a fiddle."

Margaret made a gesture of impatience. "Those Free Gospellers have just
cast an evil spell over this country, haven't they?"

"Well," said Lockhart, cautiously, "I don't just like to pass judgment
on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by their works,
the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' that's a fact.
They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've sent a good-sized
delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I don't see as they've made
the rest of us much better than we were before. I had a little herdboy
last spring, as square a little Dane as I want to work for me, but after
the Gospellers got hold of him and sanctified him, the little beggar
used to get down on his knees out on the prairie and pray by the hour
and let the cattle get into the corn, an' I had to fire him. That's
about the way it goes. Now there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler
and the spryest dancer in all this section-called all the dances. Now
he's got no ambition and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we can
even get him to come in tomorrow night."

"Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off," said Margaret,
quickly. "Why, I intend to dance with him myself."

"I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd help us out
and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,'" said Lockhart, imitating
the laboured English of the Norwegian.

"'The Miller of Hofbau, the Miller of Hofbau, O my Princess!'" chirped
Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock.

The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she laughed
mischievously. "We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit that I am
beaten until I have asked him myself."

Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in the heart
of the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay through the most
attractive part of the Divide country, on several occasions Margaret
Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. Tonight Wyllis had business
with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with Eric, mounted on a frisky little
mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret
regarded her escort very much as she did the servant who always
accompanied her on long rides at home, and the ride to the village was
a silent one. She was occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric
was wrestling with more thoughts than had ever been crowded into his
head before.

He rode with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him,