licemen had come down from the ridges where
they had so harassed the enemy and were now receiving
steaming pannikins of coffee.

Child-of-Light had just come in, and told how to the
north Big Bear and his Stonies were lurking somewhere,
not to speak of Thunderchild and one or two others, so
it would be as well to try Battleford first. His braves
at that moment were pursuing the fleeing breeds and
Indians, but he had ordered them to return soon in order
that they might remove the dead and wounded from the
ranche, and then see after the stock belonging to their
brother Douglas. It had been as Sergeant Pasmore had
said--they had seen the fresh enemy coming up and delayed
their attack until they could surround them.

But grey-eyed morn had come at last; the sleighs were
packed and brought round to the door. It was time to make
a start.

CHAPTER V

TO BATTLEFORD

It was quite a little procession of jumpers and sledges
that set out from the rancher's that morning after the
fight. First went the police, each man on his little
box-like jumper with its steel-shod runners drawn by a
hardy half-bred broncho. Next came Rory in a dog-sled
cariole, with his several pugnacious canine friends made
fast by moose-skin collars. They would have tried the
patience of Job. They fought with each other on the
slightest pretext from sheer love of fighting, and knew
not the rules of Queensberry. If one of them happened to
get down in one of their periodical little outbreaks,
the others promptly abandoned their more equal contests
to pile on to that unfortunate one.

The rancher and Dorothy came next in a comfortable sleigh,
with large buffalo robes all around them to keep out the
cold. Then came the two women servants in a light wagon-box
set on runners, and driven by Jacques. A Mounted Policeman
in a jumper formed the rear-guard at a distance of about
half-a-mile. The wagons were well stocked with all
necessaries for camping out.

It was a typical North-West morning, cold, bracing and
clear. The dry air stimulated one, and the winter sun
shone cheerfully down upon the great white land of virgin
snow.

There was a sense of utter solitude, of an immensity of
space. There was no sound save the soft, even swish of
the runners over the snow, and the regular muffled pounding
of the horses' hoofs.

Within the next hour so buoyant were Dorothy's spirits,
and so light-hearted and genuine her outlook on things
in general, that