nts,"
he said.

Wheeling the team he drove back the way he came, and, when a dusky
object materialized out of the shadows beneath the birches, swung the
horses right across the trail. The snow lay deep on either side of it
just there, with a sharp crust upon its surface, which rendered it
inadvisable to take a horse round the sleigh. The mounted man
accordingly drew bridle, and the jingle and rattle betokened his
profession, though it was already too dark to see him clearly.

"Hallo!" he said. "Been buying this trail up, stranger?"

"No," said Winston quietly, though he still held his team across the
way. "Still, I've got the same right as any other citizen to walk or
drive along it without anybody prowling after me, and just now I want
to know if there is a reason I should be favored with your company."

The trooper laughed a little. "I guess there is. It's down in the
orders that whoever's on patrol near the settlement should keep his eye
on you. You see, if you lit out of here we would want to know just
where you were going to."

"I am," said Winston, "a Canadian citizen, and I came out here for
quietness."

"Well," said the other, "you're an American, too. Any way, when you
were in a tight place down in Regent there, you told the boys so. Now,
no sensible man would boast of being a Britisher unless it was helping
him to play out his hand."

Winston kept his temper. "I want a straight answer. Can you tell me
what you and the boys are trailing me for?"

"No," said the trooper. "Still, I guess our commander could. If you
don't know of any reason, you might ask him."

Winston tightened his grip on the reins. "I'll ride back with you to
the outpost now."

The trooper shook his bridle, and trotted behind the sleigh, while, as
it swung up and down over the billowy rises of the prairie, Winston
became sensible of a curious expectancy. The bare, hopeless life he
had led seemed to have slipped behind him, and though he suspected that
there was no great difference between his escort and a prisoner's
guard, the old love of excitement he once fancied he had outgrown
forever, awoke again within him. Anything that was different from the
past would be a relief, and the man who had for eight long years of
strenuous toil practiced the grimmest self-denial wondered with a
quickening of all his faculties what the future, that could not be more
colorless, might have in store for him.

It was dark, and very