tionalist. Now his whole being responded to this clear-eyed,
pleasant-voiced girl who sat in the low rocker beside him. She would
understand. The few times he had essayed to speak to others of his
service in the Mounted Police, he had met with such indifference that
the words were killed; and with the exception of the Doctor, Danvers had
never shared his experiences with any one. To the women he had met in
Helena and Fort Benton that lonely life had brought a shudder, and to
the men unpleasant reminiscences. So far as his associates of the early
days were concerned it was a closed chapter.

To the child Winifred, Danvers had been a hero--handsome, debonair; to
the woman Winifred, he found himself talking as easily as to the little
girl who listened years before. The life at Fort Macleod was the one
subject that would win Danvers from his silence, and in the next hour
Miss Blair had good reason to think that she would not exchange this
call for all the card parties in the world.

Presently he challenged, "You are bored?"

"I've been delightfully entertained. It is all fascinating to me.
Charlie will seldom speak of the freighting days, and I remember very
little of Fort Benton."

"The old place isn't big enough for most of us. The Macleod men are
scattered, too."

"Have you ever been back?"

"Never! I could not bear to see the country fenced in, the old
cottonwood barracks replaced, the railroad screaming in the silence, and
Colonel Macleod dead. No, I shall never go back."

The baby awoke and diverted them, and soon the maid came for both
children. Half-way to the house little Arthur ran back.

"I'm going to be a Police when I grow up," he announced. "I prayed about
it last night. I know God'll fix it. I put it right to Him. It was
peachy!"

"Arthur is always saying the drollest things," remarked Miss Blair as
the child ran out of hearing distance. "Yesterday he told me that when
he went fishing with his papa his fish wouldn't hook on tight."

"I'm afraid he'll find the same difficulty later in life," laughed
Philip, and rose to say good-afternoon.

"I will not wait longer for Mrs. Latimer, but leave my card," he
decided. "The doctor will be wondering what has become of me."

But the doctor found him very silent over his pipe that evening. The
sight of Arthur Latimer's little son had wakened the old longing, the
inborn desire of every Englishman to bestow the ancestral name upon the
heir of his house. Phi