ted to it. He took it up with a strange smile and thrust it
into the coals. Then he sat down by the table, leaning his arms upon it,
his eyes staring painfully before him, and the forgotten napkin still
about his neck. Soon the eyes closed, and, with a moan on his lips, his
head dropped forward on his arms.... Pierre rose, and, looking at the
figure soon to be breathless as the baked meats about it, said: "'Bien,'
he was not all coward. No."
Then he turned and went out into the night.
SHON McGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE
"Oh, it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men;
With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes,
And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen!
"And it's back with the ring of the chain and the spur,
And it's back with the sun on the hill and the moor,
And it's back is the thought sets my pulses astir!
But I'll never go back to Farcalladen more."
Shon McGann was lying on a pile of buffalo robes in a mountain hut,--an
Australian would call it a humpey,--singing thus to himself with his
pipe between his teeth. In the room, besides Shon, were Pretty Pierre,
Jo Gordineer, the Hon. Just Trafford, called by his companions simply
"The Honourable," and Prince Levis, the owner of the establishment. Not
that Monsieur Levis, the French Canadian, was really a Prince. The name
was given to him with a humorous cynicism peculiar to the Rockies.
We have little to do with Prince Levis here; but since he may appear
elsewhere, this explanation is made.
Jo Gordineer had been telling The Honourable about the ghost of Guidon
Mountain, and Pretty Pierre was collaborating with their host in
the preparation of what, in the presence of the Law--that is of the
North-West Mounted Police--was called ginger-tea, in consideration of
the prohibition statute.
Shon McGann had been left to himself--an unusual thing; for everyone had
a shot at Shon when opportunity occurred; and never a bull's-eye could
they make on him. His wit was like the shield of a certain personage of
mythology.
He had wandered on from verse to verse of the song with one eye on the
collaborators and an ear open to The Honourable's polite exclamations of
wonder. Jo had, however, come to the end of his weird tale--for weird
it certainly was, told at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in
a region of vast solitudes--the pair of chemis
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