oral, and saluting again he was gone.

"All that night he galloped up the prairie trail on the track of
the thieves, and just before daybreak he sighted them, entrenched
in a coulee, where their campfires made no glow, and the neighing
horses could not be heard. There were six men all told, busying
themselves getting breakfast and staking the animals preparatory to
hiding through the day hours, and getting across the boundary line
the next night. Both men and beasts were wearied with the long
journey, but Corporal Black is the sort of man that _never_ wearies
in either brain or body. He never hesitated a second. Jerking his
rat-skin cap down, covering his face as much as possible, he rode
silently around to the south of the encampment, clutched a revolver
in each hand, and rode within earshot, then said four words:

"'Stand, or I fire!' If a cyclone had swooped down on them, the
thieves could not have been more astounded. But they stood, and
stood yards away from their own guns. Then they demanded to know
who he was, for of course they thought him a thief like themselves,
probably following them to capture their spoil. Then Corporal Black
unbuttoned his great-coat and flung it wide open, displaying the
brilliant scarlet tunic of our own dear Mounted Police. They needed
no other reply. At the point of his revolver he ordered them to
unstake the horses. Then not one man was allowed to mount, but,
breakfastless and frenzied, they were compelled to walk before him,
driving the stolen animals ahead, mile upon mile, league after
league.

"Father says it was a strange-looking procession that trudged into
barracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-looking
thieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which was
mounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who wore
a scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day Corporal
Black had another stripe on his sleeve." [The foregoing story is an
actual occurrence. The author had the honor of knowing personally
the North-West Mounted Policeman who achieved his rank through this
action.]

Her voice ceased, and she looked down at her son. The child lay for
a moment, wide-eyed and tense. Then some indescribable quality
seemed to make him momentarily too large, too tall, for the narrow
ship's berth. Then:

"And he fought it out _alone_, mother, just alone--single-handed?"

"Yes, Grahamie," she said, softly.

"Fought alone!" he said almost t