nd the
silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into
me, Graeme came out from his office, and catching sight of me, called
out, "Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!" And then, coming nearer,
"Must you go to-morrow?"

"I fear so," I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on
him, too.

"I wish I were going with you," he said quietly.

I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his
face the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful
night of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about
him in black ruin and shame. I could only throw my arm over his shoulder
and stand silent beside him. A sudden jingle of bells roused him, and,
giving himself a little shake, he exclaimed, "There are the boys coming
home."

Soon the camp was filled with men talking, laughing, chaffing like
light-hearted boys.

"They are a little wild to-night," said Graeme, "and to-morrow they'll
paint Black Rock red."

Before many minutes had gone the last teamster was "washed up," and all
were standing about waiting impatiently for the cook's signal--the
supper to-night was to be "something of a feed"--when the sound of bells
drew their attention to a light sleigh drawn by a buckskin broncho
coming down the hillside at a great pace.

"The preacher, I'll bet, by his driving," said one of the men.

"Bedad, and it's him has the foine nose for turkey!" said Blaney, a
good-natured, jovial Irishman.

"Yes, or for pay-day, more like," said Keefe, a black-browed, villainous
fellow countryman of Blaney's and, strange to say, his great friend.

Big Sandy McNaughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in
wrath.

"Bill Keefe," said he with deliberate emphasis, "you'll just keep your
dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees
of it, or any one else except Mike Slavin, when you's too dry to wait
for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of
hell-fire is on you."

The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.

"_Bon!_ Dat's good for you, my bully boy," said Baptiste, a wiry little
French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since the
day when the big Scotchman, under great provocation, had knocked him
clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.

It was not till afterward I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath
which urged him to suc