I should
have remembered. . . . I didn't even know where Keewatin was in those
days. If anyone had told me that it was a village near Jericho I
should have believed him. I daresay you were nearly as ignorant; and
now we're here in your shack."

Granger, anxious to keep Strangeway's attention from his pursuit, and
his own thoughts occupied, inquired, "And what brought you into the
Northwest Territories?"

"Oh, the usual thing--a girl. She was ward to my father, and was to
inherit a considerable property when she came of age. I was in love
with her, and my father was keen that I should marry her; there was
only one hindrance, that her opinion didn't coincide with ours. I
found out that my father was trying to break her spirit, and force her
to his will. I couldn't allow that; so, having nothing better to do, I
left home and came to Canada for a while. Mind you, I'm not condemning
my father; he thought that he was doing the best for both our sakes.
But I wish he'd left us alone; if he had, I daresay it would have come
out all right. She was one of those girls of whom the physiognomists
say, 'Can be led by kindness, but cannot be driven.' The moment she
was ordered to do a thing, which in the ordinary course of events she
might have chosen to do of her own free will, she refused and hated
it.

"When I got to Montreal I was confronted by that stupid superstition
of the Canadians, that every young Englishman who has had a better
education than themselves, and is possessed of a private income from
the old country, must be a remittance-man and a ne'er-do-well--that
he's been sent out because he wasn't wanted by his family. I tried to
get employment; not that I needed it, but because I wanted to work.
The moment I opened my lips and didn't speak dialect or slang, and
displayed hands which were not workman's hands, I was shown out. So I
drifted west to Calgary and, after doing a little ranching there,
enlisted in the Mounted Police."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes, it's rather a lark, arresting the people who at first
affected to despise you. I can always keep myself cheerful by the
humour of that. If you've lost your sense of the ridiculous, you'd
better join the Northwest Mounted Police--for an Englishman the cure's
certain."

"And how about the girl?"

"She did a Gilbert and Sullivan trick. After I'd left home my father
guessed the reason of my departure, and instead of giving her a rest,
redoubled his efforts to make