ter motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of
influence had opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could
all have been hers, as John Appleton and Jim's father had said. She
might have moved in well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure,
lived a life where all would be made easy, where she would be shielded
at every turn, and her beauty would be flattered by luxury into a
constant glow. She was not so primitive, so unintellectual, as not to
have thought of this, else her decision would have had less importance;
she would have been no more than an infatuated emotional woman with a
touch of second class drama in her nature. She had thought of it all,
and she had made her choice. The easier course was the course for meaner
souls, and she had not one vein of thin blood nor a small idea in her
whole nature. She had a heart and mind for great issues. She believed
that Jim had a great brain, and would and could accomplish great things.
She knew that he had in him the strain of hereditary instinct--his
mother's father had ended a brief life in a drunken duel on the
Mississippi, and Jim's boyhood had never had discipline or direction,
or any strenuous order. He might never acquire order, and the power that
order and habit and the daily iteration of necessary thoughts and acts
bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She had taken the risk with
her eyes wide open; had set her own life and happiness in the hazard.
But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents, his genius, entitled
him to be. And the long game must have the long thought.

So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his,
and hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as
brought back his old strong beauty of face, and smoothed the careworn
lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must
join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains,
and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at
the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that
he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little
more firmly and solicitously--there was a faint, womanly fear at her
heart--as she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than
occasional separation; it meant that there would be periods when she
would not be with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew
that the risks must be taken, and he