of him was not a matter for argument. It was burnt into her soul as
with a red-hot brand. He could not talk away what he had done or the
thing that he was.

She had come upon him by chance while he was asleep. He guessed that
Angus McRae's party had reached Whoop-Up and had stopped to buy
supplies and perhaps to sell hides and pemmican. The girl had probably
ridden out from the stockade to the open prairie because she loved to
ride. The rest needed no conjecture. In that lone land of vast spaces
travelers always exchanged greetings. She had discovered him lying
in the grass. He might be sick or wounded or dead. The custom of the
country would bring her straight across the swales toward him to find
out whether he needed help.

Then she had seen who he was--and had ridden away.

A sardonic smile of self-mockery stamped for a moment on his brown
boyish face the weariness of the years.




CHAPTER VII

THE MAN IN THE SCARLET JACKET


Morse ambled out at a road gait to take his turn at guard duty. He was
following the principle that the longest way round is the shortest
road to a given place. The reason for this was to ward off any