 Hudson Bay side." 
 
 " Tell me about it. What's the hunting like there? We 
 have the jumping deer here, you know. They're fine sport. 
 And moose, of course, and sometimes musk-ox. But 
 there's nothing much better than the jumping deer among 
 the foothills. Grahame was crazy about them. Said they 
 beat the Scotch deer-forests hollow."
 
 432 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick had no time for thought until they came in the 
 darkening evening of the short fall day to the Fishing 
 Lakes, raising the Indian camp-fires one by one as they 
 swung round the loops of the river. 
 
 " Smell the fish ? " said Hensham. " They don't leave 
 things to the imagination any, do they? What say? Oh, 
 well; they do get a few greyling and loche and others. 
 But it's mostly white fish, of course. Jelly " he turned 
 to the Loucheux behind him " drive in there where the 
 camp seems biggest. They're sure to have some chiefs 
 among them. And you go right ahead and ask what you 
 want to know, Heriot. Jelly will put you through. And 
 you can trust 'em as far as you can size 'em up. They're 
 decent fellows. Never have any trouble with them. Chris- 
 tians, too. They all carry around Bibles in their own 
 language." 
 
 " Do you call that a recommendation," said Dick, 
 amused; and he stepped out, looking round him with all 
 the keen delight of his artist blood. 
 
 Through the colourless evening the big camp-fires blazed 
 strongly ; shooting their light among the little dingy tepees 
 and the spreading spruces and across the clearing to the 
 lip of the grey low lake. In the clearings stood great 
 scaffoldings of birch poles, gridironed over the top. In 
 dark, half-seen knots by the lake stooped the Indian 
 women, splitting the fish, and running a sharp-pointed 
 stick through the tails, one after the other. Presently a 
 shapeless figure detached itself from the bulk; crossed 
 the bars of light that pricked out for a moment the high- 
 cheeked copper-yellow face and the black stiff hair; 
 crossed to a scaffold, and hung her armful of sticks in 
 a row along the gridiron. Then noiselessly she turned and 
 went back to her work. 
 
 The men had done their share when they drew the last 
 nets to land an hour ago. They smoked now, lounging 
 round the fires, and sucking the fish-bones of their supper. 
 Through signs and Jelly's assistance Dick extracted infor- 
 mation from several, and then Hensham came back from 
 a heated conversation down by the Lake. 
 
 " The women have got to clean up all that before the 
 frost gets into it," he remarked. " It'll be stiff as ramrods
 
 "THE LONE PATROL" 433 
 
 by morning. They've made a record haul, and that old 
 sinner wants to charge me more than fifty cents a stick 
 for the fish I'm getting from him. But he's not going to 
 cut any ice off me. He won't let me have half what I 
 want, either." 
 
 " They can't carry more than a certain amount them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Why they don't go far for their hunting, you know. 
 They cache a lot here and come back for it. Anyhow, 
 they can punch holes in the ice and get some more if 
 they're pushed. Got any news yet?" 
 
 " No. They're hunting up an Esquimaux who came up 
 with fur from Herschel, and didn't go back with the 
 others." 
 
 " Oh! Well, I wish you luck. Here he is. My word; 
 they're pretty good chunks of fat, aren't they? " 
 
 The stocky broad-nosed little man could speak a little 
 English. Dick possessed a few Esquimaux words and a 
 very great deal of intuition, and in a little while he knew 
 on which stage he was to play his first grim act with 
 Grange's Andree. She had gone to the Arctic Ocean; 
 down the mighty Mackenzie River where its many mouths 
 open to salt water, and the Esquimaux pass in their kyaks 
 and build their snow igloes. 
 
 " Now, what in the nation could have taken her there ? " 
 said Hensham. 
 
 " Whalers," said Dick briefly, and for a little while he 
 would not speak again. 
 
 The Esquimaux had passed her in a birch canoe with an 
 Indian behind her. But Dick knew that she would stay 
 with neither Indian nor Esquimaux. If she had gone 
 aboard a whaler which happened to winter this year at 
 Herschel there was no escape for her. But if that whaler, 
 Yankee, or Russian, or Norwegian, manned by English or 
 the daring sailor-men of Labrador; if that whaler went 
 home through those smoking seas of winter, Dick's chase 
 had only just begun, and Grange's Andree might draw 
 him at her heels for a year yet. 
 
 This knowledge roused in him again that hunting in- 
 stinct which was seldom dulled for long. Sudden savage 
 desire to run his quarry down rose above his pity and
 
 434 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 reluctance. He knocked his pipe out and stood up with 
 a long breath. 
 
 " That is sure, then/' he said. " And I must get into 
 Herschel before the ice. Can you get me a breed to pilot 
 me through the Mackenzie mouths, Hensham? Those cur- 
 rents are always changing." 
 
 " Why, certainly." A note in his voice brought Hen- 
 sham to look at him curiously. " You're not wanting to 
 start right away to-night, are you ? " He laughed. " Leave 
 it a day or two, anyway. By the way, I sent Anderson 
 down with the mail after the boat came in. You'll meet 
 him, and he can likely give you some information." 
 
 " Ah ! Perhaps he can." 
 
 Dick fell silent, looking round on the amber and scar- 
 let and the cold black of the night where the dark figures 
 moved. The quiet, busy women brought that strange sense 
 of home-life to this wild nature which no camp of men 
 ever brings. Dick had noticed this very often before, and 
 the fact struck him again, forcibly. A quiver of pain 
 passed across his face before he turned to answer Hen- 
 sham's next question. For he was remembering Jennifer 
 sewing on the deck of the river-steamer down the Atha- 
 baska.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 
 
 ACROSS the bare rock of Herschel Island in the Arctic 
 Ocean the wind from the Pole blew a gale. For to the 
 whalers, Herschel was known familiarly as "the blow- 
 hole," and through all the storm-bitten twelve miles of it 
 neither tree nor shrub dared raise its head, though the 
 long grasses waved over it in the summer and the wild- 
 flowers bloomed. 
 
 In the little settlement of white men and Esquimaux 
 which crouched on the sand-pit round Pauline Cove every 
 door was barred and every window made taut against the 
 blast roaring down over the shoulder of the low hill behind. 
 Out in the land-locked bay the safest harbour all along 
 the Coast the riding-lights of four of the whaling-fleet 
 swayed and shuddered, driven hard against their moor- 
 ings, and three short miles away the black humps of the 
 mainland mountains showed fitfully as the Northern 
 Lights flickered up and fell back. 
 
 The low, strong log-and-skin huts of the Kogmollock 
 tribe of Esquimaux on the island were dark blots only, 
 like tortoises asleep. The store-houses of the whaling- 
 companies were dark, and in the half-dozen log huts used 
 by occasional officers of the whaling ships when they 
 chose to live ashore, no life showed. Except for the riding- 
 lights in the Bay and the glow from the windows of the 
 Royal North-West Mounted Police Barracks, Herschel 
 Island might well have been a dead thing, accursed and 
 lonely between the frozen Pole and the naked shore. But 
 the life-light of the daring men burned bright there; of 
 the whalers who follow their strike by berg and floe 
 through the teeth of the harsh salt wind and the smoky- 
 spume that it brings, and of the Police of Canada, who 
 plant their flag some four thousand miles north of its 
 
 435
 
 436 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 birth-place and sit down under it to dispense the law of 
 God and of men with all the wit they may. 
 
 Dick turned from the window in Baxter's small private 
 room and came back to warm his hands at the stove 
 where the driftwood shone umber and sky-blue and salty 
 purple. He had been at the Island a fortnight, and he 
 had learned some of the things which he had come for. 
 And his knowledge kept him awake at nights because, for 
 the present, it condemned him to inertia. With Selkirk, 
 one of the two constables under Baxter at the detachment, 
 he had made a long and exhaustive trip east among the 
 Esquimaux on Baillie Island and beyond it, and there he 
 had heard a few stray facts about Grange's Andree. Two 
 Esquimaux of the Nunatalmute tribe the bold and honest 
 hunters and trappers of the mainland had brought her 
 across Mackenzie Bay, and there she had joined a family 
 party going east in one of the great deep-sea umiaks 
 wherein the Esquimaux make their long voyages. Dick 
 had come back to Herschel in disgust. 
 
 " She must have started just about the time the whalers 
 went out," he said. " Were there any going back to San 
 Francisco this year, and would they have taken her aboard 
 supposing they were ? " 
 
 " There's the ' Aida/ Captain Ormundsen. He's got his 
 wife with him, and he was going out if he took whales. 
 He had bad luck last year. And the ' Skagway ' didn't 
 intend winterin' again. Closely was master of her and a 
 bad lot. He'd take Andree just to give us trouble. The 
 ' Fanny ' reckoned to go out, but she's back. Got no 
 whales, and her master persuaded the men to try another 
 season. They're losin' money, an' they'll keep on losin' 
 it, I guess. Likely some of 'em will desert this winter, 
 an' we'll have to hunt 'em. And then there's the ' Rocket.' 
 She aimed to go out; but I guess Jack Scott'll bring her 
 back. He's a Yank, and he'll stick at it till he has to 
 hammer his way home through ice. If Andree went aboard 
 the ' Rocket ' there'll be rows. I remember her in Grey 
 Wolf before your time. She had all the place by the 
 ears then. A wild young devil she was, always. That's 
 the only four as wintered here last year." 
 
 " Ah ! And if Andree has gone out on any of those
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 437 
 
 boats I've got half a continent to cover before I can get 
 at her." 
 
 " Sure. And you likely haven't got her then." 
 
 Dick's laugh was curt. The fight in him was strongly 
 roused by now, and he had small mercy left for Grange's 
 Andree. 
 
 " A chap wrote su'thin' about ' There's never a law of 
 God or man runs north of Fifty-three/" said Baxter. " I 
 guess we have got 'em both up here at Sixty-nine. An' if 
 anyone's wantin' them at Eighty, which is the Pole itself, 
 ain't it, why we'll bring 'em there right away. I reckon 
 our jurisdiction runs that high anyhow. A feller can't get 
 on the far side of British law in these parts." 
 
 Baxter's patrol reached some two hundred and fifty miles 
 south, and as many hundreds east as he could go. Alaskan 
 territory touched it on the west; but he had no. objection to 
 including all the northern latitude there was. Dick smiled. 
 This unemotional sanguine temperament was exactly the 
 stuff needed for Herschel. 
 
 "What have you done with yourself these two years, 
 Baxter ? " he asked. 
 
 "Why I reckon they ain't been so long as I thought. 
 They are the patrols up to Macpherson and around to 
 Xittigazuit, and I went a cruise on the ' Janet ' last year, 
 after whales. Saw a lot o' country and Esquimaux that 
 were new, and got a lot o' new localities fixed in my head. 
 I've been mapping them out in case they're ever wanted. 
 We were over a hundred miles north of the magnetic pole 
 that time, and I tell you right here that the discipline a 
 good master can keep on a whaler isn't far short o' that 
 on a man-o'-war. Then there's the shootin' in spring. 
 Brayne and I had a solid week this year, and I guess we 
 could have got thousands o' duck an' crane an' geese if we'd 
 wanted. There's all the wood to haul from the mainland, 
 for we can't get enough coal in by steamer. An' there are 
 the customs to collect from the whalers, an' rows to kick 
 up if they're caught givin' drink to the natives, or doin' 
 any else that they shouldn't. An' once in a while we have 
 a prisoner, though the Esquimaux don't give much trouble. 
 There was the whaleboat I bought from off the Karnac last 
 year, too. We stove her in on a rock, an' she took a lot
 
 438 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 o* tinkerin* to patch. An' oh, well, I guess we keep busy 
 oneway an* another." 
 
 Dick nodded. Baxter had had the wisdom to count the 
 centre of the world from where his own feet stood instead 
 of some three or four thousand miles to the southward. 
 That stolid nature of his brought its own compensation. 
 Two years of Herschel Island would have driven Dick 
 insane. 
 
 " But you won't be sorry to be going out in the sum- 
 mer? " he asked. 
 
 " Why I guess not." Baxter jerked his thumb at a 
 photograph on the wall near the stove. " That's what's 
 waitin' for me outside," he said. 
 
 Dick looked at the photograph with lazy interest. It 
 showed a homely face of about average intelligence and 
 amiability. But Baxter's voice was deep with an immense 
 pride and reverence. 
 
 " Ah ! " Dick said. " I shouldn't leave her too long, Ser- 
 geant, or you'll find some other fellow has run off with 
 her." 
 
 " Not much." Baxter accepted the compliment with 
 
 abashed delight. " Why, she says " he thrust his hand 
 
 into his tunic, drew it away again, and grinned all over 
 his kindly weather-beaten face. " She'll wait," he said. 
 " I'm not afraid o' losing my Miralma. Why, she writes 
 every week, though she knows I only get mail twice a 
 year. An' I writes lots to her. I tell her all the things 
 I'm thinking about and I do a lot o' thinking up here. 
 Brayne and Selkirk, they're young fellows, an' they like 
 riotin' around. I like thinkin'." 
 
 " What do you think about ? " asked Dick curiously. 
 
 " Oh, everything. Whales, now. They live a thousand 
 years, and they mate once only, for keeps." 
 
 " Dear me." Dick's half-closed eyes flickered open. 
 " I'm afraid you couldn't teach man such constancy. He 
 is civilised." 
 
 " Sometimes," said Baxter, ponderously. " I get to 
 wonderin' if civilisation is all it's cracked up to be." 
 
 "Do you? Why, it has taught us how to evade the 
 harm we do instead of getting caught every time." 
 
 "An' I don't know as that's a very good thing, either."
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 439 
 
 " Ah ! " Dick's lids flickered again. " You are not a 
 sophist, Sergeant." 
 
 " Wliy I guess I'm not exactly certain what that is." 
 
 " Pray your gods you never may be. Have you any 
 gods, though ? " 
 
 " Well I reckon I've been wonderin' that too. My 
 Miralma says I've got to have hers. An' I don't know. 
 Likely I have when I come to think of it. A man does 
 a lot of thinkin' up here, an' she's maybe right. Won- 
 derful what a woman can do wi' a man, now. I get to 
 thinkin' that, too." 
 
 Dick glanced again at the woman on the wall. With 
 that face and that name anything might be expected of 
 Baxter's Miralma anything except teaching a hard-bitten 
 old campaigner like Baxter to get down on his stiff knees 
 before her beliefs. 
 
 " It is wonderful," he assented. " But they corral us 
 with other things besides religion, you know." 
 
 "If you think as she ever tried to get me " 
 
 " Xo, no. I am sure it was mutual attraction. Like to 
 like. I was thinking more of myself than of you just then." 
 
 Baxter grunted, contemplating the strong easy body 
 flung back in the big chair that was made from a cut-down 
 whale-oil barrel. Dick looked very well and vigorous. The 
 hard work and the open air had given him the last hall- 
 mark of health, and if his indifference and cynicism were 
 less carefully veiled than in earlier days Baxter was not 
 the man to notice it. 
 
 Baxter stuffed some more wood into the stove, and 
 shrugged his shoulders as the wind bellowed at the win- 
 dows. 
 
 " Any whaler tryin* to get in to-night'll have to watch 
 out," he said. "Was Selkirk bakin' when you were in the 
 kitchen ? " 
 
 " He was. And Brayne was splicing a shovel-handle. 
 They're a handy pair." 
 
 " They have to be. Do you know what else I've been 
 thinkin'? What my Miralma calls God is not mighty un- 
 like what I call conscience." 
 
 " Really? Not the conscience you have to live with all 
 the year round ? "
 
 440 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Why, now; I guess it's got to be. Conscience is a kind 
 o' standard we got to measure up to whether we like it or 
 not. I learned at school an' it stuck, someway that the 
 first Edward of England made the yard-measure the length 
 o' his own arm. And it stayed put at that. Well, the 
 measure o' right is the standard o' Miralma's Cod's arm, I 
 reckon. And that stays put. We can't monkey any over 
 measurin' cloth. That's a set standard. It don't change 
 because we want a bit o' give an' take sometimes. It stays 
 put. And we can't monkey any with the standard of our 
 conscience. A man knows right enough what he's got to 
 measure up against. He's got the whole three feet of it 
 inside of him." 
 
 " And supposing he has what then ? " 
 
 " Why why ; any ordinary decent man don't generally 
 go doing what he knows he hadn't ought to do." 
 
 " How old are you, Baxter ? " 
 
 " Forty-two, sir." 
 
 Occasionally Baxter forgot the rank which man makes 
 in presence of the rank which birth makes. Dick looked 
 at him through half-shut eyes. 
 
 " Seven years older than I am/' he said, slowly. " You're 
 a lucky man, Sergeant." 
 
 Baxter's eyes went back to the plain-faced woman on 
 the wall. 
 
 " My ! I reckon I know that," he said softly. 
 
 Dick sprang up impatiently, and went over to the win- 
 dow, staring out on the pale wild night where the lights 
 fluttered. Even in the sheltered bay the sea heaved in great 
 masses like ebony, and the wind brought the steady boom of 
 its crashing on the outer rocks. A speck of light like a 
 firefly showed once beyond the harbour mouth, showed 
 again, and Dick spoke. 
 
 " Here's Jack Scott walking the ' Rocket ' home, Bax- 
 ter." 
 
 "What?" Baxter came hurriedly to his elbow. "Why, 
 it is a boat, sure enough. And I guess it's Scott. There 
 ain't too many men would try to make that passage to- 
 night. Eh? She's a five- forty-ton steamer, twin propeller, 
 is the ' Rocket,' and maybe she'll get in, and maybe she 
 won't. If she catches one of those big seas on her she'll go
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?'? 441 
 
 down like a nail under a punch. But she likely had to 
 come. The ice'd be chasing her off the grounds, and Scott 
 won't fool around doing nothing." 
 
 Dick gave no answer. He was watching that light which 
 flared skyward and sank and struggled up again like the 
 fluctuating pulse of a sick man. Jt represented forty or 
 more human lives, and one of those lives might be Grange's 
 Andree. That thought quickened the desire for capture in 
 him, and quickened his imagination also. Suppose Andree 
 were aboard, how would she meet him? Once he had seen 
 her afraid, and he did not want to see that again. He 
 could not think of Andree as crying piteously for mercy. 
 He would not think of it. Rather on this night of wild 
 storm and flying spray could he think of her breasting it; 
 laughing, with her curls blown out and her long coat 
 wrapped round her. There were the same reckless ele- 
 ments in her as in himself. She would defy him; or she 
 would fling herself on him in her all-forgetting love. But 
 she would not cry to him for mercy. He dared not think 
 of that. 
 
 He watched the light die and leap up again and pitch 
 sideways with almost the intensity of belief that it was 
 Andree herself battling her wild, lonely way out there 
 against the storm. Baxter spoke again. 
 
 " I reckon it is the ' Rocket,' safe enough. See her clear 
 that point? He's a cast-iron sailor, is Scott, and he'll 
 bring her in straight as a bullet with destruction all around 
 him. There's not another man in the fleet would dare it 
 on a night like this. My! She's coming." 
 
 "Can I go aboard her with you in the morning, Ser- 
 geant?" 
 
 " Eh? Why were you thinkin' he might have Andree? 
 It's one chance in a hundred, Heriot." 
 
 "More than that. If she went out intending to board a 
 boat she'd do it. And there'd not be more than three or 
 four that didn't mean to winter. There is a good chance 
 that she's on the ' Rocket.' " 
 
 " Well ; it's possible. Anything is possible in this world, 
 I guess. But I won't have you along, Heriot. Maybe I 
 can get her ashore friendly-like. That would be better 
 than doin' the thing in public, I reckon."
 
 J42 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Dick glanced round. Such refinement in regard to 
 Grange's Andree rather amused him. 
 
 " It would be the first time Andree ever objected to 
 publicity," he said. " And you won't get her ashore, Ser- 
 geant. She'll guess you've something up your sleeve. If 
 she's there, I must go as soon as you come back, for fear 
 she gets off in some way." 
 
 Baxter nodded, and in silence the two watched the 
 ' Rocket ' beat near and nearer until she came to anchor at 
 last, riding heavily against the white foam along the har- 
 bour ja\vs. 
 
 Then Dick went to bed. But he did not sleep well. A 
 dozen times he woke to hear the thunder of the wind and 
 the gurgling snores of Baxter in the other bed across the 
 room. Once Selkirk came out of the room opposite and 
 tried the front door where it shuddered and groaned under 
 the smite of the wind, and many times he expected the 
 storm-window to be driven in. Mingled with his uneasy 
 dreams were the faces he knew best. Jennifer, now laugh- 
 ing, now crying, now turning from him. Tempest, stern 
 and aloof, unbending even in his grave self-renunciation. 
 Andree, warm-lipped and glowing with her love, reaching 
 eager hands to him. He woke once with the strange 
 breathless sensation of a kiss stinging his mouth and the 
 blood galloping along his veins. Then he lay still, staring 
 on the darkness, and thinking his bitter thoughts. Jenni- 
 fer had sent him away. Tempest would not accept his 
 friendship any more. Those two whom he loved had chosen 
 to be nothing to him. It was only Andree who held him 
 before pride or conscience or anything else. Only Andree 
 who was ready to fling all she had and was into his hands 
 if he would have taken it. And he had been cruel to her, 
 mercilessly cruel. But her love had been a greater thing 
 than that. 
 
 And then with a sudden stab came the thought: Was 
 her love for him still the chief thing in her life? A chill 
 of dread ran along his body to think that perhaps it was 
 not. In the cold dark of midnight, when a man's will lies 
 weakest, Dick knew that it would be real pain to know that 
 Andree had ceased to love him. He was heart-sick with 
 desire for Jennifer and for Tempest, and they had denied
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 443 
 
 him what he wanted. They had been too cold, too pure for 
 him; and in a savage revulsion of feeling the whole of him 
 cried out for something which cared for him, for his own 
 self, past all laws and creeds and scruples and calculations ; 
 something which would love him whether he were good or 
 evil, whether he were cruel or kind; something which just 
 gave, demanding none of those self-torturing struggles from 
 him. 
 
 This mood held him doggedly through the next morn- 
 ing, when the grey bay tossed restlessly under the clear 
 sky and Baxter went out in the whaleboat with Selkirk and 
 a couple of Esquimaux to the ' Rocket.' Dick helped 
 Brayne wash up and fill the stoves with wood. Then he 
 put on the close-sewn fur coat bought from an old Kog- 
 mollock woman and went down to the shore. 
 
 The smite of the wind tingled his blood at once and red- 
 dened his eyes. He opened his chest to it, walking fast, 
 and glancing round him with those keen eyes which missed 
 so little. 
 
 Outside their low banked-up huts a few Esquimaux were 
 moving with the fur-lined head-covering thrown back from 
 their coarse black hair, tonsured like a monk's, and their 
 good-natured flat greasy faces. They had gone into their 
 winter clothes since he saw them last evening, for their 
 outer coats had the long hair blowing in the wind. On the 
 inner suit the hair was turned next the skin. In the store 
 of the Pacific Steam Whaling Navigation Company some 
 hands off one of the whalers were bringing out beams and 
 joists and planed timber for the roofing-in of their vessel. 
 Dick stopped a little while to watch them. Hard-sinewed 
 men, the most of them, with their loose clothes flapping, 
 and their untamed faces ruddy, and their bright eyes with 
 that far-seeing wildness in them as though they listened 
 still to the call of their lover at sea. They spoke little and 
 sullenly, and he guessed them to be from the ' Fanny ' ; 
 foremast hands who had " signed on bone," and who, be- 
 cause there were no whales and consequently no bone, were 
 going deeper in debt to the steamer every day. Dick re- 
 membered Baxter's suspicion that some of them would try 
 to desert. And, looking at them, he believed it. 
 
 In the harbour the boats still rocked and groaned at
 
 444 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 their hawsers with the tug of the after-swell. The 
 ' Rocket ' drew deeper than any other there ; but she, like 
 the rest, was bluff and broad of beam and flat of keel, so 
 that the ice might lift her and not crush her in its mighty 
 grip. Naked and mournful they looked with their bare 
 poles stabbing the sky and their sheets singing in the wind. 
 The white shaving of smoke from the ' Rocket's ' stack 
 showed that she had not chosen her winter quarters yet, 
 and as Dick watched her, Baxter's boat dropped away 
 from her side and drove shoreward with the men swinging 
 low to the oars. Dick went down to the very lip of the 
 water and looked. There was no woman in the boat. But 
 that told nothing. It was not Baxter who was to take 
 Grange's Andree from her stronghold. 
 
 The boat swung near, dipping deep in the restless swell. 
 Baxter stepped out, answering the question in Dick's eyes. 
 
 " She's there," he said briefly. Then he took Dick a few 
 steps aside. " She's there," he said again, and his voice 
 was uneven. " Heriot, you never told me she'd turned out 
 the lovely thing she is. I remember her thin and brown, 
 and even then Well, she's got them all crazy for her, of 
 course. And they can't do anything with her, not a man 
 of 'em. She goes around with a knife in her belt, and they 
 dassent touch her. Have it into them like light, she would, 
 and they know it. My ! And that makes them the crazier. 
 She is a beauty, and this is a bitter, cruel thing you've got 
 to do, Heriot. A bitter cruel thing." 
 
 Dick smiled a little. He knew so well that wild animal 
 indifference and temper and defiance in Andree. And she 
 carried a knife, did she? Would she try to use it on him, 
 or would she come to him as before, with her hands out 
 and the gladness in her eyes? 
 
 " Jack Scott's clean off his head," said Baxter. " He 
 wanted to take her out the worst way, but the ice caught 
 him. I'll go along with you now, Heriot, for she'll be a 
 handful of herself if she don't want to come, and I wouldn't 
 answer for Scott the way he is. You've got your warrant, 
 supposin' he wants to see it? It's his ship, you know. 
 Well get in. Push her off, Selkirk; we're goin' out to the 
 ' Rocket ' again." 
 
 " Does he know she's wanted ? "
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 445 
 
 " No. You'll have to tell him that. Poor devil. I guess 
 he's sorry he ever took her aboard. She's rnakin' him 
 sweat for it. You watch out, Dick. One can raise out 
 most fellows on a bluff, but a man in love is the devil to 
 meddle with." 
 
 Dick knew this for a certainty when he peered in at the 
 cabin door over Baxter's shoulder, and saw Scott with his 
 elbows on the table, and his eyes on Andree where she sat 
 on the transom under the port-hole. In the light of the 
 deck he had stumbled among half-scraped bone, barrels 
 and trying-out pots, flenching-knives and tubs of blubber. 
 Here, in the gloom, the two men and the one girl at the 
 table showed palely. And then Andree thrust her face for- 
 ward at Baxter. 
 
 " You needn't have come back. I will not go ashore for 
 any man," she cried. 
 
 "Won't you come for me, Andree?" said Dick, and 
 stepped out of the dark. Andree sprang up with eyes di- 
 lated and colour suddenly struck from her cheeks. Dick 
 heard the men move, but his eyes did not leave Andree. 
 Did she know what he had come for? Did she know? " 
 
 " Dick ! " she screamed sharply. " Dick ! " 
 
 She put her foot on the transom and hurled herself 
 across the table; tripping and stumbling among the cups 
 and cutlery, laughing and crying in a breath. 
 
 Dick caught her reaching arms and lifted her down, 
 holding her still. 
 
 " Steady," he said. " Steady, Andree." 
 
 But his own voice was not steady. Not at this moment 
 could he forget what she, in her utter abandon, had come 
 to him for. 
 
 Scott was round the end of the table now, with his square 
 face distorted by passion. 
 
 "Take your hands off her," he said thickly. "Take 
 them off, will you? " 
 
 The light in Andree's eyes had blurred Baxter for a mo- 
 ment. He wondered if Dick had known of this. He 
 touched Scott on the shoulder. 
 
 " Be careful," he said quietly. " Don't you see his 
 uniform? " 
 
 Dick had stooped his head down to Andree.
 
 446 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Do you know what I've come for, Andree? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, oui ; " Andree shrugged her shoulders impatiently. 
 " I suppose. Mais I knew it would be you to find me. 
 And it was you ! " 
 
 She laughed in that light-hearted spirit which never let 
 her see beyond the moment. And then Scott thrust Baxter 
 aside. The intended hint had not reached him. He was 
 swept beyond everything but his love and jealousy, and he 
 put his hand on Andree's arm. 
 
 " Let her be," he said loudly. " She's my passenger 
 aboard my ship, and I won't have her interfered with. Get 
 away out of here. I'm an American citizen, and I don't 
 care a cold cent for you or your uniform or that damned 
 law of yours behind it! Get off my ship. Get away out 
 of here ! " 
 
 Dick half-turned, swinging Andree swiftly behind him. 
 
 " Leave him to me, Sergeant," he said ; and Baxter un- 
 derstood. For many reasons reasons which were beyond 
 those which Baxter knew this was Dick's business only. 
 
 Scott's face was dead-white and his eyes were wild. He 
 tried to pass Dick, but the policeman's solid bulk and su- 
 perior height blocked him. 
 
 " What are you here for ? " he shouted. " What do you 
 want you ! " 
 
 " Would you like to know ? " The smile on Dick's lips 
 tightened. " Look at this then. No you won't touch it." 
 
 Scott glanced over the warrant. He gave a deep groan, 
 like a man struck in the chest, and he staggered as though 
 he had been struck. 
 
 " You you can't mean to do that ? " he faltered. " You 
 can't mean to do that? " 
 
 " Possibly my uniform and my law mean more than a 
 cold cent to me," suggested Dick; and Scott looked straight 
 at him. 
 
 " You devil ! " he said. 
 
 The set smile was on Dick's face still. Keeling, the 
 mate, came forward. 
 
 " What's he giving you, Cap'n ? " he asked. 
 
 The question roused Scott again. 
 
 " Why didn't she tell me ! " he cried. " Andree, Andree ; 
 why didn't you tell me! And I'd have taken you out if I'd 
 lost half my catch over it. Ah Andree ! "
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 447 
 
 Again he tried to pass Dick, and could not. Keeling 
 leaned back against the table with his hands in his 
 pockets. 
 
 "Murder?" he asked of Baxter with uplifted brows. 
 Baxter nodded, and Keeling laughed a little harsh laugh. 
 
 " Stewed in your own gravy, Cap'n," he said. " You 
 wouldn't let me touch her, and now you've lost her your- 
 self." 
 
 Dick looked at him with interest. 
 
 " I wish it was you I had to deal with, my man," he 
 murmured. " Captain Scott, I apologise for my intrusion, 
 but I have my duty to perform. I must remove the pris- 
 oner at once." 
 
 Scott straightened up and his white, rigid face was dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 " We are two men to two," he said. " I don't care what 
 uniform you wear, or what warrant you carry. You shall 
 not have her. I'll call the whole ship out before I let you 
 take her." 
 
 " I don't think that the gentleman behind you intends to 
 endanger his life in a quarrel of this sort. You had better 
 be wise, Captain Scott. There are always more where we 
 come from, you know." 
 
 Scott glanced at Keeling and glanced away again. It 
 was as Dick had said. The odds were three to one. 
 
 " Will you fight me for her? " he asked. 
 
 " I wish I could," said Dick sincerely. " You're a 
 straight man, sir, and I'd be happy to oblige you. But it 
 is against my orders, and you can only get yourself ar- 
 rested if you interfere." 
 
 " You mean to take her for this ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Does she know it?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But she " He was silent a moment, thinking. 
 
 Then he sprang straight at Dick. " She loves you," he 
 cried. " She loves you, you blackguard, and you can do 
 this to her ! " 
 
 Dick met him as promptly, and the two men grappled. 
 It was a short struggle, but a very sharp one. For though 
 Dick was the taller and the heavier, Scott had courage and 
 plenty of science. But it was the tumult of his own hearfi
 
 448 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 that played the traitor with him, and in a little he reeled 
 back, clutching at the table with both hands, and shaking 
 and giddy with the uneven breaths he drew. Keeling had 
 watched with sullen pleasure in his eyes. He had more 
 than one grudge against Scott. And Andree had watched 
 in unabashed delight. She always gloried to see men flung 
 off their balance for her, and she always rejoiced to see 
 them fight. Scott found his breath at last. 
 
 " You mean to do it ? " he gased. 
 
 Dick pulled his tunic down and settled his belt. 
 
 " I do not change my mind," Captain Scott," he said. 
 
 " I am not a soft man," said Scott slowly. " But 
 He lifted himself, fastening his eyes on Dick. " You speak 
 of your duty," he said. " Your duty ! A man's duty is to 
 protect a woman, and not to hunt her down for death. I 
 can't keep her. I can't fight the three of you. And I'll let 
 you take her if she has to go because it will bring you worse 
 luck than anything you've ever done in all your life. You'll 
 never see Heaven, but maybe we'll meet in Hell and figure 
 out the end of this. Let me speak to her." 
 
 Dick moved aside, and Scott held his hand out to Andree. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said. " I'd have saved you if you'd told 
 me. Did you think you'd have shocked me? My girl, I 
 love you the better for your pluck. Tell me that you never 
 hated me, Andree." 
 
 Andree's cheeks were bright and her eyes dancing. She 
 veiled them a moment with her long lashes, and looked up 
 with the half-shy swiftness which had been fatal to so many 
 before Scott's day. 
 
 " Mais non," she whispered. " I did like you. But I 
 like Dick more better. 
 
 " You know what he is taking you for ? " 
 
 Andree pulled her hand from Scott's, and slid it into 
 Dick's. 
 
 " He is Dick," she said simply. 
 
 Scott looked keenly into the other man's face. Then he 
 swung on his heel. 
 
 " Take her," he said. " I'd rather be Andree than your- 
 self, and so would you. But you've got to be yourself, and 
 I guess that's going to give you all you want before you're 
 through."
 
 449 
 
 He passed into his cabin, shut the door, and locked it. 
 Dick and Baxter took Andree back to the barracks. But, 
 an hour later, when Andree sat in Baxter's little room, 
 mending a net and singing her soft French songs over it, 
 Baxter saw Dick climbing the little slope that led up the 
 wind-swept plateau beyond. It was dark when he came 
 back, and the cool indifference of his manner wa un- 
 changed. But Baxter knew. 
 
 " That fellow is goin' to be tried-out hard before he's 
 done wi' Grange's Andree," he told himself. 
 
 Day by day the long fierce billows of the Arctic bowed 
 their old grey-bearded heads lower before the march of the 
 ice. Day by day Dick fretted to be gone, and waited for 
 the snow, and helped Baxter in his round of duties, and 
 looked after Andree. She obeyed Dick implicitly, with a 
 frank delight. But she was a torment to the other men, 
 and Baxter said no more than he felt when he one night 
 expressed a belief that Andree would probably knife Sel- 
 kirk directly as she had done Ogilvie. 
 
 " Did she tell you she'd killed Ogilvie ? " said Dick 
 sharply. 
 
 " Sure. Last night. He cheeked her, she said, an* she 
 wasn't goin' to stand it. Wonderful what she takes from 
 you." He raised himself, looking keenly at Dick. "If 
 one could give a chap a warnin'," he began. 
 
 " One can't." Dick's tone was final. " Selkirk tells me 
 we'll all be on half-rations directly. Is that so? " 
 
 " Why there are four boats in that didn't mean to win- 
 ter. We'll have all we want of fish and seal-meat, o' course, 
 but we're going to suffer in the groceries. And I've got to 
 keep a reserve, you know. The kiddies would peter out in 
 a week if we fed them with oil and meat only. They've got 
 too accustomed to flour and sugar and tea now." 
 
 " I'm afraid I'll have to beg enough to carry me to 
 Macpherson. I fancy we should get off in a couple of 
 days, now. Yes. I'll be glad. Damned glad. I want to 
 be doing something." 
 
 He went out with a restlessness which he rarely showed, 
 and followed Andree down to Ek-ki-do's igloo, where she 
 went daily to play with the children. It was not needful 
 to put Andree under restraint. Her love for him was the
 
 450 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 chain which bound her fast, and he knew it. He had had 
 reason to know it more acutely than ever during these past 
 weeks. 
 
 Outside the earth-and-timber shaft Dick dropped on his 
 knees, and crawled painfully through an odorous darkness 
 into a tiny room where he could not stand upright and 
 across to a larger one where Andree rolled with a couple 
 of Kogmollock babies among the deerskin robes, on the lit- 
 tle platform which ran round the walls. The very dim 
 light came through a piece of transparent yellow seal-blad- 
 der stretched across a gap in the roof, and the whole place 
 was hot and extremely rank with oil and fish-smells. But 
 Andree was laughing in merry peals of joy among the ba- 
 bies, while the little fat mother sat on the floor stitching 
 neatly at a deer-skin tunic. 
 
 " Hallo, Andree," said Dick, and stood up as Andree 
 tumbled the chuckling bundles aside and pushed her curls 
 back. 
 
 " Dick," she cried. " It is that I will have a deer-skin 
 suit, moi. Je ne peux to mush in a skirt, and I will not. 
 I will have a parka and all else comme c,a. Like to Mrs. 
 Ek-ki-do. And we will have the seal-skin boots, my Dick, 
 and I will chew them pour vous when that they do get too 
 hard." 
 
 " You will what? " 
 
 " Chew them." Andree pointed to Mrs. Ek-ki-do. " She 
 does chew her husband's boots tous les jours all round 
 the sole to keep them soft. And my teeth are all so good 
 as hers." 
 
 " I know. You bit me once. I will see about the clothes, 
 Andree, because I have been thinking that we will need 
 something of the kind. And I'll chew my own boots if 
 it's necessary, thank you. But I fancy it won't be. It is 
 time to come back to barracks, Andree." 
 
 " But kiss this bebe the once. She is so dear," said An- 
 dree, and lifted the black-eyed, broad-faced little bundle 
 with her strong young grace. 
 
 Dick's eyes contracted. Among children Grange's An- 
 dree was at her very sweetest until she tired of 
 them.
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 451 
 
 "Like a Japanese doll, isn't she?" he said. "Or one 
 of Moosta's babies." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Andree in sharp passion. " Do not say 
 to me of Moosta's babies." 
 
 She was out of the igloo and across the beach before 
 Dick could follow her, and in the barrack-kitchen he found 
 her quarrelling heatedly with Brayne. But that incident 
 in Mrs. Ek-ki-do's igloo haunted him for some days. For 
 many years he had tried to teach himself Nietszche's new 
 commandment, " Be hard ; " but, because of the irration- 
 alism which he recognised, his strength there was always 
 likely to be shaken at the unexpected call on it. 
 
 Ten days later came Dick's last night at Herschel, and 
 he felt a curious and uneasy reluctance at leaving it. All 
 the afternoon he had been on the wind-swept plateau with 
 Brayne and Selkirk, sawing out the great blocks of ice 
 from the fresh-water lake for storage in the ice-house until 
 summer came, and his last sight of the dead white Polar 
 sea from it had brought him down shivering with more 
 than cold. For the first time he had a distinct dread of this 
 long journey which was surely likely to be no worse than 
 many which he had taken before. 
 
 By the stove in Baxter's little room Andree was putting 
 floats on a small net with which she intended to catch fish 
 in the Mackenzie. She sang as she worked, and her face 
 was lit with anticipation. Dick knew that on himself only, 
 the product of a refined civilisation, lay the horrors of that 
 anticipation. Andree never attempted to realise a thing 
 until she came to it, and seldom then. She would never 
 have run from justice if the breed who had brought her 
 word of something Ducane had once said had not urged 
 it, for she had quite forgotten the fear which possessed her 
 at the time of the trial. She forgot quickly as an animal 
 does, and far more completely, because her eager ignorant 
 mind always flung itself fully on the next new thing. This 
 long mush through the half-dark of an Arctic winter, with 
 only Dick beside her for the most part, would be some- 
 thing new and strange and altogether delightful. 
 
 " Bec-a-bec ; et toi, et moi," 
 she hummed. Then she glanced up.
 
 452 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " Je me sers votre couteau, Dick/' she cried. " You no 
 mind? Tres bien. I did myself out with it, too. Do you 
 know -what make happen to me with Maktuk this afternoon 
 when we go to shoot seals round the blow-hole? It was so 
 much cold, and the parka collar would not keep up round 
 my face. And Maktuk he did make spit on the two sides 
 and hold them togezzer. Dieu ! They freeze like one dans 
 un moment. And they had to hold me the fire over to melt 
 me when I come back. I did laugh." 
 
 Baxter laughed also, going on with his careful setting- 
 out of native births, deaths, and marriages; his tabulation 
 of the tonnage, names of officers, and of boats in the Bay; 
 his details of patrols, of the few white men hunting or 
 prospecting along the Arctic, and of the state of health and 
 contentment of the settlement. All these data were to go 
 south with Dick, and also a little package of letters and 
 native carvings for Baxter's Miralma. 
 
 " I guess they know a thing or two," he said. " And I 
 guess reports are a mighty different thing to what they 
 must ha' been at Herschel before the missionaries and us 
 came along. Drinkin', an' all sorts o' rows with the 
 whalers, an' no law or religion anywhere at all. And now 
 those Kogmollocks hold their services among themselves 
 regular, and every boat's crew has to be aboard by ten 
 o'clock, and no drinkin* allowed. This sort o* thing's a 
 satisfaction to man, I reckon." 
 
 " Exactly. And so is the knowledge that we ultimately 
 convert the heathen by killing them out. There are about 
 one hundred and twenty Kogmollocks now, aren't there? 
 And much the same of Nunatalmutes ? A few years ago 
 there were four hundred Kogmollocks. Oh, we will con- 
 vert them all right, Baxter, for that is the way in which we 
 conquer our territories. We can't do much with the Arctic 
 when we get it all to ourselves without a native left to it. 
 But we will get it. That is the glory of Empire. And we 
 can't do without Empire." 
 
 " But it is better for them to be converted " began 
 
 Baxter vaguely. 
 
 " Indubitably. Perhaps the Esquimaux consider measles 
 and whooping cough rather drastic missionaries. But that
 
 "YOU MEAN TO DO IT?" 453 
 
 it not our fault. We do our best. We have always said so. 
 What time does Selkirk expect to start in the morning? " 
 
 Selkirk was taking the police dog-team up to Fort Mac- 
 pherson for supplies, if any could be spared from there ; 
 and Dick, with his long strong sled and specially-picked 
 line of huskies, expected to keep pace with him so far. For 
 he was an expert musher, and Andree was unusually strong 
 for a girl. 
 
 " D'rectly after breakfast. You ought to make Mac- 
 pherson in ten or eleven sleeps, I guess. Likely you'll put 
 in a day or two there ? " 
 
 " Not longer than necessary to get loaded up again 
 unless Andree happens to be fagged at all." 
 
 He broke off, and both men looked at Grange's Andree 
 where she sat on the Polar bear rug with the fire from the 
 open stove dancing on her warm oval cheeks and her slen- 
 der busy hands. 
 
 " Dans les prisons des Nantes," 
 
 she sang, and Baxter's eyes caught Dick's for a moment. 
 Then he went back to his work with his hard, wooden face 
 reddening with pity. 
 
 And the pity was not altogether, nor even in chief, for 
 Andree.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 " THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE " 
 
 THE thin-gnawed rind of a red sun showed just above the 
 horizon in the South. It lifted little higher in these days 
 of the silky swishing and the colourless glearn of the North- 
 ern Lights possessed the world for all but three hours 
 of mid-winter, and the strange pallor of a long night full 
 daily. 
 
 Andree stopped in the trail and turned to look at that 
 red curve before it dropped again. She could look straight 
 into it without blinking, and Dick watched her as she stood, 
 drawn to her full height, with the hood pushed back from 
 her face. The world was colourless, motionless, sound- 
 less. In a little while their breath would begin to crackle 
 with the frost as it had done last night. Just now the two, 
 heated through a long march without a pause, were glad to 
 stand a moment to take breath again. 
 
 In the lines the huskies leaned forward, ears pricked and 
 tongues dripping. To the south a yellow snow-cloud 
 banked up toward the zenith. Against the wide sweep of 
 snow Andree's small young figure stood lithe and vigorous, 
 instinct with life. But her face was sad: sadder than Dick 
 had seen it since he came to her in the cabin of the 
 " Rocket." 
 
 " What is it, Andree ? " he said, and she moved instantly, 
 smiling at him. 
 
 " I did wonder this place where there is no life and no 
 light is this what it will be like to be dead, Dick? " 
 
 He came very close to her and took her hand. 
 
 " Do you often think of that, Andree? " he asked. 
 
 " Non. Oh, non. I cannot think all the to-morrows, 
 they are too many. But it seemed so, perhaps." 
 
 "Forget about it;" he patted her hand gently. "The 
 
 454 
 
 <
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 455 
 
 sun will come again to-morrow, you know. And we will 
 see it more every day as we go south." 
 
 " But it is not the sun I did know. And these are not 
 the same stars, Dick." 
 
 " I know. But we will get back to them again." 
 
 " Oh, oui," she said. And then she looked at Selkirk 
 and the fat Esquimaux boy swinging ahead round the bend 
 in the river. " It is to-night that we make arrive to 
 Fort Macpherson?" she asked. 
 
 " To-night. Unless you stand here too long. Are you 
 tired, Andree? You are such a splendid musher that I 
 sometimes forget you're only a girl." 
 
 " I am not tired." She looked at him gravely, with that 
 last red light on her face. " I do not know what it is, 
 parceque je suis tres content. I did not think ever in my 
 life to have you near me for so long time, Dick. What 
 you want to put your hand up that way for? " 
 
 " You are so very pretty that I think I am afraid of your 
 blinding me, Andree." 
 
 The joy shown over her face suddenly. Her eyes 
 sparkled, and she laughed, putting her hands up against his 
 neck. 
 
 " Ma foi ! " she cried. " I am glad. Now I do forget 
 that ever I hated you. I want to be so pretty always when 
 you do look at me, Dick." 
 
 " Don't ! Take your hands down ! I have told you be- 
 fore not to touch me ! " 
 
 She let him go instantly. 
 
 " Eh, bien," she said, with a little sigh, and Dick looked 
 at her, frowning. 
 
 " Why are you always obedient to me and not to the 
 others ? " he said. 
 
 " Why if I am good perhaps one day you will love me 
 and kiss me again if I am good," she said. 
 
 In that fast-fading light he took her face between his 
 hands, turning it up to him. 
 
 " You have broken very many men in your time," he 
 said. " Do you want to break me, too, Grange's Andree? " 
 
 " I want you to kiss me again," she said simply. 
 
 " And can't you understand that if I did No. I can't
 
 456 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 kiss you any more. And I can't wait here any more or 
 we'll freeze. Come on. It will be late now before we get 
 to the Fort." 
 
 The sun went down, and through the long pale dusk 
 which is not like any light anywhere else they swung for- 
 ward with the sturdy little huskies trotting strongly. The 
 smell of far-off snow was in the air, damping the ringing 
 chill of the frost. The pallid width of the river seemed 
 rimless, and ahead vague ghostly shadows danced and ran 
 as the Lights overhead flickered up and sank back. And 
 then, on the naked bank of the Peel, came the red glow 
 of the lights of Fort Macpherson. 
 
 Hensham prided himself on his even temper, but he was 
 upset that night. 
 
 " It's a a devilish thing that you've got to do, Heriot," 
 he said. " Ton my soul, I don't know how you have the 
 heart to stand up to it." 
 
 From the big chair by Hensham's stove Dick looked up 
 in amused mockery. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked. 
 
 "Why?" Hensham exploded. "Lord, man; she's 
 lovely. And that way she has of " 
 
 " I see. Sin is only sin in the old and ugly. Therefore 
 Guinevere didn't sin. Helen didn't sin. Judith didn't sin. 
 Salome perhaps we may grant a little license to Salome. 
 She did as her mother told her. But I see your drift " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean/' began Hensham, redden- 
 ing. 
 
 " No? But I know what you mean. We don't inter- 
 pret the person through the sin, you see. We are too apt 
 to interpret the sin through the person. That is one of 
 the fundamental faults in what someone describes as ' this 
 psychological adventure called man.' We let Romance run 
 away with us. Because a woman is pretty she can't be 
 wicked." 
 
 " You know I don't mean that. But this isn't quite the 
 same thing " 
 
 " That particular case never is. And every case is the 
 particular case, isn't it? Hensham?" 
 
 " Good Lord," said Hensham, walking through the room, 
 heatedly. " Haven't you a heart in your body at all, 
 man ? "
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 457 
 
 " That is my own private business, isn't it ? " 
 
 " The deuce knows." Hensham looked at him gloomily, 
 " I doubt if any one thing on earth is a man's private 
 business only." 
 
 " It is until he is weak enough to show that he possesses 
 that thing," said Dick; and a little later, in his own room, 
 he said it again, with a laugh of contempt at himself. For 
 he had been using these arguments on himself very often 
 of late, and he knew the value of them. 
 
 Two mornings after Andree came to the door of his 
 room and talked to him as he twisted and knotted the 
 thongs of his outer moccasins. She was all ready for the 
 continuance of the journey, and animation sparkled in her 
 as she chattered, taking no heed of his curt replies. At 
 last she ran to him, sliding her arms about him as he 
 stooped. 
 
 "I do love you," she whispered. "Dick, Dick; je 
 t'aime. Ah! Je t'aime." 
 
 His hands ceased their work. He did not move. 
 
 " You know how cruel I am being to you, Andree," he 
 said. 
 
 " Bien ! C'est toi. If you do make it so still it is 
 you," she said. 
 
 He was silent for a moment. Then he lifted her off 
 and stood upright, looking out straight before him. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked. Then she touched him, half- 
 frightened. " Dick? Is it that you are seeck?" 
 
 " No." He looked at her sharply, and then looked away 
 again. "No. I was just deciding something, Andree." 
 
 " And is it now made sure? " she asked. 
 
 He looked at her again, speaking slowly. 
 
 " Yes," he said. It is now made sure." 
 
 Hensham himself went with them to the edge of the win- 
 ter portage into Arctic Red River. 
 
 " You'll do it easily in the day," he said. " Only thirty- 
 five miles, and the trail tramped already. You certainly 
 have a first-class team, too." 
 
 His friendliness seemed forced, and he was in haste to be 
 gone. Dick watched him swing over the snow-hummocks 
 that hid the little naked houses of the Fort, and then he 
 turned to Andree with a smile. 
 
 " You must follow me very closely and not talk at all
 
 458 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 for a while/' he said. " For we are going round past Mac- 
 pherson again, and on to the winter trail to Dawson, An- 
 dree." 
 
 " Why ? " she asked, half-startled. 
 
 " Because I can't take you to Fort Saskatchewan," he 
 said, in sudcTen passion. " I can't do it. I cannot ' make 
 it so.' No man could with your face near him. I will 
 get you through the Yukon somehow, and bury myself 
 at the same time." 
 
 " But one cannot be bury while one is live." 
 
 " Oh, yes, one can. Plenty of men are buried while they 
 $re alive. What are you looking like that for? " 
 
 " I do not like you with that talk in your voice," she 
 Bald. 
 
 He drew her to him and kissed her. 
 
 " Is that better ? Now mush, Andree. Quick. I must 
 get out of sight of Macpherson as soon as possible." 
 
 He winced as he said the words. They drove his posi- 
 tion home to him so sharply. For the rest of his life 
 now he would have to get out of sight of all things which 
 represented law and order as soon as possible. 
 
 Keeping in the shelter of the little rough snow-hummocks 
 and the sparse vegetation they crossed the Peel; passed the 
 barracks again, and struck on to the Peel Portage which 
 led by wild and rugged mountain ways into the Yukon. 
 Dick knew the entrance of the Portage only, and the later 
 trail not at all. But he had a good map and a compass, 
 and it was almost certain that he could pick up an Indian 
 as guide later on, even if he should lose the trail, which 
 was not likely. He had a genius for finding his way, 
 and there were reasons now why he should not make any 
 mistakes. He had plenty of provisions, and he and Andree 
 were in perfect health. Therefore, there was no danger 
 to be feared except from the barracks. He smiled grimly 
 as he swung along, breaking trail with a heavy lurching 
 step. Hensham might talk windily enough; but he was 
 not the man to fling away reputation and position to do 
 this thing which Dick was now doing. But there was no 
 pride in Dick that he was doing it. He went on with face 
 set and strong, lunging steps, making his stops short and 
 infrequent. He knew that he dared not stop. He dared
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 459 
 
 not think. And yet, despite himself, that keen, unflagging 
 brain of his would think. 
 
 He believed that he had faced this matter fully enough 
 in that until the future becomes the present, he had not 
 realised the last two months. Now he knew, as every man 
 knows, what it meant to him. The fire of Andree's words 
 and her beauty maddened his hot blood, and he knew that 
 it would do so again. And he knew that the chill of com- 
 mon-sense would continue to thrust in between, congealing 
 that hot blood as it was doing now. What was it that he 
 meant to do? Why did he mean to do it? Andree would 
 never understand; never realise. She swung after him as 
 unconcernedly now as she had done all the way up from 
 Herschel. Life meant no more to her than the day. 
 Death meant no more. It was a vague thing which she 
 would not think of ; which she could not think of because all 
 greatness had no meaning for her. She was stupid, utterly 
 and entirely stupid, and he knew it. And those mocking 
 words which he had said to Hensham about her beauty 
 were true, and he knew that also. 
 
 Without that inconsequent alluring wild-wood bloom of 
 her no man would ever have looked twice at Grange's An- 
 dree. He would not. If Andree had been like Moosta to 
 look at he would not be doing this now. Life had hardened 
 him too much through the work which he had had to do 
 for ordinary pity to obscure his judgment. 
 
 What was controlling him now? It was not pity. It 
 was not love. It was not a sense of justice. It was just 
 that lawless call of the will-o'-the-wisp again. It was the 
 old breakdown. That it would not be for more than the 
 moment he knew well.. There was neither rule nor con- 
 vention in this world would ever bind Grange's Andree. 
 And he would not keep her with him and guard her. He 
 knew himself too well to think that. And if he let her go 
 what was there for her then? Tempest had said: " I hold 
 you responsible for her till the end of time." Tempest 
 had said: "Death will be easier for her than life." If 
 Tempest who loved her had chosen so for her; if the 
 natural law of punishment for crime had chosen so for her, 
 by what right did he interfere? 
 
 He tramped on, breaking trail grimly, with the dull dusk
 
 460 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 shoulders. He did not notice the snow. He was seeing 
 into his heart with that piercing self-knowledge which sel- 
 dom failed him, although he as seldom walked by its light. 
 He had never had anything but contempt for the man who 
 dared not face the sting in order to snatch the honey of life. 
 He had known keenly what he meant to give up for Jenni- 
 fer. But the whole of his mind and body was eager and re- 
 solved to do it. He was giving these things up now for 
 Grange's Andree. He was wrecking his life for no great 
 all-conquering passion; no sense of justice; no honest un- 
 selfishness. He was doing it because he was weak ; because 
 there was nothing in the core of him which could stand 
 against idle temptation. 
 
 The snow thickened. It hung on his eyelashes, half- 
 blinding him. The trail was growing more hilly and rough, 
 and night was closing in with a bleak wind. But not once 
 in the short halts which he made did he speak to the girl 
 behind him. She did not mind. That kiss had filled up 
 her world for her again, and she would have trod after 
 him beside the dogs until weariness forced her to her 
 knees. She wanted nothing but the sight of those broad, 
 straight-held shoulders and the memory of that kiss on her 
 mouth. 
 
 Where a few snow-heavy pines made a thicker blurr close 
 at hand Dick stopped with a jerk, suddenly realising the 
 world around him again. 
 
 "We must camp here, Andree," he said shortly, and be- 
 gan to break the branches, knocking the snow out of them, 
 and kicking it aside from the earth. He spoke little that 
 night, and repulsed all Andree's overtures. And long af- 
 ter Andree had curled herself in her deerskin robes at the 
 back of the tent Dick sat with his back against the sled 
 and watched the smoky fire and thought. 
 
 His work seemed hateful to him now. The past in which 
 he had loved Jennifer and Tempest seemed hateful. He 
 wanted to cut himself free from it as he had done with 
 other pasts. Against the whirling snow Tempest's face 
 shaped itself, with the square strong forehead and the 
 sword of justice in his eyes. He laughed at it. Through 
 his effort to help Tempest this tangle had come around his 
 tfeet. Who was Tempest to interfere with him now? And
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 461 
 
 if Jennifer had loved and trusted him as Andree did he 
 would not be here. Who was she to interfere with him 
 now ? Then he suddenly realised that she did not interfere. 
 She seemed very far-off and dim. The sound of her voice, 
 the personality of her, the very features of her face eluded 
 him when, with a start of half-alarm, he tried to fix them 
 in his mind as clearly as they had always lived there. At 
 each effort they evaded him more completely. He knew 
 how common such lapses of memory are. He knew that 
 the strain of his mind and the weariness of his body were 
 partly accountable. And yet, with that elusive supersti- 
 tion which moves more or less in every man's blood, he 
 felt that it was a final thing. He had denied and defied 
 her, and she had left him. 
 
 He got up, walking out of the tent to take the snow on 
 his face. The huskies, curled nose to tail, glanced up, 
 bright-eyed. But he did not see them. 
 
 "Jennifer!" he cried, and the word fell dead without 
 meaning. " Jennifer ! " he said again. And then he stood 
 still with hands clenched up. 
 
 Ever since he had left her he had fought the hold which 
 she had on him. He had cursed it and defied it, mad with 
 himself because he loved her still. And now she had gone. 
 She had gone. His tired, half-dizzy brain fumbled with 
 the thought. He flung his hands out. " By God," he said. 
 " I have got to go back to you again. I have got to go 
 back to you, Jennifer ! " 
 
 In the yellow morning the snow fell still. The trail by 
 which they had come would be half obliberated already. 
 But it never would be obliterated in his mind. There was 
 feverish haste in him now to turn back. And then, as he 
 came from the tent, Andree met him brilliant-eyed and 
 brilliant-cheeked. 
 
 "Ah, Dick. I did dream you were away," she cried, 
 and flung her arms close round his neck. " I do love you. 
 I do love you," she whispered. For a moment Dick stood 
 still, with eyes set and face white. Then he freed himself, 
 stepping back with a little smile. 
 
 " I wonder what you would think if you knew what it is 
 that you love, Grange's Andree," he said. " Supposing 
 that you could ever think or ever know or ever love, per-*
 
 462 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 haps. And I wonder what you will say when I tell you 
 that we must go back to Fort Saskatchewan after all." 
 
 She went red, then white. His repulse had roused her 
 temper, and fury and terror swept her like the wind on a 
 harp. 
 
 " I will not/' she screamed. " I will not. You can 
 make me keel, but I will not." 
 
 He moved past her and began to kick up the tent-pegs. 
 
 " Get your things together/' he said. " And be quick." 
 
 " I will not," she screamed again. 
 
 He made no answer. He struck the tent, rolled it, and 
 stowed the cooking-box and the shovel and axe on the sled. 
 The snow blew in his face, and the trail would be lessen- 
 ing each moment, and in this heavy storm he could see no 
 land-marks. Andree stood with her blue hands clenched 
 up, and the snow wet on her face. Then she hurled her- 
 self down full-length, sobbing, and beating the snow into 
 spray about her. Dick left his work and went to her, rec- 
 ognising grimly that just retribution had caught him very 
 soon. But it was long before he could get her on her feet, 
 because he would not employ the only method which she 
 wanted. Wisdom told him to stay in camp until the storm 
 broke. Irritated temper told him that he could not sit still 
 for twenty or thirty hours with Andree. He got away at 
 last, with Andree beside the sled. She snapped at him 
 like a husky when he spoke to her, and he went to the 
 lead in silence. Among the pines and the rough spurs 
 the winding trail was difficult to follow. Drifts blocked it; 
 and the wind which he had kept on his left cheek began 
 to blow in whirlwinds round them, and the trail was gone. 
 But he would not believe that he could lose himself on 
 this comparatively easy piece of track, and until the dogs 
 were too weary to go further he plodded on in the deepen- 
 ing snow, making camp at last almost, as he guessed, within 
 sight of Macpherson. 
 
 Utter exhaustion and sullen anger kept them both silent 
 that night, and Dick slept like a log, waking sometimes in 
 the dim half-light which was all the day gave now. For, 
 though south from Herschel by more than two hundred 
 miles, they were still well within the Arctic Circle, and at 
 Herschel the sun would have ceased to lift above the
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 463 
 
 horizon at all. The dark snow-shadow was lessened by 
 the strong bitter wind that tore through it; and Dick went 
 out, swaying against the blast, and drawing his furs tight 
 round him, to take his bearings. In the unearthly pallor 
 everything looked unnatural. But to Dick it was worse 
 than that. It was unfamiliar. These hooded shapes romuJ 
 him were higher ranges than he had passed ; the deep ravine 
 on his left was new; and endless misty slope up which he 
 had probably come in last night's storm was not on the 
 Macphersan trail. At some sharp bend in the trail he had 
 overshot it, and he would have to work back and forth 
 over the ground until he found it. This did not lighten 
 the anger which had gone to bed with him, and he called 
 Andree roughly; and, receiving no answer, strode into the 
 tent, jerking away her pile of deerskin robes. 
 
 They were cold and empty, and he went out hurriedly, 
 shouting her name incessantly. The rugged mountain- 
 flanks and snow-swathed distances flung it back at him 
 insolently, and in the following silence terror seized on 
 him. Andree had run away from him; run in her fury or 
 her grief straight into those eternal huge solitudes where 
 she would be no more than a bird blown out to sea on a 
 windy night. He looked round for her snow-shoe tracks, 
 found them where the storm whirled up the powdery snow, 
 fed the dogs and himself, struck camp and prepared to fol- 
 low her. Had he been certain of his own position he would 
 have gone on to Macpherson for help. But as matters 
 stood he dared not waste time. He believed that she would 
 not go far. The loneliness would soon call her back to 
 him, and in his wrath he knew that he would want to strike 
 her when she came. 
 
 With the bleak wind buffeting him and his face cut by 
 the sandy snow-particles he followed up to a bare scrap 
 that launched itself against the sky. She had gone fur- 
 ther than he expected. Then, on the snow-wreathed rim 
 of it, he flung himself back with a sharp gasp. Grange's 
 Andree had indeed gone further than he expected. The 
 smudged snow and broken twigs on the edge of the scarp 
 attested it. Dick was unnerved for a moment only. Then 
 he climbed a spruce that lifted near by, hacking off the 
 branches with all the force which he dared put into the
 
 464 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 brittle steel. He left it at last, a two-winged lobstick, such 
 as the Indians use, and turned, seeking a way down the 
 hill-flank. From below that landmark would give his posi- 
 tion. It was not likely that Andree would be killed by 
 the fall into soft snow. But it was possible that she might 
 be smothered, and it was very certain that she would be 
 starved if he did not find her in time. 
 
 It was on the second evening that he forced his way 
 through a narrow-snow-choked gut into that ravine where 
 Andree had fallen. The storm raged still, and it was more 
 than likely that he would not get out by the way he had 
 come ; and when, along the ravine-bottom, he saw something 
 flutter, like a leaf in the wind, he stood still, grasping 
 his whip and taking long breaths through his nostrils. If 
 Andree had come to him then he would have beaten her; 
 but it was an hour before his shouts and chasing brought 
 her to him, reeling like a drunken man, and with wolfish 
 eyes, and high cheekbones showing. Silently he put food 
 into her hands, watching her tear it and swallow it savagely. 
 Once she looked up, saw his face, and looked away again. 
 Then she jerked off her snow-shoe. 
 
 " Broke," she said, and handed it to him. 
 He spliced it with a tough twig of hemlock, called up the 
 dogs, and turned back the way he had come. He took 
 less notice of her than if she had been a dog, and she fol- 
 lowed him, trembling, yet defiant; shaken with her grief 
 and her misery. At the gut he stopped. There was no 
 way out there any more. For a few minutes he stood, 
 staring round on the steep rock-walls misty in the drifting 
 snow. Then he said: 
 
 " Are you hurt anywhere, Andree ? " 
 " Non," she said with quivering lips. 
 " Can you keep on walking ? " 
 " Oui." 
 
 A little longer he stood, looking round him. Then, with 
 a half-sigh, as though he knew the chance of that choice, 
 he left the gap and went down the ravine. 
 
 Dick knew little of mountain-work; and in these fierce 
 storms, and this deep snow which hid the lie of the rivers, 
 the little he knew was worthless. By his compass he 
 worked east when ravines or broken ledges of rock or im-
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 465 
 
 passable mountains permitted it. But day by day he grew 
 to know that want of food was going to call the time before 
 the east he looked for was won. Through the days that 
 swelled to a week, to a fortnight, he took no notice of An- 
 dree. His own bitter anger and despair blackened the 
 world for him beyond all pity and mercy. 
 
 Other men had disgraced the uniform they wore. Other 
 men had been privately branded among their fellows. Dick 
 had had no pity for them. Now men would have no pity 
 for him. Whether his body were found or not, he would 
 be recognised as a traitor and a deserter. He had no 
 business off the Mackenzie route, and no man could get 
 lost on the Mackenzie. If he had left that trail he had left 
 it for some ill-doing, and all men would know it. All men 
 would be ready to blacken his name the name of the bril- 
 liant lone-patrol man who had thrown away his honour and 
 the honour of the Force for an Indian girl. All men would 
 know. And they would laugh. Andree, plodding silent 
 behind him, wondered vaguely at his look and tone when 
 he had to speak to her. But it was not until the night 
 when he killed the first dog that she broke down. 
 
 " Dick," she cried. " Dick. I make sorry. Oh I 
 sorry. Dick love me." 
 
 He turned from the kettle where he boiled the meat. 
 The dogs slunk round him, licking their lips after their 
 unholy meal, and he looked gaunt and cruel and lean as 
 they. 
 
 " You have no need to be sorry," he said. " You may 
 find it an easier death than the other. And you have re- 
 venged yourself on me." 
 
 " But I do not understand. Oh, Dick, be kind to me or 
 T will make die." . 
 
 " You surely understand that we are both going to die 
 in any case. It can make no difference whether I am kind 
 to you or not." 
 
 He brought her the food, and she took it in silence. She 
 was afraid of him, but not of anything else. Life had 
 come to mean to her nothing but a stumbling on behind 
 that swinging figure as it had come to mean to Dick noth- 
 ing but a horror of the disgraced name which he must 
 leave behind him. The wind beat her, or the sun dazzled,
 
 466 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 or the frost scarred her skin ; and always the weight of the 
 snow drew at her knees until one day it drew her down 
 into it and she lay still. Dick was shaking her when she 
 came back to understanding again, and she believed that his 
 eyes were softer. But it might have been that her dulled 
 senses made them seem so. 
 
 " It would have been kinder to leave you there, Grange's 
 Andree/' he said. " But I have never been kind to you, 
 have I?" 
 
 " Peut-etre one day you be kind again/' she said, and 
 fell into step once more. 
 
 That day came when only two dogs hauled the sled which 
 held little more than the kettle, the deer-skin robes, and the 
 raw hides which Dick gave the famished animals to chew 
 on at a halt. It was the Indian in Andree which had kept 
 her up so long. But the more volatile French blood was 
 failing. It gave way at last when, on a gentle slope by 
 a thick clump of firs, her courage failed, and she slid 
 down in the snow. 
 
 Something which he did not understand made Dick turn. 
 Then he went back to her, dropping the harness with which 
 he helped the dogs to pull. She looked up at him gladly, 
 as he thought. 
 
 " No more, Dick," she said. " No more." 
 
 He gathered her in his arms and carried her into the 
 comparative warmth of the spreading firs. Here he made 
 camp; lighting a large fire, and wrapping her in the deer 
 robes. 
 
 "Mais j'ai froid," she whispered; and he drew her 
 close into his arms beside the fire, although there was little 
 heat in his starved body to strengthen hers. She smiled 
 slightly, with her eyes shut, and he looked down on her 
 unflinchingly. 
 
 The men who had loved her would not have recognised 
 Grange's Andree now. Hunger and privation had done 
 their work. The dog's meat had caused sores to break 
 out on the skin of both, and their lips were cracked deeply, 
 and their skin peeling in places. But on the girl's face 
 was a content that did not show in the man's. Dick re- 
 membered that portfolio full of Andree's glowing youth, 
 and for the moment he felt glad. They would live long
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 467 
 
 after the trail had taken both painter and painted. In 
 his arms Andree stirred, looking up with those wide eyes 
 that had lost their coquetry at last. 
 
 " It makes so dark," she whispered. 
 
 " It will soon be light for you, Andree." His words 
 broke with a sudden jar of amaze and anger. That was 
 Jennifer's creed; never his. He had no belief in anything 
 beyond this life which he and Andree had sold so dearly. 
 
 " I cannot rest." She spoke in French, stirring fretfully. 
 " I am so tired, and I cannot rest." She plucked at the 
 folds of the deerskin. " That's it," she said, and for a 
 moment her voice was stronger. " Take it away, Dick. 
 It is too much the wild life. It is the deer that run and 
 run and never be tired. It will not let me go. It is too 
 live. Take it off, Dick." 
 
 Dick obeyed. He understood how the wild nature in 
 her was having its last struggle. She smiled, feeling his 
 arms closer round her. 
 
 " That better," she murmured. " I do love you, Dick." 
 
 " I know, Andree," he said, very low. 
 
 For a long while she lay silent. The cold was freez- 
 ing into Dick, numbing his brain and tingling along his 
 limbs. The virility in him rebelled against it, and he heard 
 his voice speaking sharply. 
 
 " I won't die," it said. " By God ! I won't die." 
 
 Then he saw that Andree was looking at him wistfully. 
 He understood, and he stooped his head, and kissed her 
 twice and again. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, with a long sigh of happiness. One 
 shiver ran through her; her still face twitched once. And 
 presently he rose and wrapped her again in the deerskin 
 which would trouble her wild heart no more. 
 
 Beside the fire he stood still, blowing on his numbed fin- 
 gers and holding them to the fitful blaze. And between the 
 heavy boles of the firs he saw a shadow pass. The blood 
 rushed to his temples, blinding his eyes. Was it help at 
 last? The shadow passed again. It seemed vaguely 
 familiar. What was that connection in his brain between 
 the night of death on which he had first heard the name 
 of Grange's Andree and this hour when he had seen her 
 for the last time? It was a threat of some kind and then
 
 468 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 he remembered that big Irishman who had died on the 
 Moon-Dance. O'Hara had promised to come back to the 
 man who spoke ill of Grange's Andree, and he was keeping 
 his word. 
 
 Dick stood still, pressing his hands over his eyes. The 
 part of his brain which was still ^lear understood that 
 this fantasy was born of that nerve-connection and of the 
 weakness of his body only. But he did not know how long 
 he was going to believe that. In a sudden spasm of terror 
 he dropped h'is hand to the revolver in his belt. But he 
 did not pull it out. All his life he had denounced that way 
 out of trouble as cowardice. He had betrayed and broken 
 and destroyed enough. He would not let go that last hold 
 on manhood while any power in him could help it. 
 
 But ever after that day he went on with O'Hara stalking 
 him. 
 
 The mercilessness of this great Northland which he had 
 served so long became a tangible thing to him now. He 
 had been her lover through many golden moonlights and 
 many sunny days, and at last she had turned on him, 
 mocking his puny struggles, watching the desperate hope 
 which struggled for breath, and quenching the sparks of 
 his life, one by one. Scarp and bluff and rocky ridge 
 took shapes that bowed and gibbered at him; wind whistled 
 elfin cries through the dark. Solitude had never seemed so 
 awful and so relentless until he heard one thin voice piping 
 incoherencies into it and traced that voice back to his own 
 lips. This shock brought him back for a moment to realisa- 
 tion that he was still walking, although it was many, many 
 centuries since Andree died ; many, many centuries since 
 he had had anything to eat. He tried to recollect what had 
 happened to the sled and the two remaining dogs, standing 
 still to steady his reeling brain for the effort. And then 
 O'Hara came near and he hurried on. 
 
 Never in all these centuries could he see O'Hara fully. 
 Sometimes he would stop and turn sharply, but the man 
 was always just beyond the edge of eyesight. And yet 
 he never failed to drop in close behind as soon as Dick went 
 on. He was the only thing real in this whirling world 
 of shadows, and presently he ceased to be O'Hara. It was 
 the hound of his self-will and his unbelief and his evil
 
 "THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE" 469 
 
 passions which chased him in the shape of O'Hara, and 
 fear lest that hound should catch him lying down kept him 
 on his feet. He threw away his coat, his mitts, everything 
 which meant weight. He did not realise cold or weariness 
 any longer, and yet he would have fallen down and died a 
 hundred times but for the dogging thing behind him. 
 
 It chased him on, reeling and stumbling and muttering; 
 more afraid of that hound generated by his own sins than 
 he had ever been afraid of his life. Whether the days 
 passed or only hours he could not tell. Once he heard his 
 voice calling again, sharpened by 'the stress of ultimate 
 need. 
 
 " Lord have mercy upon us," it said. " Christ have 
 mercy upon us." 
 
 They were the old prayers of his boyhood, sounding 
 again from lips and heart long unfamiliar with them. How 
 his small bare knees used to ache on the hard church 
 cushions, and how the bees used to hum in the lilacs be- 
 yond the window 
 
 " Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon 
 us " 
 
 And then O'Hara came very close to his shoulder, and 
 the nameless dread chased him over a little hill and into a 
 fir coppice where a fire blazed, searing his aching eyes. 
 Then a dog sprang out, and he snatched at it, and fell 
 over it, and lay still.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 
 
 " So you are really going to condescend to know us again," 
 said Hensham. 
 
 Dick moved his head irritably. He did not want to be 
 disturbed. This warm peace which flowed through and 
 over every part of him was not a thing which a man parts 
 with lightly. He lay there in an absolute acceptance of 
 contented inertia. Why not? Why not? Dimly he knew 
 that long ago he had submitted body and soul to some great 
 suffering the fires of hell of the crushing bergs of the 
 Pole. He did not remember which; and it did not matter. 
 They had beaten and refined the evil out of him, and he had 
 come through to some place of laughter and golden sun- 
 shine where Tempest was, young and bright-eyed and 
 thrilling still with his ideals ; and where Jennifer was, 
 with sweet eyes, no longer red, but merry, and lips that 
 kissed his eyelids until he saw all things new and beauti- 
 ful, and that kissed his mouth until he laughed from sheer 
 light-hearted gladness. 
 
 Something was disturbing him in that world now, and it 
 made him angry. He set his teeth against the hard thing 
 which continued to thrust into itself his mouth, and at last 
 in suddenly roused wrath he spoke to it. 
 
 " Get out of my mouth," he said ; and then the hot broth 
 took its swift way down his throat, and his eyes flashed 
 open. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, and Hensham laughed as he refilled 
 the spoon. 
 
 " Guess that's the proper persuader," he said. " But 
 you must go slow, Heriot. If there's any belief in the 
 divine luck of occurrence you didn't come to our wood-camp 
 to peter out now. But you're weak. Heavens, man, you 
 are weak." 
 
 Dick did not care what Hensham thought. He went 
 
 470
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 471 
 
 back into his dreamland when the spoon ceased to empty 
 itself down his throat, and vaguely he sought for the utter 
 peace of it again. But that was not to be. Life was stir- 
 ring in him now, and when, towards evening, he looked up 
 and spoke, his senses were sharpening. Anderson was on 
 guard ; but he called Hensham, and Hensham came, bringing 
 his strong vigorous presence into the misty greyness which 
 hedged Dick. 
 
 " Here's some more soup," said Hensham, and went to 
 work promptly with spoon and bowl. Then he propped 
 Dick with pillows and gave him leave to talk. 
 
 " Not that I imagine you'll have much to say just yet," 
 he remarked. " You came pretty near finding us drawing 
 up your epitaph, Heriot. When we heard that you hadn't 
 been seen on the Mackenzie we guessed what had hap- 
 pened." 
 
 Dick shut his eyes. The voice was surelv friendly ; but 
 in this dim light he could not tell what the face was saying, 
 and sheer physical weakness made him afraid to look. 
 
 " What did happen ? " he asked slowly. 
 
 " Why, I guess you know best." Hensham laughed. 
 " We figured out that the girl ran away from you and 
 you went right after her without coming back for help. 
 I've heard that you always defied Providence when you 
 had a chance. And then well, you got lost, of course. 
 But I want to know what happened to her ? " 
 
 " She ran away she ran away " Dick tried to 
 
 remember; but his thoughts were in flux, and he could not 
 get beyond the lead which Hensham's words had given him. 
 
 " There ! " Hensham spoke triumphantly to someone 
 unseen. " What did I tell you, Baskerville ! I said he'd 
 come out with a clean sheet all right. You go to sleep 
 again, Heriot. Lord, he's as weak as a day-old puppy." 
 
 The little room shook with the strong tread of life 
 going out from it; and Dick lay still, hovering yet on the 
 edge of that life and unsure if he were man or only spirit. 
 The long starvation and the long suffering had taken more 
 from him than would come back at once, and the memories 
 that drifted through his brain were not acute enough to 
 hurt him. There was the knowledge somewhere that they
 
 472 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 ought to hurt, that they would hurt, by and by, but there 
 was a strange sense of peace and healing on him now. 
 Words without end or beginning were sliding through his 
 mind. Some of them said: " Can only be bought back by 
 tears by tears and the fires that are not quenched." 
 What could only be bought back? He fell asleep over 
 the thought, but when he woke again it was ready for 
 him. 
 
 " The simplicity of the heart can only be bought back 
 by tears and terror and the fires that are not quenched." 
 
 That was it. But what did it mean to him? Idly he 
 tried to reason the matter, and because thought flowed 
 more coherently now, he acknowledged certain things. Cer- 
 tainly he had sold his simplicity of heart long ago if he 
 ever had it. For a while his mind slid among memories of 
 the past which seemed to indicate that he had had it; and 
 drifting out of nowhere came the legend of the old Norse 
 Loke who had the mind of the gods, desiring good, and 
 the heart of the giants, desiring evil. Far away in those 
 dim, childish years, and in the later keener years of boy- 
 hood, Dick remembered how those two had always warred 
 in him. He smiled now in a curious pity for that growing 
 fierce-hearted boy who had once been himself. But Loke 
 had cast himself out of Jotunheim in despair at his increas- 
 ing wickedness. Dick would never need to do that. He 
 had never fully let his heart overrule his mind. He had 
 always kept his work straight and honest. That thought 
 brought him up with a jarring, clattering crash that seemed 
 almost physical. His drowsy content flew to pieces, and 
 with staring, horror-stricken eyes he tried to sit up, tried 
 to get out of bed. 
 
 The room was dark and still. It was midnight, perhaps, 
 and men were asleep about him ; men who knew what he 
 had done, who knew that he had betrayed the last thing 
 which he held sacred; men who knew thought again 
 jerked him to a full stop. They did not know. Hen- 
 sham's friendly voice and words conveyed meaning to him 
 now. They did not know, thank God, and they need never 
 know. He lay down again, shivering and feeling the throb- 
 bing ache of returning life in all his limbs.
 
 WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 473 
 
 " Thank God, they need not know," he repeated ; and 
 then felt with a curious, irritated surprise that the words 
 did not seem to lift the burden in the least. The expres- 
 sion of relief was only a form. But the other words were 
 true. And then, in this hazy, giddy world where he lived 
 now, sense began to twist itself about until he did not 
 know which part were true or which he wanted true. He 
 was too tired, he told himself. Hands and feet and head 
 felt too big for the rest of him. They jumped and 
 throbbed; and he won through the night somehow, sleeping 
 fitfully, and thankful when the morning brought the cheer- 
 ful Hensham and his breakfast. But Hensham was de- 
 cidedly awkward this morning, and when the spoon and 
 bowl were put away he sat on the bedside, attempting con- 
 versation nervously. 
 
 " You you I suppose you haven't noticed anything 
 wrong with any part of you your feet, for instance?" 
 he asked, presumably addressing the wall. 
 
 Had he been looking at Dick he would have seen for 
 one instant what no man saw through that which followed. 
 It was the sudden flicker of a deadly fear; but Dick's 
 voice was normal to the somewhat obtuse policeman. 
 " I can't say that I have. Frost-bite, is it? " 
 " Well, yes ; it is. The left foot. Baskerville he's H.B. 
 factor, and quite a bit of a doctor he has been overhaul- 
 ing it, and he is very anxious to know if it hurts you at all." 
 " Ah ! Fears mortification, does he ? " 
 Dick was conscious with a sickening certainty that that 
 left foot was just as dead and heavy a thing as the rest 
 of him. 
 
 " Well of course, one can't tell. It's such a little while 
 since you came round, and perhaps would you like to see 
 him? He told me to send for him any time." 
 
 " Thank you. If he is at liberty I might as well. He 
 
 wants to take it off, I suppose. The H.B. factors have 
 
 exploited themselves in surgery from immemorable ages." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! You don't imagine he'd want to do 
 
 it unless " 
 
 " I never try to imagine other men's thoughts." Dick 
 smiled a little. " Don't look so scared, Hensham. He
 
 474 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 doesn't want my head, too, does he? Yes, we may as well 
 sir. him as he has nothing better to do just now." 
 
 In the twenty minutes which passed before Hensham 
 brought Baskerville Dick lay motionless, staring at the 
 wall and marshalling his strength. Twice he said through 
 stiff lips " I would rather die," and he knew that he meant 
 it. And a bitter hate surged in him against the luck which 
 had saved him for this. But through the examination fol- 
 lowing the coming of the grave bearded man to his room 
 he showed far less nervousness than either of the others. 
 
 " Yes ; the little toe must go," he said when it was over. 
 " But I will hang on to the rest so long as I can, thank you 
 Baskerville. 
 
 "If you'll let me operate at once " 
 
 " This minute if you like. No, I won't take an anes- 
 thetic." 
 
 When the men left him Dick turned his face to the wall 
 and lay still. At best this meant some permanent crippling. 
 At worst it meant death. His spirit preferred death. 
 But his body could not. He had too much innate vitality, 
 and he knew that he would struggle for life until the last 
 hour overcame him. But just at present he was facing a 
 struggle which went deeper than this. 
 
 Dick's manhood had been his fetish, even as his work 
 had been his pride. Because he had never acknowledged 
 this even to himself the feeling was the stronger. It was 
 strong enough to flail him now when he saw where he stood 
 in that clear sight of his. He was a coward and a deserter. 
 He had sinned wilfully; but he dared not bear the shame. 
 He dare not. Tempest had dared ; but then Tempest stood 
 in that vague sexless category of saints and martyrs who 
 do these things because they are not exactly men nor 
 women. Dick believed this for three minutes before the 
 bottom fell out of it. Tempest was very thoroughly a man 
 in his temptation and his fall. He had been very thor- 
 oughly a man in his bitter resentment. He was a man, 
 even as Dick. But, as a man, he would not live a 
 lie. 
 
 He fought that acknowledge through the whole night, 
 forgetting even Jennifer. For the devil in his blood would 
 not die while that blood ran. But his feebleness pre-
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 475 
 
 vented fever of body or mind, and it kept him sane while 
 he groped slowly toward the light. 
 
 " The fact that you have so little blood left in you is 
 your great salvation," said Baskerville one day, and Dick 
 assented with an amused gravity. 
 
 His spirit had still enough blood in it to make thinking 
 a very vital thing through those long and lonely days. 
 His thoughts were often necessarily painful and sordid 
 and miserable. He had lived too long in such an atmos- 
 phere to struggle out of it easily. But there was an un- 
 expected luminosity about some things now. Since he had 
 seen that light in Andree's dying eyes he knew with that 
 belief which is beyond reason that her fiery, untamed soul 
 was not a thing which death had blown out. Since he had 
 walked so close to the borderland of death himself he be- 
 gan to look on it as a probable development, not an extinc- 
 tion. And if it were possible to believe this thing which 
 he could not prove, then many unprovable things were pos- 
 sible. Day by day as he lay there he thought these puzzles 
 out, mocking at himself often, sinking down into the old 
 sloughs often, and yet finding a strange persevering inter- 
 est and amusement in recognising some rationality in those 
 things which did not answer to the touch-stone of logic, 
 and which he would once have swept away for that rea- 
 son. 
 
 He did not dare let himself think too much of his prob- 
 able maiming; he was too weak to talk for long at a time, 
 and so he thought, not realising that this was the natural 
 flower from that new growth of charity towards his neigh- 
 bour which had led him to help Tempest in the first place; 
 to rouse Slicker from his inertia; to attempt rescue of the 
 white baby from Alphonse Michu. To the end of his life 
 he would almost certainly mock more than he would sym- 
 pathise; but now that the blackest of his trouble was 
 upon him he was losing much of the bitterness which had 
 characterised his whole life. It seemed as if through 
 recognising his weakness he was at last g.-iining inner 
 strength. Even Hensham's noisy rejoicing over the fact 
 that Dick would not have to lose his foot did not rouse 
 that caustic tongue. But Dick's heart knew that to drag 
 a useless member through life would be little better than
 
 476 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 to lose it. And no man could tell yet if that would be so 
 or not. 
 
 And then, one day, the test of all which he had been 
 learning and thinking came on him suddenly with Hen- 
 sham's announcement that a trader was going up to the 
 South next day. 
 
 " He can be trusted to take letters," said Hensham. 
 " I'm sending some, and of course you'll want to send a 
 line to your folks." 
 
 Dick's smile was bitter for a moment. His folks had 
 forgotten him long ago. 
 
 " Thanks," he said. " I must write Regina, anyway. 
 It will months yet before I can travel." 
 
 " I'm afraid so. Of course it's awfully jolly for us 
 having you here, and I really do believe that foot will get 
 fairly right, you know. You are a trump of a patient, 
 Heriot. I'd be growling and cursing about it all day." 
 
 Dick's lips twitched a little. Perhaps some day Hen- 
 sham would learn that there are things which go too deep 
 for outside comment. 
 
 " You'd probably bundle me out if I did," he said. " I 
 might as well write now, before Baskerville comes to do 
 my foot." 
 
 " Of course I've put this business in my report," said 
 Hensham. " I wish we had been able to find that poor girl's 
 body, you know. I guess I'd be glad to know that she 
 was properly buried. Of course we haven't a notion how 
 many days you traveled after you'd left her. If you'd 
 been keeping your diary to the last as young Grahame 
 did " 
 
 " Yes. It was an oversight, wasn't it? You might hand 
 me the pen and paper. Thanks." 
 
 For a little while after Hensham had gone he sat still 
 with his lips set and his eyes unusually sad and soft. He 
 knew what he was going to write. He had come to the 
 decision through too fierce a fight not to know it. And he 
 was not coward enough to retract now. But a little shud- 
 der ran through him as he took up the pen. He was go- 
 ing to do the hardest thing that his life had demanded of 
 him yet. He wrote a short letter to the Commisioner, and 
 a long one to Jennifer. But the gist of both was the same.
 
 WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 477 
 
 He made a full confession of the betrayal of his trust; he 
 expressed repentence, and he did not ask for mercy. The 
 letters were sealed and lying on the table when Hensham 
 came back, and the vigorous young fellow exclaimed at 
 the white tired face. 
 
 " I say ! You're fagged out, Heriot. I should have 
 come in before. I'm so sorry." 
 
 " You're a good chap, Hensham." There was no mock- 
 ery in Dick's smile just now. " I'll have to pass all you've 
 done for me on to the next man, for you don't look a fit 
 subject for medical administrations." 
 
 " I've done nothing." Hensham reddened. " You 
 you're so awfully brickish about it all, you know." 
 
 " Am I? That's an unusual accusation. Yes; those are 
 the letters. You can stamp them. Thanks." 
 
 He watched them go with a curious half- wonder in his 
 eyes. Why should he feel relief at having done a thing 
 which was probably going to damn him in the eyes of the 
 world? What had taught him that if a man puts himself 
 right with himself he can afford to face what that world 
 may say? And why was it putting him right with himself 
 to do a foolish and quixotic thing? 
 
 Baskerville came in and interrupted his meditations ; and 
 Dick, with a sudden swing of the pendulum, said several 
 unusually nasty things to him. But Baskerville met them 
 with the tolerance one shows a man who may be crippled 
 for life. Dick understood the reason, and it did not 
 sweeten his temper. Natural reaction had set in, and he 
 spent a wretched night. But he did not ask for the letters 
 back again. His weaknessess seldom took the form of re- 
 traction in any way. Through the following weeks and 
 months that grew to spring he never thought once of mak- 
 ing confession to Hensham. This was not Hensham's busi- 
 ness, nor the business of any save the two who would 
 know by now, and Dick was not the man to fling himself 
 to penitential extremes. 
 
 Careful nursing and time brought power back to the 
 maimed foot, little by little. But the ice was gone and 
 the canoes were on the river before Dick went south again. 
 He took Indians with him from post to post, leaving the 
 last one at Simpson, and paddling the long stage into Fort
 
 478 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 Resolution alone. He bad known long since that Tempest 
 was in charge of the Mackenzie District now; and he had 
 heard from the steamer, which he met near Simpson, that 
 letters were waiting him in Tempest's care. Those let- 
 ters haunted the day and the night for him now. Dear 
 though Jennifer was to him, much though she meant and al- 
 ways would mean in his life, he knew that no possible ten- 
 derness of hers could quite atone for the public disgrace 
 which might fall on him. And for more than the disgrace 
 for the pain and the heartache it would be to him to 
 know the North no more. 
 
 For all she had given him to bear his heart glowed yet 
 with love for this great sweeping space of Northland. Her 
 wild and lavish glory of young summer stirred the undying 
 wild youth in himself. He could never leave her without 
 a heartbreak. But he knew that he would never come back 
 if his dishonour had gone down these mighty rivers before 
 him. On the last evening before he reached Fort Reso- 
 lution he camped in a spruce clump redolent with piny 
 odours, and with an outlook upon the lake. The turquoise 
 and raw gold of the quivering sunset across that rimless 
 reach of faintly rolling water seemed more glorious than 
 he had ever seen it before. His own life was just as 
 horizonless at present, and there was none of that beauty 
 in it, and yet there was a new-sprung hope and pleasure 
 in him that used not to be there. He was hoping because 
 he dared not do anything else. He was trying to believe 
 because he dared not do anything else. And this is really 
 the one and only reason which makes a man in earnest. 
 
 Lulled there in the lap of that great silence with only 
 his pipe for company the radiance of the sunset held more 
 meaning, the brooding calm of the deepening sky held more, 
 the occasional scuffling and splash of the ducks in the reeds 
 held more. He seemed to have stumbled on some new un- 
 derstanding and comradeship with that mighty Life which 
 pulsed through everything, and yet he could not tell how 
 and where he felt in touch with it. But he carried a 
 courageous heart into Fort Resolution next day, and he re- 
 ceived his letter and the news that Tempest would be back 
 in a couple of hours with a like serenity. Then, because he 
 dared not read those letters out in the breezy day with
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 479 
 
 the sunlight dancing on the lake and all the wildwood 
 scents loose about him, he took them into Tempest's little 
 sitting-room, and shut the door, and sat down in Tempest's 
 chair to read them. 
 
 He sat still for very long after they were read, and he 
 was sitting there still when he heard Tempest's voice in 
 the passage. 
 
 "What? In there, is he? Very well. Yes. I'll call 
 you \vhen I want you, Bernard." 
 
 Dick stood up, thrusting the letters into his pocket. 
 He heard Tempest's step, and both step and voice seemed 
 to bear the eager ring of the old days. Then Tempest 
 swung the door open, and came in swiftly. 
 
 " My word, I am glad to see you, old man," he said. 
 
 The grip of the hand told it, and the half-break in the 
 voice. Then Tempest stood back, laughing half-nervously. 
 
 " They've managed to put some flesh on you again down 
 at Macpherson," he said. " You're not eligible for our 
 ' Dulce et decorum ' roll-call yet." 
 
 Dick winced. This was touching on the sore place al- 
 ready. 
 
 " Macpherson must share her honours," he said. " Young 
 Grahame was offered up on her altar." 
 
 " Yes. Sad thing that. Sit down, and let me look at 
 you. Fit ? I should think I was. No time to be anything 
 else up here." 
 
 He talked cheerfully, with much of the old buoyancy 
 back in his manner and words. But it had a deeper note 
 and a greater gravity at times, and there were some threads 
 of grey in his thick hair. It was Dick who spoke of his 
 lameness because he had seen the contraction of Tempest's 
 forehead when he limped to his chair. 
 
 " It will be permanent," he said. " But there is no pain 
 now." 
 
 " It won't incapacitate you for duty ? " 
 
 " No." Dick's smile was peculiar. " I don't expect that 
 to incapacitate me for duty." 
 
 For a while longer they talked of other things. Then 
 Tempest said: 
 
 "Now tell me about Andree, please." 
 
 He was silent while Dick gave such particulars as would
 
 480 THE LAW-BRIXGERS 
 
 not pain Tempest too much. Then he added : " I think she 
 did not suffer at the last. She died in my arms, and her 
 eyes were glorious when I closed them." 
 
 " She loved you to the last, Dick? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was a pause. Then Tempest said, quietly: 
 
 " Thank you. I think I am glad to know that. It 
 would make her happy just to be with you. And yet 
 they said she ran away from you." 
 
 " She did. But that was not the beginning. I ran away 
 with her first, Tempest." 
 
 " You did what? " 
 
 " I was taking her out to Dawson City. Wait a minute ! 
 I changed my mind and tried to bring her back. I sup- 
 pose I was rather brutal to her, and she ran away from 
 me. There is no need for you to make any comment on 
 this. Don't imagine that I have lost all sense of propor- 
 tion because I so nearly lost everything else." 
 
 Tempest sprang up and began to walk through the room. 
 It was his old habit when in strong agitation, and Dick sat 
 still, staring at the floor. He did not know that he had 
 meant to tell Tempest. Now he saw that it could not have 
 been otherwise. He owed Andree's ever-true lover that. 
 Presently he said: 
 
 " I should like to tell you one reason why I really did 
 that thing. But I cannot." 
 
 " I know." Tempest halted in his walk. " It was be- 
 cause Mrs. Ducane sent you away." 
 
 " You " Dick's oath was hot and quick. " What 
 
 do you know about that? " 
 
 " Mrs. Ducane told me, Dick." 
 
 " She told you ? " 
 
 " She knew that I was dreading this very thing ; and 
 she told me that it would not be, and she told me why she 
 M'as sure of it." 
 
 He continued to walk the room, and Dick's eyes went 
 back to the floor. This hurt more than he had expected 
 to be hurt again. It was Tempest who spoke next. 
 
 " I have no right to blame any man when I have been 
 so far from blameless myself. If I had been less hard to 
 you it might have helped you."
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 481 
 
 "I deserved all I got there. It would have helped, 
 though. You and Jennifer were too good and too far-off 
 for me." He shrugged his shoulders with a slight laugh. 
 " But I had to come back to you/' he said. 
 
 Tempest did not ask what had brought him back. That 
 was Dick's own arrangement with his God if he had one. 
 
 " And you have the right to come back now," he said. 
 " Did you know that Ducane is dead? " 
 
 " I have had a letter from her telling me. I wrote her 
 from Macpherson." It was Tempest's silence drew the 
 next words out of him. " She is waiting at Grey Wolf 
 until I come. It rather frightens one to know how much 
 a woman can forgive." 
 
 " So long as you stay frightened you'll be all right," said 
 Tempest dryly. Then he came over, standing close by 
 Dick's chair. 
 
 " I am a brute to say such things to you," he said with 
 his old impetuosity. " You saved me, and nearly lost your- 
 self over doing it. That should make us quits. You 
 didn't know what was going to come out of it." 
 
 " I don't know that I cared, after the first. And you 
 have surely more humour than to make apologies to me." 
 Dick pushed his chair back, and stood up. " I think you're 
 wanted. Someone has been perambulating the passage 
 and coughing discreetly for the last three minutes." 
 
 Tempest turned to the door. But he looked back. 
 
 " You'll give me all the days you can spare, won't you, 
 Dick?" he asked. 
 
 " I shall be glad to," said Dick briefly. 
 
 But under the bald words both men felt the pull of that 
 old bond of friendship again. It was not broken, and it 
 would not break now. Dick knew this certainly as he 
 went out to smoke a pipe along the sunny beach, and he 
 felt surprisedly that he was glad, really glad, although joy 
 and he had been strangers so long. Even Jennifer's letter 
 had not made him glad, for its sweet unreproachful wis- 
 dom had humbled him into the dust. And the Commis- 
 sioner's letter had not made him glad. It had made him 
 thankful. He smiled a little, thinking of it. There was 
 quite evidently something of the woman in the Commis- 
 sioner too. Or perhaps it was because he had had such
 
 482 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 a very large acquaintance with men for so many years 
 that he was prepared for everything. Or it may have 
 been that he set undue value on the fact that one of those 
 men had confessed a fault which he so easily might have 
 suppressed. Whatever the reason it seemed more likely 
 that Dick would find a friend at Regina, in place of the 
 judge he expected. A sudden twist of his ever-nimble 
 brain suggested that it might be the same at the end of 
 that longer journey which he was taking. But here he 
 shrugged his shoulders with a laugh of half-contempt. 
 Those kinds of thoughts and his nature were so ridicu- 
 lously at variance. It must be, of course, because he was 
 thinking more of Jennifer than usual. Behind the blow- 
 ing smoke-cloud his eyes softened. 
 
 " If only I could bring her more," he said, under his 
 breath. " If I could bring her more for all she has to 
 give me. But a man can't waste his years and his heart 
 and his soul for nothing. I haven't got it to give now." 
 
 Something of this was touched on a few nights later 
 when Dick and Tempest walked the dreaming beach under 
 the stars. They would part in the morning, and it would 
 quite probably be long before they met again; and this 
 knowledge, and the haunting beauty and loneliness of the 
 wide lake loosened their tongues a little, so that, hesitat- 
 ingly and with many pauses, they spoke more intimately 
 than they had done since the days of their fiery youth. 
 Even better than Dick, Tempest knew that the human soul 
 is a shy wild thing which often cannot give where it most 
 desires to give. But, by putting something of man's nat- 
 ural reserve aside, his intuitive skill led him to make some 
 confessions in order to gain them. And by slow degrees 
 he did gain them, until Dick was sufficiently softened to 
 speak of his remorse. But here Tempest stopped him. 
 
 " We were both to blame," he said. " Which is, I sup- 
 pose, much the same as saying we are both human. But 
 my sin was worse than yours because I knew that I was 
 wrong. Almost from the beginning I knew it; but I went 
 on 'in spite of Hell.' Well you gave me Hell, and I've 
 got out of it" He glanced at Dick with a whimsical 
 smile. " Your methods were not gentle. But I want you 
 to believe that I sincerely think I could have forgiven
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 488 
 
 anything you did to myself only without very much effort, 
 Dick." 
 
 " I would not have had you forgive the other easily," 
 said Dick sharply. 
 
 The long silence which followed was broken by Dick. 
 
 " I shall probably be married very soon if I can get 
 permission from the Commissioner. Ducane has been dead 
 eight months, and I am due for leave. I didn't take it 
 when I enlisted four years ago." 
 
 " Ah ! Then your term is up next year ? " 
 
 " I know. But I shall join again if I am allowed. I 
 can't settle to any other life now. I have knocked about 
 too long." 
 
 " Is that will that be fair on on- " 
 
 " No ! " Dick's laugh held a sting of bitterness. " Have 
 I ever been fair to her or anyone else? But it is inevitable, 
 and she recognises that. Do you remember what some 
 poet says about Hercules? He fell into all sorts of evils 
 if he didn't have the chance to sweat his soul out occa- 
 sionally at honest hard work. Not that I compare myself 
 to the god in any other way; but I do understand the 
 common-sense of that. My nature will always be too 
 strong for me if I can't find manual work enough to keep 
 it down. She'll help Jennifer will. But she can't do it 
 all. It is part of the penalty, I suppose, that I shall never 
 be able to settle down into a comfortable fat father and 
 husband as you could. Oh I never meant " 
 
 " It's all right. Don't imagine that that hurts now, 
 Dick. I am not a child to spend my life crying over what 
 I can't have. I think I would have been rather glad to 
 to follow your example. I thought about it when I went 
 East, and I well, I tried. But I saw that, whoever the 
 woman might be, she would take such a very third-class 
 place behind my work and my country that it would have 
 been dishonourable to ask her." 
 
 " You have more conscience than I have, Tempest." 
 
 "No. I have merely centred my interests where you 
 have always wanted them to be where I had thought I 
 wanted them to be myself. A man can do little, perhaps. 
 But the utmost which he can give will be asked of him. 
 That is the great consolation."
 
 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 " You'll do more than a little, old chap." 
 " I hope so." Tempest's eyes shone suddenly, and his 
 voice rang. "Lord! What eternal children we are! 
 We'll build our mud-heaps to raise us up to conquer the 
 stars until the end of time, never heeding how often they 
 crumble under us." He laid his hand on Dick's shoulder. 
 " Whatever you did or meant to do to me I owe it to you 
 that I have taken hold of things again," he said. " I can't 
 see yet what it is all for. I can't see why the innocent 
 should suffer for the guilty, or why self should be such an 
 eternal devil to fight. There seems injustice somewhere. 
 But perhaps I'll see clearer in time. Till I do I'll go on 
 building mud-heaps." 
 
 " And when you do you'll conquer the stars." 
 But Dick's raillery was very friendly, for the boyish- 
 ness, which would never die out of Tempest, touched the 
 younger man, who was so infinitely older in many ways. 
 And for an hour yet they smoked their pipes as they kept 
 step up and down the beach and spoke of many things. 
 But they did not touch on those private subjects again; 
 and their words and their good-byes were casual on the 
 shore in the morning when the breed in the stern of Dick's 
 canoe held it against the bank, and Dick turned for a 
 moment to give his hand to Tempest. 
 
 They did not weaken that hand-grip with words, al- 
 though Dick had a jest for his lame foot as he clambered 
 into 'the canoe. He turned once to see Tempest straight 
 and tall on the shore. Then he went on paddling with 
 slow, long strokes and the tobacco-smoke blowing out 
 either side him. Tempest watched until the dazzle of light 
 on the water hid him and the entrance to the Great Slave 
 River lay near. Then he went along the beach, and flung 
 himself down on the sand, looking out to the shoreless lake 
 that ran blue against the blue sky. His eternal duties 
 would call him up presently, and next week he would 
 start his long patrol to the North by the ways up 
 which Dick had come. But this warm golden hour of si- 
 lence between earth and Heaven was his own. 
 
 Cicadas were chirping, and all across the lake sea-birds 
 dipped and called. The air was full of the healthy smell 
 from little far-off fires, and the light breeze helped his
 
 " WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE " 485 
 
 pipe to keep off the mosquitoes. He lay on his back, 
 staring up into the blue, which seemed to recede and 
 deepen, drawing his thoughts up with it. And his mind 
 turned again to that inexplicable secret of the universe 
 which so puzzled him and which he so struggled to inter- 
 pret. For all Dick's cynical, clear-sighted unbelief he 
 believed that Dick was nearer the solution than himself. 
 But Dick had Jennifer to help him. Tempest had to find 
 his way along a lonely road. And why should that be so? 
 Why should one man have and another man lose? Why 
 should evil trip the feet up on the very altar-steps? Why 
 should doubt be born of belief and belief of doubt? Why, 
 and why, and again, why? Where was the reason of it 
 all? 
 
 An ant ran up his hand, and he raised it to watch as 
 the little thing darted this way and that, afraid to make 
 excursions up his arm, afraid to drop over into the un- 
 known. It rested at last, accepting the inevitable and 
 trusting in the fortune which had guided it so far. Tem- 
 pest lowered his hand and let it run off into the sand. 
 He had found the first word of that interpretation which 
 he sought, and it was one which had been about him all 
 the time. That word was Faith, and by the very nature 
 of it he knew that it would be the only one which he 
 and his generation and perhaps many generations after 
 him would learn. And by its very nature it gave rich 
 promise of other words, other revelations to be understood 
 when the first was fully mastered. Then, and not until 
 then, would come the progression, even as our forefathers 
 progressed from arrows to knives and from verbal to writ- 
 ten speech. Faith, not blind and stupid, but Faith com- 
 pletely equipped and strong and eager for the next step. 
 In some strange way Dick's unbelief had come to an accept- 
 ance of a faith of some sort. Tempest's years of belief 
 had found it more difficult. Tempest believed that he could 
 interpret that. In his weariness the beggared heart in 
 Dick had turned gratefully to the crumbs which fell from 
 the table, where Tempest in his pride and impatience had 
 demanded cake. 
 
 One white line of cloud drew itself delicately across the 
 curve of blue, and the sun-warmth soaked into him as he
 
 486 THE LAW-BRINGERS 
 
 lay. His thoughts went back to the ant. That ant could 
 not understand why Tempest lifted it up, nor why he put 
 it down again. Supposing that he was expecting informa- 
 tion on subjects which he was as little capable of under- 
 standing? All over this great humming world lives were 
 being born, lives were dying, with every breath he drew. 
 What other equipment could avail man against that reeling 
 knowledge but Faith? Faith that his God held the ends 
 of every tangled skein; faith that when he too was able 
 to understand he should understand; faith that the sub- 
 missive acceptance of Faith as ultimate was the one way; 
 of growing beyond it. It would not be for Tempest to dis- 
 cover his Great Secret this side the stars, although, by his 
 life, he might help secure the discovery to later genera- 
 tions. As he lay there a strange, peaceful sense of father- 
 hood towards the future, of sonhood towards the past, came 
 over him. As his progenitors, the Cavemen, had worked 
 through their descendants out of blind animal terrors and 
 ignorance, so the men that should come after Tempest 
 might work to heights now unguessed at by him. Whether 
 he knew or not would not matter. He knew now. He 
 knew that he and all men had their glorious infinitesimal 
 part in the moulding of the future. For the fact that man 
 may not live to himself alone is at once the redemption 
 and the temptation of mankind. 
 
 He got up at last and walked back to the barracks. 
 Through long tangled ways he had returned to the truth 
 which a child learns at its mother's knee. But he had 
 won it for himself now, and therefore it was precious as 
 it could never have been before. It might not make life 
 easier, perhaps, because life is not meant to be easy. It 
 might not make him very good, because man is not meant 
 to be very good. He is meant to stay human enough to 
 sympathise with other men. But he had got a solid base 
 at last on which to build his mud-heaps. 
 
 Before him the great lake rolled to rightward and the 
 great plains rolled to left. The sun was warm and hazily 
 golden over both, and a faint blue veined the distance. 
 There was the smell of rain and of quickening earth in the 
 air, and a few duck flew over; making no sound, but strik- 
 ing the note of life into the far-spreading peace.
 
 Tempest stood still to watch them go. Then he looked 
 out across the land which was so dear to him with the 
 old light shining in bis eyes. His right hand was closed, 
 as the hand of a man who grasps a rapier-hilt. Presently 
 he spoke, with a half-laugh and a half-break of love in the 
 words. 
 
 " To love you isn't enough," he said. " God grant we're 
 ready to suffer and work for you Canada." 
 
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